बेर्टोल्ट ब्रेष्ट के एकमात्र संपूर्ण उपन्यास ‘तीन टके का उपन्यास' की पीडीएफ फाइल PDF file of Bertolt Brecht's Only Finished Novel - ThreePenny Novel
बेर्टोल्ट ब्रेष्ट के एकमात्र संंपूर्ण उपन्यास ‘तीन टके का उपन्यास' की पीडीएफ फाइल PDF file of Bertolt Brecht's Only Finished Novel - ThreePenny Novel
इस पुस्तक के बारे में
Dreigroschenroman; Threepenny Novel (written 1933-34;
published 1934)
This introduction (With some edits) taken from https://sites.google.com/site/germanliterature/20th-century/brecht/dreigroschenroman-threepenny-novel
This unjustly neglected masterpiece is Brecht’s first major
work written after Hitler’s seizure of power in 1933. It is a Swiftean satire
of the first order and it is as relevant today as it was in 1934.
The novel is set in London in 1902, during the Boer War.
During this war, the term ‘concentration camp’ was used for the first time by
the British army. Setting the action in the midst of an imperialist overseas
war allowed Brecht to show the connections between war, the arms industry, and
the financial sector.
Die Dreigroschenoper; The Threepenny Opera (1928) had been set mainly in the criminal underworld of London’s Soho. In the opera of 1928, Macheath was a gangster on the run from the police. In the revised version of 1931, Macheath has become more self-aware, and in Scene 4 he announces that he plans to become a banker, because it is safer and more profitable.
The evolution of Macheath continues in Dreigroschenroman;
Threepenny Novel. In this novel, the setting has widened enormously to
include the worlds of business, high finance and the government. Macheath is
still the leader of a gang of burglars, but this novel shows him making the
breakthrough from organised crime to legitimate business. Now Macheath is
described as a natural leader and an expert in the art of handling human
beings. He is now a demagogue with the tendency to make grand public speeches,
and to give interviews to the press. Many of these speeches display traces of
Nazi ideology. Macheath is now the owner of a chain of discount stores, the
so-called B-stores or ‘Bargain stores’ (Billigkeits-Läden). The stores
are part of a franchise chain. The managers of the B-stores are nominally the
owners and they get a share of the profits. This motivates them to work around
the clock in the most terrible conditions. In practice, though, the owners of
the B-stores are effectively employees. When B-store owners go bust they are
evicted, but Macheath’s franchise continues. Macheath regards his own employees
as his chief source of income.
Early on in the novel Macheath assumes the persona of Jimmy
Beckett, a wood supplier, in order to court Polly Peachum, daughter of Jonathan
Peachum, who owns the monopoly on beggars in the city. When Macheath marries
Polly, Jonathan Peachum is furious, because he wants Polly to marry a broker
called William Coax, who is blackmailing him over a deal to supply ships to the
government in order to transport troops to South Africa. Peachum puts pressure
on Macheath by trying to frame him for the murder of Mary Swayer, one of the
B-store ‘owners’ who has in fact taken her own life. But instead of fleeing
abroad, Macheath goes to prison willingly. Aided by his friend the police chief
Brown, Macheath succeeds in becoming the director of a bank and forcing his
business rivals, Aaron and Chreston, to form a retail syndicate with him.
Macheath’s rise to power is counterpointed by the fate of the ex-soldier George
Fewkoombey, who loses everything, including his life.
The Threepenny Novel is more intellectually and
politically ambitious than the opera, because it explores in detail how the
capitalist system fosters and thrives on bribery, corruption, extortion and
misinformation. The large scale of the novel, with its multiple plotlines and
intrigues, enables Brecht to show how civil servants, police, businessmen and
banks are mutually implicated in pursuing their own economic interests,
suggesting that capitalism is closely related to crime. The rich become rich by
exploiting and profiteering from the poor, even though these same rich people
often like to deny that they are motivated by material interest. The novel makes
the point that wealth and poverty are two sides of the same coin: one person’s
wealth necessitates another person’s poverty.
As a study of the rise of an opportunist and demagogue, this novel anticipates Brecht’s other major reckoning with Hitler: Der aufhaltsame Aufstieg des Arturo Ui; The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui. At the same time, the epic scale of the novel suggests the indictment of an entire social system which actively encourages poverty, corruption and violence.
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