A Critical analysis of ‘Life of Galileo’
“The evidence of your own eyes is a very seductive thing”
Life of Galileo is a play written by German dramatist Bertolt Brecht depicting the career of the great Italian philosopher Galileo Galilei who was tried by the Roman church for his scientific discoveries. A major theme of the play is the conflict between dogmatism and science. The play revolves around his struggle to prove the Copernican theory of the heliocentric universe. The other significant themes of the play are truth, betrayal, courage, religion and science.
The most moving aspect of the play is the characterization of Galileo. The manifestation of his character and behaviour as a strong personality, who doesn’t even fear death under all circumstances indeed is ready to face anything. This is very evident in his attitude during the plague, he passionately continues his experiments even under constant moral danger. But Galileo failed to fulfil the historical heroic role and instead fall victim to the law of human frailty.
Through this play, Brecht has successfully appealed the audience's intellect by presenting the moral problems and reflecting the contemporary social realities on stage. The play is composed in such a way that it hinders the audience from empathizing with the character of Galileo and instead makes them think objectively about the arguments of all characters and draw their own conclusions from them. All Characters of Brecht represent unique principles and behaviours with all their flaws and weakness of the human race rather than portraying a sublime heroic character. The play created an attitude of curiosity rather than an emotional and empathetic response to the acting.
The composition of the play is loosely connected with often interruptions in the storyline. The life of Galileo is not just a biographical play instead it encompassed all the social and political atmosphere of that period. Even though the plot is set in Italy in the seventeenth century, Brecht has reflected on the time he lived which was the time of Totalitarianism and Nazi government policies. Governments were imposing values and restrictions on people to keep them under control. Individuality and freedom were taken away by these governments in order to achieve a higher goal and political ideology.
On other hand, Galileo was living in a period where the church was dominant, and people were blindly following their ideologies and his scientific discoveries had the potential to show the dawn of a new age. In the play, the church is afraid that his radical discovery would change the world order. Through his presentation of the character of Galileo and his story of recantation, Brecht wanted his audience to question totalitarianism. The irony is that the playwright desires to change the world and Galileo betrays his people by admitting that the church is right to avoid his trial. Brecht tried to convey that Galileo’s recantation delayed scientific development for decades. He believed that questioning is important in improving the human social condition.
His characterization of Galileo’s character was in such a way that he is a revolutionary and at the same time revealed his weakness to make his audience think and draw conclusions about the play. Brecht experienced a similar situation as Galileo when Hitler came into power in 1933 and he went into exile. His works were all banned in Germany and he kept on writing amidst all the challenges. The playwright wanted to educate his audience through arguments and questioning in his play which is very much evident in Life of Galileo. Brecht does not forgive him for his betrayal with his recantation. There are actors playing multiple roles and interacting with the audience by asking questions. There is a lot of contrast, contradictions and interruptions in between the play.
“The millennium of faith is ended, said I this is the millennium of doubt,” said Galileo at the beginning of the play. Before even hearing about the telescope Galileo foreshadows his own discoveries. His prediction sets up a contrast between the religious faith of the catholic church and the sceptical scientific approach. This contradiction is a crucial conflict throughout Galileo’s life and play.
“The evidence of your own eyes is a very seductive thing” is a statement by Galileo in scene three. Throughout the text, Brecht’s Galileo presents himself stating that the truth is visible if only people are willing to look for it. In this scene, Galileo’s assistant Sagredo interacts with the audience about the implications of the research. He worries about what the Catholic church will do if he makes the research public. Galileo responds that he has faith in the human race and their intelligence and believes that at some point people must believe something that they can see with their own eyes. The playwright has tried to convey that Galileo’s belief in the power of one’s own observation would eventually succeed.
Life of Galileo doesn’t have a tidy plot and the story is left unresolved. The stage setting is not realistic but suggestive and has used very minimal props. The deliberate use of ironic music which is totally inappropriate for the circumstance has created blunt interruptions and alienated the audience from emotional involvement. Gestures, voice modulation, and facial expression are the other significant part of this play in which the overall attitude of one character towards another is explicitly revealed.
