A FEMINIST-MARXIST ANALYSIS OF

BERTOLT BRECH’S “THE JOB”

The Job is the story of a mother who had to pretend to be a man in order to do the job her
dead husband was supposed to take. This is not just the story of a proletariat during a time when
anyone would do anything just so he/she could provide for the family. This is also the story of a
woman who, in a time when jobs are not easy to find and social injustices such as sexism is
rampant, the opportunities are not based on the skills but merely on what the society dictates as
what a man can do and what a woman can only do.

The story is set after a great war when there is mass unemployment and recession. At the
beginning, the reader would think that the story centers on a man who, even though he was sick,
still forced himself to travel as job opportunities at that time were hard to come by. However,
this man died and left his poor wife and children at lost on what to do. Then, although grieving
for the death of her husband, the wife, Frau Hausmann, still has her children to think of and the
idea of replacing her husband in the job suddenly came to her. The actions of both the wife and
the husband show how important a job is for workers at that time and the lengths to which they
will go in order to have one. The husband, despite his illness, forced himself to go, while the
wife, despite her gender, took the risk and pretended to be a man.

The actions of the wife reflect her bravery and cleverness as a mother who would do
anything in order to save her family. She is not highlighted at the beginning of the story
especially that during that time, men are the only ones who work and so the husband is a suitable
symbol for the “job.” But at the death of the husband, it becomes clear that it is the wife which to
whom the story is all about. Because the work as a night watchman is only suitable to a man, the
wife has to pretend to be a man with the help of some friends in order to be allowed to work. It is
a well known ideology during that time that men bring money to the family and the wife has only
the house and the children to take care of. This way of thinking is an effect of a patriarchal and
discriminatory bourgeois that conditions the mind of the society on what one can do based on
his/her gender and economic status in life.
 For many years, Frau Hausmann kept that pretention and did well on her job. She was
even commended by her superiors and life became easier her family. With this, the author shows
how a woman could also do the work of a man with an equal or even superior quality. If her
superiors knew that she was a woman, she would have been disallowed in doing the job without
any considerations for her skills but because they thought she was a man, her skills were noticed
and even praised. As a Marxist himself, the author was able to show why equality must be
recognized in the society when it comes to work. If it is already hard for men to find
opportunities in a bourgeois society, it is even harder for women to prove that they have more
worth in the society than what is expected of them.

At the end of the story, Frau Hausmann’s identity which is that she was a woman was
revealed because of a conflict between her and another man who found out who she really was
and used that knowledge in order to push her around. Again, this shows how a man, who was
conditioned to think that he is superior, tried to control a woman even though their status in life
is the same when gender is disregarded. When the higher officials learned that Frau Hausmann is
a woman, all the hard works she showed were overlooked as if she had done nothing and was
completely dismissed from work without giving her a chance to explain herself. She tried to fight
for her job but expectedly failed. Thus the job was given to “…one of the countless thousands
waiting for any vacancy, one whose legs chanced to have between them the organ recorded on
his birth certificate.”

And what happened to her after she was dismissed from work? Frau Hausmann still tried
to look for other jobs. She continued searching for jobs just like the other workers during that
time who, in order to earn a living, sold themselves “.wholly, in part, or to one another” but who,
according to the author, will be “lost forever” due to the social conditions of that time.

Reference:
Brecht, B. (n.d.). Bertolt Brecht. Retrieved from Socialist Stories:
http://socialiststories.net/liberate/The%20Job%20-%20Bertolt%20Brecht.pdf