The Good Woman Of Setzuan

The three gods are on a journey to discover whether there are good people in the world, intimating that if there are not, the world is not worth preserving and they will destroy it. Although they are venerated, particularly by Wang and Shen Te, they have taken a passive role in human affairs and are therefore ineffectual in the presence of suffering. At the beginning of the play, their journey is reasonably new. They place themselves at the mercy of human beings to test whether any will offer charity. By the end of the play, the world has clearly been a rough place and they have received very little help. However, rather than concede that the world that they have created is not fit for goodness, they use Shen Te as an example that goodness is possible, thereby relieving themselves of culpability for evil and greed in the world. At the end of the play, they ascend to the heavens and leave human to, once again, fend for themselves. 

At the beginning of the play, Shen Te is a prostitute. She shows that she is a decent person by allowing the gods to stay with her even though it means that she will have to give up her income for the day. This demonstrates that she is selfless. When the gods give her money for the room, she wisely invests that money by purchasing a tobacco shop. However, her goodness becomes a liability as soon as she owns something. The townspeople descend on her, demanding that she help them and return any past favors. Shen Te feels obligated to help them, even to her own detriment. In Shen Te’s version of goodness, the type of goodness valued by the gods, she must give away everything she has, even if it means losing the shop, her gift from the gods. Additionally, her goodness has little value in the world as she is unable to convince Mrs. Mi Tzu that she is a good person worthy of trust.

Shen Te begins invoking her fictional cousin, Shui Ta, in order to preserve herself and her livelihood. Although Shen Te and Shui Ta are one and the same, she and the gods are somehow able to consider Shen Te as separate from Shui Ta’s actions. Shui Ta is unpopular, but reasonable. He stops giving everything away and begins to create jobs, allowing the poor to work instead of waiting for handouts. Shui Ta becomes protection for Shen Te once she is pregnant, allowing her to gestate her baby in peace. When Wang accuses Shui Ta of murdering Shen Te, the play raises the question as to whether goodness can still exist within a person while they are practicing and living as a person who is not considered good. Shen Te tells Yang Sun that he cannot love both her and Shui Ta, and the characters of the play are divided based on which persona they value and connect with.

At the end of the play, Shen Te faces the responsibility of Shui Ta’s actions. As Shui Ta, Shen Te worked hard to better the community, but not everyone escaped unscathed. Lin To, who Shui Ta refused to pay in full for his shelves, lost his business. Likewise, the carpet shop couple lost theirs when Shui Ta did not pay back their money quickly enough. Wang ended up with a maimed hand after Shui Ta did not follow through with Shen Te’s promise to pay his medical bills. As the gods’ primary example of goodness, Shen Te shows that a person who is completely selfless cannot survive unless someone with fewer scruples protects her. Her ability to perform good deeds for her desperate friends and neighbors has a limited scope unless she can be selfish enough to preserve her own well-being.

The previous owner of Shen Te’s tobacco store, Mrs. Shin has several children and no money. She immediately manipulates Shen Te into feeling responsible for their poverty and demands that Shen Te give her rice to feed her family. Mrs. Shin is an opportunist, quick to latch on to Shui Ta, Mr. Shu Fu, or whoever might help her advance financially. She persuades Wang to speak to a judge when the barber hits his hand, but immediately betrays him by going to Mr. Shu Fu to offer to testify on his behalf. Mrs. Shin represents complete selfishness. And always acting in her own self-interest pays off by the end of the play when she has nicer clothing and is one of Shui Ta’s most trusted employees. She is also the only one who notices that Shen Te and Shui Ta are the same person. 

The elderly couple show up at Shen Te’s tobacco store with their freeloading nephew because their own store has gone out of business. When Shen Te first arrived in Setzuan from the country, they took her in. The couple insists that Shen Te return the favor by housing not only them but the rest of their family: Wung and pregnant wife, Grandfather, a boy who “eats like ten men” (18), and their niece. They move into the shop, making it impossible for Shen Te to carry on with her business. They are also criminals and attempt to use Shen Te’s shop as a base for their thievery. However, Shui Ta uses their criminal activities as leverage to remove them from the store and to claim the bags of tobacco that the family steals and attempts to keep in the shop’s back room. They become Shui Ta’s employees once it becomes clear that Shen Te will not be returning soon, and they cannot take advantage of Shui Ta. 

A beggar, the unemployed man in rags, is Shen Te’s first “customer.” He begs for cigarettes, and she acquiesces, claiming that it will give her luck. However, like Mrs. Shin and the elderly couple with their family, the unemployed man in rags becomes a burden. He shows up every day to receive food and charity from Shen Te. When Shen Te becomes pregnant and disappears into Shui Ta, Shui Ta hires the man in rags to work in the factory. 

Lin To is the carpenter who built the shelves for Mrs. Shin’s tobacco shop. Mrs. Shin never paid for them, and he shows up to demand payment from Shen Te. Although Mrs. Shin sold the shelves with the shop, insisting upon collecting from Shen Te is unreasonable since Mrs. Shin established the debt. Shui Ta coerces Lin To to take a much smaller amount, and Lin To eventually loses his business. He begins to drink excessively while his children roam the streets and eat from the trash. Shen Te offers to give him a place to live, but by the time he arrives with his family, Shui Ta has taken her place and offers him a job instead. 

Mrs. Mi Tzu, the landlady for Shen Te’s tobacco shop, makes it nearly impossible for Shen Te to keep her store by demanding six months’ rent up front. This shows how, even with a financial windfall, the upper class can make it very difficult for the poor to advance their position. Mrs. Mi Tzu treats people as commodities, as she demonstrates when she refuses to do business with Shui Ta unless he gives her Yang Sun. 

The policeman is a looming threat for the poor people of the city. He shows clear preference for the rich, readily rejecting Wang’s claim that Mr. Shu Fu hit him and singing Shui Ta’s praises. 

The old couple shows true friendship to Shen Te, saving up money they cannot afford to help her keep her shop. The woman is wary when Shui Ta discusses placing an advertisement in the newspaper to find Shen Te a match, as she is concerned for Shen Te’s happiness. They love Shen Te and do not trust Shui Ta, even losing their store because they are not willing to approach Shui Ta to get their money back. They also love each other, celebrating their 40th wedding anniversary with a cheap cigar because they cannot afford anything better. 

An unemployed pilot, Yang Sun is preparing to commit suicide when he meets Shen Te. Shen Te treats him kindly, although he speaks abusively to her. She falls in love and is prepared to give up everything to help him realize his dream to work as a pilot again. Sun uses Shen Te, willing to marry her, take her money, and then abandon her. The job in Peking also requires him to displace another pilot, a good employee with a family to feed, which Sun plans to do without hesitation. Even Sun’s mother finally admits that he is a scoundrel after he sells all of her furniture. Shen Te tries to make him a better person by persuading him to honor the loan from the old couple at the carpet shop but cannot. It is Shui Ta who teaches Sun to become a functioning member of society by giving him work and then rewarding him when he behaves honestly and with integrity. By the end of the play, when Sun discovers that Shen Te is pregnant, he learns to value her. 

Yang Sun’s mother, Mrs. Yang at first enables Sun’s exploitation of Shen Te. She is as determined to see him fly again as Sun himself. Once Shen Te “leaves” and Shui Ta takes her place, Sun begins to take advantage of her. Ultimately, she is grateful to Shui Ta for teaching Sun the value of work.