Anger, even against injustice
Makes the voice hoarse. Oh we
Who wanted to prepare the ground for friendliness
Could not ourselves be friendly.
-From “To Those Born Later”
On my wall hangs a Japanese carving
The mask of an evil demon, decorated with gold lacquer.
Sympathetically I observe
The swollen veins of the forehead, indicating
What a strain is to be evil.
-“The Mask of Evil”
By taking these verses as your point of departure, write an essay in which you discuss Brecht’s account of how political action imposes certain burdens on the actor engaged in politics. How are good and evil defined in Brecht’s poems? How does Brecht contextualize each in his poems? And how do these verses relate to his account of living in “Dark Times”?
FORMAT: 5-page double-spaced Times New Roman, point 12, Chicago Style:
