The Exception And The Rule By Bertolt Brecht

My strongest argument towards The Exception and the Rule, written by Bertolt Brecht, is that the message and actions in particular can be seen throughout history and daily occurrences in the present. Leading the audience to believe that the author’s main intention of writing this script was to get across the corruptness of the system. In which, society only cares about the money the criminal-like individual is able to bribe them with other than the justice towards the real victim in that circumstance. Many of these characters such as the merchant, the coolie and many others represent effectively real interpretations of these role, that would be believable citizens to encounter in daily life. This can be seen through the conveyance of the societal …show more content…
An example of this same situation in the present would be the Colin Read case. A Management executive that was convicted of torturing his wife after he branded her twice with an iron, and cut her with knives just because she had forgotten to make him a sandwich, and iron his shirts. The only consequence for this heinous crime committed was he was only ordered to pay a fine of a few thousand dollars, and was declined being required to do community service because the judge didn’t think that the management executive could find the time in his schedule for volunteering. All because of this man being wealthy he was able to get away with domestic violence similarly, depicted in the playwright but with the merchant being allowed to get away with murder and no punishment at all. This being said this situation can be seen on the last act of, “The Exception and the Rule”. In which, the judge clearly states, “ Now I will deliver the verdict. The court accepts as proven that the coolie approached his master not with a stone but with a water-bottle. The porter belonged to a class that has good reason to feel discriminated against. For a man of the porter’s kind it was only reasonable to defend himself against an unfair division of the water. The merchant did not belong to the same class as his porter. He had to be prepared for the worst from him...The accused therefore acted in legitimate self-defense, regardless of whether he was threatened.” This quote clearly sums up the idea of favoritism and discrimination based off of one's background. Focusing on the author’s main objective of