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“Life of Galileo”- Scene 8 and Scene 12 Analysis

There are things about world and life that often makes us wonder if they are real or not.

But then we simply ignore them instead of questioning about them. Why do we do that? We

do that to make our own selves feel safe. Questioning them would be like wandering in an

unfamiliar, unmarked and unauthorized territory. We all are like wolves, we might think

we are much civilized and better beings than them but we are not. Wolves like to remain

within the protection of their pack and are only allowed to leave with the permission of

their Alpha.1 Those who are not in any pack are called as rogues. No one wants to be a

rogue because rogues are considered as traitors, lowly beings who question the laws and

rules that were laid out to them from generations and leave to find their own answers and

break all their ties from the pack. Human world is exactly like that. We all are social

creatures with a head above us. We don’t question the rules laid out to us, we believe and

follow every single word that is told to us whether it is a fact or just a mere lie.

Life of Galileo by Brecht is a play about a rogue who wants the people to know that there is

a different world out there other than the one they had known for decades. But the elder

council doesn’t want him to do that because it would be against the church doctrine and its

teachings.2 Hence it is a battle between knowledge and unawareness, between actual

tangible facts and the worldly beliefs.

Scene 8’s title is a little different than other titles of the scenes in the play. Each scene had a

brief description about what the scene is about and what will happen in the end but this
1
Alpha: leader
2
Council: council of elders, in this case church.
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particular scene doesn’t have that. It is simply titled as “A conversation.” Why is it like that?

and what is that conversation? Although this conversation seems to be between Galileo and

the little monk from the church but in real it’s between institution of Religion and the

institution of science. It is between a man of science and a man of religion, who according to

Galileo’s thinking, cannot be both.

The scene starts with Galileo noticing the monk in the Florentine Ambassadors palace

approaching him. Galileo says, “The habit you are wearing gives you the right…” what he

means to say here, is that the monk is the man of the church and his robes gives him a right

to say whatever he wants whether it is true or not. This gives us an impression that Galileo

assume things, as written above he believe man cannot be both a man of religion and of

science as well. And the audience also expects that to happen because previously almost all

men of religion were against Galileo and his research but Brecht beautifully shocks the

audience with the monk’s next dialogue.

After the previous act the audience expected this monk to actually go against Galileo as well

and they thought that the monk probably would be here to give him a lecture on religion

and how wrong Galileo is, like the others before him did. But the playwright by using the

“Verfromdung effect” which is also known as “cognitive dissonance” made the familiar role

of a monk being the man of religion seems unfamiliar. Monks are not known as people of

science but this monk says that he has studied mathematics which is a branch of science.

This makes the audience feel intrigued and they want to know what’s going on. In short it is
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an attention grabbing technique used by the Playwright to make the audience more

involved in the play. He alienated them to make them more involved. It works like rain in

the scorching sun. It makes us question what’s going on. Now that it is established that the

monk might be a man interested in science, the audience expected a scientific conversation

but yet again they get a shock. Monk who is a man of science and religion has given up

science for religion. There is a whole long monologue about it as to why he thinks that

Galileo should do that as well. All in all it is a conversation or a battle of words between

religion and science in which at the end science seems to have an upper hand or does it?

The playwright is playing with words here and sometimes makes the audience think that

Galileo is crazy. But he’s not! he is extremely sharp and smart. Galileo knows how to

manipulate people into making them hear what he wants. First he accuses them then fights

with them, reason with them and then gives up. Through this process he somehow, even if

for a short period of time, manages to convince them. Galileo mocks the monk by saying “…

to admit that two and two sometimes makes four.” What he means by it is he knows that as

church defies everything and set up its own explanation and meanings, its no use if the

monk knows mathematics, even he can deny a simple calculation for the sake of church and
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it doesn’t matter to Galileo if the monk is the man of science, that is, unless he is ready to

admit that the church might be wrong.

To which monk’s reply makes it seem that he doesn’t know whom to side with. Even

though Galileo might be right but he can’t go against the church for his own reasons and

tries to convince Galileo not to do so as well. He reasons that whatever church is doing is

for the benefit of the people. Whatever has been told about God and afterlife to them might

not be true but if the people got to know about it then they would lose hope, all their

expectations would be cut off as they had done nothing else but followed the major and

minor roles that the world (church) has bestowed upon them. They haven’t done anything

for themselves but for the world and if they got to know that everything that they had

known was a lie then the whole world would collapse. Galileo contradicts this by saying

that then all of that is just for the benefit of the church, and that they should know that

what they believe is like believing, it is night when they can clearly see the sun rising above

their heads. They should be aware of the facts! And his proof will make them realize it. He

points out beautifully that as an oyster fights for its life while producing a pearl.

He means to say that they should have enough courage to fight death. And that he doesn’t

care about future generations but he should at least first start off with the current one. The

church offered him the poor’s sweat and blood to make his mouth shut. Everything stated

above is a single side of a spectrum. Galileo might be right but he may be wrong as well.

As Galileo accuses the church by saying that they want the people to keep believing that

Earth is the centre of solar system and Rome is the centre of earth and so on and so forth,

because the church wants to remain in command and doesn’t want their status to diminish.
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All in all what he’s saying means that church is doing all this and exploiting the people for

their own benefit. During this course of battle of words, he makes an odd comment which

again makes the audience grab its attention. He as a man believes that a man of religion

cannot be a man of science but it’s ironic when he compare his research with holy

scriptures and says that changing it would be like changing the holy book. He is right in

saying that if the current generation won’t know about it then the next generation would

suffer as well. He reasons that whatever the monk says is absurd and he can’t compare

myth with science. What he means is that if they don’t know the E of English than they can’t

talk in English. It’s like defying the laws of gravity by saying that witches fly on

broomsticks.

Galileo thought that the church is responsible for not spreading knowledge but here the

monk, a man of science himself says that even people don’t want to be aware of this

because it would make them come out of their comfort zones. They want to remain in their

pack protected by their Alpha’s and not wander into an unmarked territory.

All of the above points made by Galileo make the audience realize how passionate he is

about science. He evaluates himself objectively and critically but he evaluates science

subjectively. In one dialogue he even says that he would gladly go inside a dark dungeon of

darkness if it would make him see light. He is comparing darkness with unawareness and

light with knowledge. He wants the world living in darkness of unawareness to see the light

of knowledge. As he talks about the facts, he forgets one tiny little fact and that is, whenever

a blind begins to see or a man comes out from darkness into light, there is a moment when
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he sees darkness in light as well and sometimes makes the vision blurry. So not everyone

can come out from unawareness and seek knowledge that easily. Throughout the play,

Galileo believed in power of proof and evidence and he thinks he can conquer anything

through that power and he does that smartly in this scene when he during his fight and

crazy rebuttals makes the monk see his manuscripts. Then he actually appreciates himself

and sort of crazily mocks the monk that he is really interested in the manuscripts, which

makes us question if he really wants the monk to actually read it or not? Here monk came

to convince Galileo to change his research but Galileo through his power of evidence, makes

the monk read his research and agree with it. But what Galileo forgets is that evidences are

just what they are, mare evidences and can be tampered with. And there is a power above

everything else which would make him leave his research. The power called death. It was

used by the state to exploit us and will be used in the future as well to do the same. There is

no power more powerful than the fear of losing one’s life. A rogue will agree to remain loyal

to the pack if he wants to live. Galileo leaves all his research and everything he has ever

worked for when it came to his life. Hence Galileo at the end is responsible for his own

undoing. That’s how strong the power of death is.

Scene 12 is carved in a similar way as scene 8. The scene is titled as “The Pope” which

might be done so to represent the social roles of the people in the play but it might also be

like this to point out that one pope, that one pope might’ve thought differently from the rest

of them. But at the end the pope (real self) being “The Pope” (social self) have to do what

they expects him to do. The playwright again here plays with cognitive dissonance by

making the pope argue that Galileo is right and they should not threaten him. But the

inquisitor as he represents the church and its rules says that Galileo went against the rules
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and he needs to be questioned and given threat as well. Throughout their conversation

during which the pope is being robed, there are several moments which makes the

audience feel as if they were wrong all along. The conversation starts with a reply of pope

probably to something the inquisitor might have advised him to do. Now as pope is being

robed one clearly assumes that a sermon or some sort of meeting is about to take place.

Now the pope is denying something which the inquisitor said previously. Through

inquisitor’s dialogue, it gets revealed that they might be talking about Galileo’s research

being valid or not. And right now pope seems to be on his side. Now inquisitor as well

knows that Galileo is right but he points out that they cannot tell the world that whatever

told to them so far in the Holy Scriptures is untrue.

The reply of pope again makes the audience feel alienated. Which and what multiplication

table are they talking about? a numeric one? Or the reproductive one? One can perceive

this in two ways. Either they are talking about simple numbers and multiplication in

mathematics or they are talking about generations. If they are talking about numeric one

than the pope means that he cannot change what is already established and is factual. But if

they are talking about generations than this means that pope is saying that he cannot break

the faith and belief of generations on him and the holy scriptures. Because whatever is told
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in a meeting or sermon is passed on to the family and will in turn be passed on to future

generations. In short he means he cannot break their faith. But the inquisitor says that

science is doubtful and is based on facts, some of which are still yet to be found but religion

and what they all are taught from the start is about faith and belief.

All in all this conversation seems to be between pope as an individual and an inquisitor as a

representative of the church. It makes the audience realize that they had been wrong from

the start about this being a battle between religion and church. It is not that, it is a battle

between factual knowledge and worldly beliefs which are made to benefit the political and

social order of the world. Inquisitor tries to convince the pope that their social and

economical and political ties would be affected if the pope decided to side with Galileo and

tell the world that he is right. He points out that the society looks at him and the church as a

gate of hope but if they do so then all hope would be lost. Because they can believe that the

fairies exist in this world but they would end up questioning their own existence.

The inquisitor is trying his best in every way to convince the pope that Galileo is wrong. He

accuses him of leading people astray. Mock him and his character. Insults him and make

assumptions about him and what he would do if the church approved his research. He tries

to convince the pope that he would start with science then he would end up insulting the

religion and its beliefs and proceedings. “… then extend their filthy skepticism to the

offertory box..” the inquisitor said this during his rant about Galileo being wrong. This

makes us question if he is really that worried about religion or he is worried about the

money, fruit and other materialistic things the church gets through the offertory box? And
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if the church gets it all then it might’ve been dividing, whatever is offered, among all of the

man of church and inquisitor is probably is one of them. He lamely points out that Galileo is

not even writing his book in Latin, the language of religion, as if they would’ve accepted it if

he would’ve done that. Pope’s reply to this creates a comic relief for the audience although

the pope might’ve said that because he is not at all paying any attention.

Inquisitor further makes us think that all the church care is about trade and how their

relationship with other countries would be affected. Here the playwright again plays with

the minds of the audience by making the inquisitor say that they should keep the star

charts as other countries wants them. In short it means that they would only keep the

research part which benefits them and would reject the rest. The pope points out that they

can’t do that as it is a part of the research but considering they are the people of church

they can play with Galileo’s power of proof and tamper it for their own benefits. The pope

further tries to convince the inquisitor that he is right and many different courts are in

favor of Galileo and his research. But inquisitor points out that as he is human, he wouldn’t

put much of a fight.

Pope points out that Galileo wears the robe of hedonism, he is a man of wine and wealth

and also says that he promised Galileo that he will let him do his research if in the end “..the

last word lay with faith, not science.” And he has fulfilled it. But inquisitor again dismisses

this thought.

At last when pope agrees but says that they can only torture him or can show instruments

of torture to him to make him recant, the inquisitors points out that it’s enough. Torture

would suffice. Now throughout this scene the pope seems distracted. He makes odd
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comments as if he’s not interested or is nervous about what is to happen. This makes the

audience realize that it’s probably either his first meeting or he’s nervous and agitated or

he doesn’t want to do what the church is asking him to do.

Both the scenes, scene 8 and scene 12 clearly reiterate the idea that humans are like wolves

in a pack. Whatever the pack says goes. And somehow if one defies the pack law then they

would be questioned by the council and if the alpha of the pack, also wants to support that

rogue then the council of elders would somehow for their own benefit and benefit of the

order would convince the alpha not to do so and would ask him to use means of torture and

the power of death as a threat. Because Galileo and rogues like him might think that power

of proof is the greatest but everybody knows that even a lion turns into a cat when it comes

to its death.