Saturday, April 7, 2012

Use of Characters in The Caucasian Chalk Circle.

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The characters of the play The Caucasian Chalk Circle by Bertolt Brecht are presented to the audience as living in a society where people of a particular class are dominant over others. Hegemonic societies such as this present unseen inequalities towards the lower, working class, the class viewed as inferior or submissive in opposition to the dominant upper class or the aristocracy. In order for the audience to have the opportunity to question their society, this injustice must be visibly presented through issues of class and gender, as well as the construction of several characters such as Grusha, Natella Abashvilli, Simon Chachava, and Azdek. By viewing the inequalities of the society created in The Caucasian Chalk Circle, the audience is challenged to argue the necessity for change in their own.


There are two particular classes made apparent in The Caucasian Chalk Circle, one dominant, the other submissive. The first of these is the aristocracy, the higher class to which Georgi and Natella Abashvilli, Michael, and the fat prince all belong. This class holds all the wealth, all the power, and all the benefits of Nukha, the city in which the play is set. The characters belonging to this class seem to fill all the expectations of it, they remain well-dressed, composed, and entirely self-centered throughout most of the play. Natella Abashvilli proves her immense conceit and self-involvement in Scene of the play. Her husband has been murdered, her son’s life is in danger, however her attention remains solely focused on the state of her wardrobe and her haste to save her dresses, to carry her dresses out to the carriage rather than her son. Instead she leaves the son in the care of her servants, concerned only with her safety and appearance. These actions are presented to and therefore believed by the audience to be typical of upper-class mothers. Their child is simply another possession, and everything it says and does, even the way it looks, reflects solely on the parents. Yet although the child is believed to be a ‘possession’ of Natella’s, she shows little or no care for it, rather, she leaves it in the hands of its two doctors. She needs not look after the child, as her status is so great others are willing to do so for her. A quote from Natella on page 11 reads; “He’s coughing! Georgi, did you hear? He’s coughing!” Natella feels no responsibility towards the child, instead ordering everyone else around her to tend to him. Another quote from her on page 11 “But do take better care of him”, suggests that the fact that Michael is coughing is everyone’s fault but her own. As the child is apparently not her responsibility, she cannot be blamed for his coughing, and instead instructs the doctors to take better care of her own child. The governor, Georgi Abashvilli, also shows absolutely concern or care for his son in his short appearance in the play. He barely speaks a single line in Scene , not even to his wife or son, showing his utter self-involvement. He has no interest in what does not concern him, which is proved when he completely ignores the pleading protestors outside the palace. He is also described as showing a lack of interest when the fat prince asks about the war. This complete disregard for the soldiers, as well as his son and the people of his city, proves the conceit of Georgi Abashvilli, similar to that of his wife. Both as members of the aristocracy, they are alike in their extreme detachedness and self-involvement which is presented to the audience as typical of the upper class. The Caucasian Chalk Circle creates the image of the aristocracy, shapes and forms the upper class as self-centered, and powerful, yet useless in the care of other human beings. The governor and his wife are separated from the hardships of life, from the hunger and suffering of the lower class, and are instead completely enclosed into their own rich existence.


Other members of the upper class are present in the story, and involved somewhat later, in Scene . These are the elder and younger ladies, women Grusha spies stopping at an inn and preparing to rent a room. She approaches these women wearing the brocade coat in which Michael was wrapped, passing herself off as an upper-class woman. This simple coat is a symbol of the inequalities suffered in a hegemonic society; the aristocrats wrapped their babies in fine linen while the working class had not a bite to eat. This particular scene also presents to the audience the extreme narrow-mindedness of the upper class. The people of this class simply refuse to accept anyone of a lower class, no matter what the circumstances. While first accepting Grusha as ‘one of their own’, and preparing to spend the night in the room with her, they instantly turned on her and began to scream murder at the sight of her cracked hands, and sign of the working class, in Scene , page 1, “Let’s have a look at your hands”, spoken by the elder lady. The younger lady then proclaims, once Grusha has shown her hands, “Cracked! A servant!” Despite Grusha’s intentions to pay for the room, and despite the fact that she and a young baby had walked for days, the women became cold and threw her from the caravansary as soon as they realised she was something ‘lower’ than them. They instantly accused her of being a thief, once again proving their narrow-mindedness, as they had no proof that Grusha had stolen anything yet simply because she was of the lower class she was suspected. This accusation is made by the elder lady in Scene , page 1, “Just see if she hasn’t stolen something already!”


Further examples of Grusha being poorly treated by members of a class higher than her own can be found in Scene 4 of The Caucasian Chalk Circle. Grusha’s brother Lavrenti and his wife are middle-class farmers, both described as ‘fat’, meaning they have enough money to feed themselves well, and although they aren’t aristocrats like the Governor and Natella they are still more socially acceptable than Grusha. Despite the fact that Grusha is a blood relation of her husband and also her sister-in-law, Lavrenti’s wife Aniko is extremely reluctant to accept Grusha into her home, instead spending several moments pondering the gossip and thoughts that would follow such an action. She is having this dilemma while Grusha is barely able to stand only a few feet away. And when Lavrenti finally offers Grusha a seat on a bench in the kitchen, Aniko protests, instead pointing to a pile of rags in the corner. She also completely disregards her sister-in-law’s state in order to boss about her servants; “Go and groom the roan,” or “Sosso, the cake!” The treatment Grusha receives from any member of the society created by Brecht is purely governed by her social standing. She is apparently not good enough, too ‘dirty’, to be offered a seat on Aniko’s bench. The extreme importance placed on society’s ideas of a particular class are presented to the audience as the highest priority, coming even before blood ties. By presenting this ideology to the audience through use of the brother-sister characters Grusha and Lavrenti Brecht urges them to reconsider the importance of particular elements of their society. He challenges his audience to look beyond the hegemonic structure of their own society and instead look to the people they love and are related to.


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Grusha again suffers from society’s views and expectations of her during the spring in Scene 4. Lavrenti tells Grusha that the people around town are gossiping about her being unmarried with a child. This is seen as such an embarrassment to Lavrenti and Aniko, Grusha is practically forced to marry right away, to a complete stranger, simply so the townspeople have no reason to talk. Lavrenti also states that it is ‘excellent’ that Grusha’s future husband is dying. He values his nieghbours’ opinions of him higher than a human life. He doesn’t care or show any human compassion for Yussup, the dying man, because with his death Grusha will be socially acceptable and therefore he will be again also.


By presenting this very common occurrence to the audience, Brecht is suggesting to them that their society also suffers this injustice. In practically every society of the world in recent times, unmarried mothers have been shunned, gossiped about, or regarded with pity. It is only in the very modern world that these women are becoming socially acceptable again. Lavrenti and Aniko reacted to Grusha’s child without even giving her a chance to explain � they didn’t consider the circumstances. Brecht presents this idea to the audience as their society is the same. Without second thoughts, society would likely shame an unmarried woman if she fell pregnant up until very recently. Yet what if a woman fell pregnant as a result of a rape? While the people would react the same way, likely also shunning the illegitimate child, Brecht urges his audience to challenge this aspect of their society, to give ‘the benefit of the doubt’, before immediately reacting to an event.


In order to make the inequalities with the hegemonic structure that he created visible, Brecht presents to the audience the injustice created and shown towards Grusha, a gestic character representative of the working class, by members of the upper class and aristocracy. This is even shown to her by her own brother Lavrenti. By creating a hegemonic society similar to the one in which his audience lives, Brecht is able to show them the inequalities that their society suffers every day, and by seeing this injustice, the audience is urged to challenge the beliefs of their societies and therefore better themselves.





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