How Much Is Your Iron?

How Much Is Your Iron? (Was kostet das Eisen?) is a short play by German modernist playwright Bertolt Brecht. Brecht wrote How Much Is Your Iron? in [1939] while in exile in Sweden, against the background of the approaching Second World War, following Nazi Germany's annexations of Austria and Czechoslovakia, against which Western powers such as Great Britain and France had at that stage not yet intervened. The play takes a critical look at Sweden's involvement with both Axis and Allied Powers in the build-up to World War Two.

Synopsis

How Much Is Your Iron? is set in the shop of a male character named Svenson, who is repeatedly visited by a gangster-like figure wanting to purchase iron. Neighbouring shopkeepers Herr Austrian and Frau Czech fall victim to the gangster's increasingly violent behavior, but Svenson refuses to join a pact with shopkeeper Herr Britt to ward of the gangster. Eventually, Svenson himself falls victim to the gangster.

Dramaturgical analysis

How Much Is Your Iron? is an allegorical play, which each character representing a European nation in the build-up to World War Two. Some characters are clearly named after the country they represent (Herr Austrian, Frau Czech), while protagonist Svenson represents Sweden, and the gangster personifies Nazi Germany through a representation of Adolf Hitler. It is not the first time Brecht used allegory to make a political comment with his playwriting, nor the first time he would find inspiration in the representation of the gangster as popularized in 1930s cinema. His earlier play The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui also dealt with the rise of Nazism and its ties to Germany's pre-war industries, and is presented through an allegorical narrative of vegetable dealers dealing with the dictator-like Ui.

The Plays of Bertolt Brecht Baal Drums in the Night The Beggar A Wedding Driving Out a Devil Lux in Tenebris The Catch Mysteries of a Barbershop In the Jungle of Cities Edward II Man Equals Man Downfall of the Egotist Johann Fatzer The Elephant Calf Little Mahagonny The Threepenny Opera The Flight across the Ocean The Baden-Baden Lesson on Consent Happy End Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny Der Jasager / Der Neinsager The Decision Saint Joan of the Stockyards The Exception and the Rule The Mother Kuhle Wampe The Seven Deadly Sins Round Heads and Pointed Heads The Horatians and the Curiatians Fear and Misery of the Third Reich Señora Carrar's Rifles Life of Galileo How Much Is Your Iron? Dansen Mother Courage and Her Children The Trial of Lucullus Mr Puntila and his Man Matti The Good Person of Szechwan The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui Hangmen Also Die! The Visions of Simone Machard The Duchess of Malfi Schweyk in the Second World War The Caucasian Chalk Circle Antigone The Days of the Commune The Tutor Die Verurteilung des Lukullus Report from Herrnburg Coriolanus Joan of Arc Turandot Don Juan Trumpets and Drums