Caucasian Chalk Circle as a Parable play by Bertolt Brecht...

   Caucasian chalk circle as a parable play. 

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  Caucasian chalk circle is one of the celebrated play of bertolt brecht which published in 1944. This is considered as a play of epic theatre. In order to analyse the play as a parable we must understand the parable first. 

  

Definition of Parable

Parable is a figure of speech, which presents a short story, typically with a moral lesson at the end. You often have heard stories from your elders, such as The Boy Who Cried Wolf, and All is Vanity. These are parables, because they teach you a certain moral lesson. Parable is, in fact, a Greek word, parable, which means “comparison.” It is like a succinct narrative, or a universal truth that uses symbolism, simile, and metaphor, to demonstrate the moral lesson intended to be taught. Like analogy, we find the use of parables in verse and prose, specifically in religious texts, such as the Upanishad or the Bible. 

 

THINGS SHOULD DO BELONG TO THOSE

WHO DO WELL BY THEM”

THE CAUCASIAN CHALK CIRCLE

Justice is the bread ofthe people 

In hard times and in happy times

The people requires the plentiful, wholesome

Daily bread ofJustice. 

  Brecht, ‘The Bread ofthe People’

In writing The Caucasian Chalk Circle, the last play in his American exile,

Brecht was inspired by the two versions of legend of the Chalk Circle, the original 

Chinese play by Lihsing Dao and Klabund’s adaptation of the original play. Brecht

was mainly attracted by the themes, the two versions - social satire directed against the 

oppression by the rich, the corruption ofthe courts, the violence ofthe rulers. The play

poses basic human questions. Legal justice versus practical justice, rightness versus

expediency, good versus evil, new values versus established values, reason and feeling 

versus sentimentality, the claims of natural mother versus adoptive mother seen within

both a social and moral context.

Brecht presents the‘human comedy’of legality and justice in the play. The 

Caucasian Chalk Circle through the protagonists Grusha and Azdak. 

 The Caucasian Chalk Circle tells a parable that ex￾plores what happens when the law conflicts with justice 

and asks questions about who is right and wrong in com￾plicated situations. Setting up the play, a Prologue intro￾duces the idea that things should be given to those who 

will take care of them as two farms dispute ownership of a 

valley. Once an agreement has been reached, the villagers 

put on a play—The Caucasian Chalk Circle. 

 

The play begins as an uprising takes place in 

Grusinia (a fictional historic country in the Caucasus). 

When Governor Abashvili is overthrown and beheaded, 

his wife, Natella, flees the new regime, leaving her infant 

son, Michael, behind. A palace kitchen maid, Grusha, 

steals the child away so that it won’t fall into the hands of 

the new regime. Pursued by soldiers, Grusha undertakes 

a risky journey to carry the child to the other side of the 

mountains, where it will be safe, ‘adopting’ the child in 

the process. Two years later, when the political situation 

reverts, soldiers cross the mountains and take Michael 

away from Grusha, charging her with kidnapping the 

child.

 

Grusha and Natella must appear in court to fight 

for custody of the child; the court in which the case will 

be judged is slightly unusual. Ever since the uprising in 

which the Governor was overthrown, Azdak has been pre￾siding as Judge. Azdak is a rascal whose judicial decisions 

are highly unconventional, as they are guided not by the 

letter of the law, but instead by bribes and his own ideas 

of justice. The unconventional judge ultimately devises 

an unconventional scheme to decide who should be given 

the child—the test of the chalk circle. The results of this 

test convince Azdak to award the boy to Grusha. 

   

Thus we can elucidate Caucasian chalk circle as a parable because of its moralistic and just ful nature  

. Which teaches us the moral that things should do belong to those who do well buy them. That has been explained in prologue as well as in the play. Grusha who was not the real mother of Michael but because of her deliberate and selfless effort and care for behaviour towards Michael made her the deserving person for charge of nourishment of Michael.