The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui Contextualising Brecht's life can be categorised into three individual eras.

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Candidate Name: Bethany Weston

Candidate Number: 4570

Centre Name: Oulder Hill Community School

Centre Number: 33237

Unit 1 Play:

The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui

Contextualising

* Brecht's life can be categorised into three individual eras. From his birth in 1898 to 1933 he resided in Germany, until the Nazis came into power in the Second World War and he was forced into exile.

* He was born in Augsburg, Germany on 19th February, 1898. He studied philosophy and medicine at the University of Munich, before becoming a medical orderly in a German military hospital during the First World War. This experience reinforced his pre-established hatred of war and influenced his support for the failed Socialist revolution in 1919. This attitude of Brecht's influenced his writing, and is so reflected in The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui, through the satirical way that Brecht parodies Hitler's rise to power.

* After the First World War, Brecht returned to University, but eventually became more interested in literature than medicine. In 1922 his first play, 'Bael' was produced, which was another play parodying fascism, as The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui does.

* From 1933 to 1947, throughout the period of Hitler's power of Germany, he was in forced exile from his home country, in various parts of the world. This gave Brecht the opportunity to experience and witness different political views and states, and his communist beliefs were effectively confirmed, and are displayed through the parody of fascism in this play.

* He began to study the works of Karl Marx in 1926, believing Marxism to be the only study of society which he can truly rely on to help him understand his rapidly changing world. It was Marx's influence on Brecht that turned Brecht's plays into a much more didactic experience for his audience. The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui is a prime example of how Brecht liked to lay the purpose of the play's performance before the audience. Without distracting subplots and underlying ideas, Brecht enforces his main idea on the audience.
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* Hitler becomes more powerful and influential in Germany. Brecht's hatred of Hitler's Party and its ethics are displayed clearly through the play, which was written during these first years of exile. Brecht divorced Marriane Zoff in 1927 and two years later married Helene Weigel, the actress. Their daughter was born in 1930, which proved to be a prominent year for Brecht, as it is the year that for the first time one of his plays, the rise and fall of the City of Mahogonny, a communist play, creates an outburst of Nazi criticism. It is in the ...

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