The Ravages of Capitalism Theme Analysis

PEACHUM: Something new — that’s what we must have. My business is too difficult. You see, my business is trying to arouse human pity. There are a few things that’ll move people to pity, a few, but the trouble is, when they’ve been used several times, they no longer work. Human beings have the horrid capacity of being able to make themselves heartless at will.

POLLY (crying): All those poor people, just for a few bits of furniture!

MACHEATH: And what furniture! Junk! You’re right to be angry. A rosewood harpsichord — and a Renaissance sofa. That’s unforgivable. And where’s a table?

MACHEATH: We were boyhood friends, and though the great tides of life have swept us far apart, although our professional interests are quite different — some might even say diametrically opposed — our friend­ship has survived it all. […] Seldom have I, the simple hold-up man […] undertaken the smallest job without giving my friend Brown a share of the proceeds (a considerable share, Brown) as a token and a proof of my unswerving loyalty to him. And seldom has the all-powerful Sheriff […] organized a raid without previously giving a little tip-off to me, the friend of his youth. […] It’s all a matter of give and take.

PEACHUM: Well, what do you want? What can I do about it if people have hearts of granite. I can’t make you five stumps! In ten minutes I can make such a wreck out of any man that a dog would howl if he saw him. What can I do if people won’t howl? There, take an­other stump, if one’s not enough for you.

POLLY: Mac, last night I had a dream. I was looking out of the window and I heard laughter in the street, and when I looked up I saw our moon, and the moon was quite thin, like a penny that’s all worn away. Don’t forget me, Mac, in the strange cities.

MACHEATH: In spring I ask: could there be something to it?
Could not Macheath be great and solitary?
But then the year works round to January
And I reply: My boy, you’ll live to rue it.
Poverty makes you sad as well as wise
And bravery mingles danger with the fame.
Poor, lonely, wise and brave — in heaven’s name!
Good-bye to greatness! I return the prize
With this my repartee of repartees:
None but the well-to-do can take their ease.

MACHEATH: What does a man live by? By resolutely
Ill-treating, beating, cheating, eating some
other bloke!
A man can only live by absolutely
Forgetting he’s a man like other folk!

CHORUS OFF:
So, gentlemen, do not be taken in:
Men live exclusively by mortal sin.

PEACHUM: Come on, come on! You’d all be rotting in the sewers of Wapping if I hadn’t spent sleepless nights working out how to extract a few pence from your poverty. And I did work out something: that the rich of the earth indeed create misery, but they cannot bear to see it. They are weaklings and fools just like you. As long as they have enough to eat and can grease their floors with butter so that even the crumbs that fall from their tables grow fat, they can’t look with indifference on a man collapsing from hunger — although, of course, it must be in front of their house that he collapses.

PEACHUM: The law is simply and solely made for the exploitation of those who do not understand it or of those who, for naked need, cannot obey it. And who­ ever would pick up the crumbs of this exploitation must strictly obey the law.

PEACHUM: Go make yourself a plan
And be a shining light.
Then make yourself a second plan
For neither will come right.

For the situation
Men aren’t bad enough or vile.
Human aspiration
Only makes me smile.

Go running after luck
But don’t you run too fast:
We all are running after luck
And luck is running last.

For the real conditions
Men are more demanding than is meet.
Their ideal ambitions
Are one great big cheat.

GINNY JENNY: You know the inquisitive Bertolt Brecht
His songs — you loved them so.
But when too oft he asked where from
The riches of the rich did come
You made him pack his bag and go.
Oh how inquisitive was Brecht!
But long before the day was out
The consequence was clear, alas!
Inquisitiveness had brought him to this pass:
A man is better off without.

POLLY: Mackie, are you very nervous? Who was your father? There’s so much you haven’t told me. I don’t understand it at all: you were really always quite healthy.

MACHEATH: Polly, can’t you help me out?

POLLY: Of course.

MACHEATH: With money, I mean.

MACHEATH: The outlaws, bandits, burglars, gunmen
All Christian souls that love a brawl
Abortionists and pimps and fun-men
I cry them mercy one and all.

Except the coppers — sons of bitches —
For every evening, every morning
Those lice came creeping from their niches
And frequently without a warning.

Police! My epidermis itches!
But for today I’ll let that fall
Pretend I love the sons of bitches
And cry them mercy one and all.

PEACHUM: Therefore all remain standing where you are now and sing the chorale of the poorest of the poor, of whose difficult life you have shown us something today. In reality their end is generally bad. Mounted messengers from the Queen come far too seldom, and if you kick a man he kicks you back again. Therefore never be too eager to combat injustice.

ALL: Combat injustice but in moderation:
Such things will freeze to death if left alone.
Remember: this whole vale of tribulation
Is black as pitch and cold as any stone.