The Powerlessness of the Lower Class

In Georg Büchner’s Woyzeck, the protagonist is caught in his class position, which brings hopelessness and despair. We see a similar class struggle in Waiting for Lefty. How do both playwrights portray the lower class and their struggle with their daily life?
Both plays were written in fragments, and it is not necessary for the fragments to go in a certain predetermined order to understand the plays. Büchner did not finish Woyzeck, since he passed away before he could finish it at the young age of twenty-three. In Waiting for Lefty, the scenes in the middle can go in a random order, as well, without changing the play. It is interesting to note that the edition from the “Dramatists Play Service Inc.” left out a scene altogether in its current edition. Both plays are based on real events, Waiting for Lefty is “based on the New York City taxi drivers’ strike of 1934” (Miller, 429), while Woyzeck was “based on the real-life case of a barber who stabbed his mistress in a fit of jealousy and was sentenced to death in 1821” (Billington). Both authors use real-life events to ask for more social justice and even for a revolution, a subtler hint from Büchner, and an outright demand for change in Waiting for Lefty.
Woyzeck has an occupation; he is a soldier in the Hessian military and is the barber of his officer. He has an illegitimate child with his common-law wife Marie, yet lives in the barracks with his colleague Andres. When Woyzeck shaves his officer, the captain mocks his morals due to his poverty: “Woyzeck, you’ve no sense of virtue. You’re not a virtuous man” (Büchner 25). The captain questions his morality, since Woyzeck has a child with Marie without the blessing of the church. However, the same captain is not commenting on the m...

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... run on Broadway, the commercial capitalist theatric mile in New York and many middle class people saw it as well. A similar play would probably encounter much more difficulties in contemporary times. Yet, both plays are questioning their contemporary status quo and seek to change their class system, one more subtle and the other play asks outright for changes.

Works Cited

Billington, Michael. "Review: Arts: Woyzeck for Ever: How the True Story of a Murderous Barber Inspired the First Modern Drama." The Guardian (London): 19. September 28 2002. Web.
Büchner, Georg. . (Büchner)
Miller, Jim. "Workers' Theatre and the "War of Position" in the 1930s." Modern Drama. 39.3 (1996): 421-435. Web. 7 Mar. 2014.
Odets, Clifford . Waiting for Lefty. New York: Dramatists Play Service, Inc, 1962. P