Part 1: In Celebration of Halloween and the Day of the Dead… Redefining Good and Evil, Male and Female: A Gendered Analysis of Shen Te, Lilith and La Llorona

The Good Woman of Szechwan, the drama production now on stage at Masters, presents critical analyses of pre-conceived notions of “good” and “evil,” as well as traditional ideas about gender roles.  Shen Te, the protagonist of the play, is the only person in her town who welcomes strangers into her home. These strangers happen to be gods, and she is judged the only “good” person around by these deities, even though most townspeople see her as “evil” because she makes her living as a sex worker.[1]

Because of Shen Te’s goodness, the townspeople take advantage of her and she must assume the persona of an invented male cousin, Shui Ta, for community members to respect her.[2]

The coexistence of male and female elements in one person, reminds us of the Torah portion from last week. The Torah, or the First Five Books of Moses, is read in a cycle and that cycle just began last week with the creation story in Genesis. Line 27 states, “And God created man in His image, in the image of God He created him; male and female he created them.” There is a midrash, or rabbinic commentary on the Torah, that alludes to a legend that the first human being was actually a pair of twins attached to each other, one male and one female. God divided them and commanded them to reunite, to find the other person who would make each of them complete again. This would imply that Eve was not fashioned out of Adam’s rib as an afterthought, but was created at the same time as Adam, as half of the first human creature.[3]

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[1] “Scene by Scene Synopsis” from the University of Southern Queensland Artsworx website (www.usq.edu.au/artsworx/schoolresources/goodwomanofszechwan/synopsis.htm)

[2] “Scene by Scene Synopsis”

[3] Genesis 1:27 from Etz Hayim Torah and Commentary, The Rabbinical Assembly of the United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism, 2001, p. 10