Sweeney Todd: An Angry Revolution On Society’s Classes

The musical Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street, composed by Stephen Sondheim regarding the book written by Hugh Wheeler, is related in a humorous yet sinister way as the tale of a man seeking revenge on the upper class is told. Sweeney Todd, originally Benjamin Barker, was framed and falsely imprisoned by an upper-class elite, who wanted to get rid of him as he desired Sweeney’s wife. However, when applying the Marxist Theory — a theory of Karl Marx saying that society's classes are the cause of struggle and that society should have no classes — that story takes on an even more pernicious shade as this theory becomes the central theme of the whole play — we see the struggle for power between the bourgeoisie and the proletariats that result in bloodshed and sorrow, thus reinforcing the Marxist Theory that society’s classes are the cause for the struggle.

Through Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street, the concept of the struggle being the cause of two types of people, the Haves and the Have-nots, can be seen throughout the musical. The tale of Sweeney Todd begins when he had been falsely imprisoned for life by a man named Judge Turpin who desired Todd’s wife. When Sweeney escapes from his false imprisonment and along with his savior Anthony Hope, returns to his hometown from his voyage. As he speaks to Anthony, Todd states that “there was another man who saw/ That she was beautiful,/ A pious vulture of the law,/ Who with a gesture of his claw /Removed the barber from his plate”, which both reflects how Judge Turpin goes along with his plan to remove Sweeney Todd in order to seduce his wife and represents Turpin as one of the Haves; those that exploit the Have-nots mercilessly. When Sweeney returns and finds out about his wife’s suicide, he begins to see the world as two types of people: “There's the one staying put in his proper place/ And the one with his foot in the other one's face” — the Haves, those that exploit people that are of lower class through their power for personal gain, and the Have-nots that are crushed under the boots of the elites until they lose everything they have.

In this crucial turning point of the musical, what started as a revenge fantasy has now become an angry revolution against the whole system of class as Sweeney Todd and Mrs. Lovett, a pie-maker, concoct a plan for revenge. The newly christened Sweeney Todd opens a barbershop for those of the bourgeoisie (upper-class citizens) where, while the customer is not paying attention, he would slit their throats with his razor and send their corpses to Mrs. Lovett. In turn, she would grind and stuff their meat into pies that would later be sold to the proletariats (the working class). This plan demonstrates how Engels describes as “a stage that has been reached where the exploited and oppressed class – the proletariat – cannot attain its emancipation from the sway of the exploiting and ruling class – the bourgeoisie – without, at the same time, and once and for all, emancipating society at large from all exploitation, oppression, class distinction, and class struggles”, saying that the a realization that has been reached by the lower class citizens that they would never be free of the upper-class taking advantage of them without irreversibly destroying the societal structure, therefore, with the poor literally and metaphorically eating up the rich, society would have no classes as the rich would be at the mercy of the poor just as the poor would be at the mercy of the rich. At this point, Sweeney has divided people into the haves and have nots and has sworn not just revenge on the judge for his crimes against himself and his wife, but an attack on the upper class by the working class. In conjunction with that, the relationship between the Haves and the Have-nots can be seen in side characters such as Adolfo Pirelli, “a haircutter to His Royal Majesty the King of Naples” which instantly pegged him as one of the upper class, is also the most indubitably abusive. He is abusive towards Tobias, who is referred to as his assistant, but acts more like his slave. For example, when Pirelli and Sweeney Todd engaged in a shaving competition and the former lost, he vented all the anger of losing on Tobias by slapping him hard across the face. Consequently, Pirelli is also the first person Todd kills and Mrs. Lovett turns in to a meat pie, symbolizing the small instances where the Have-nots “overthrow” the Haves. These examples reflect what the Marxist Theory describes: because of the existence of the Haves and the Have-nots, and the ruthless exploitation of Have-nots by the Haves, it would cause a rebellion from the Have-nots to overthrow the Haves and hence destroy the social structure.

Again, the Marxist view of society’s classes as the cause of struggle can be seen where Sweeney Todd discusses Mrs. Lovett and his plan to feed the rich to the poor as they sing “The Little Priest”. As Sweeney sings, “For what's the sound of the world out there? … Those crunching noises pervading the air? …It’s man devouring man, my dear”, he mentions the eminent topic of a “dog-eat-dog” society. As seen from The Communist Manifesto, “The machines … delivered industry entirely into the hands of the big capitalists and rendered the workers’ scanty property which consisted mainly of their tools, looms, etc., quite worthless, so that the capitalist was left with everything, the worker with nothing…in the hands of the big capitalists, and the workers were deprived of the last remnants of their independence”, a capitalistic society or country is referred as “dog-eat-dog” because, as shown from the quote, the capitalists “eat” off of the labor of their workers in order to benefit, while the workers gain nothing.

Additionally, in the musical, capitalism is brought into a darker light where its principles are used ironically and literally with the lower-class men eating up the upper class as a means for what Sweeney believes as revenge or equality between classes. By using such a ghastly cannibalistic way to gain equality, capitalistic ideals are shown as revolting and vulgar. Similarly, this can be reflected again to express how the cause of struggle is because of society’s classes — a trait of a capitalistic country.

Furthermore, the metaphor of the razor Sweeney uses to slit his customers' throat can be seen as a tool or machine for more production that mimics one of the distinctive capitalistic features in that society. In The Communist Manifesto, Karl Marx states “that culture, the loss of which he the bourgeois laments, is, for the enormous majority, a mere training to act as a machine”. This example and quote reflect how the capitalistic society, or the elites of the society, use the working-class labor — the machine — for increased production and individual gain. Once again, these darker capitalistic ideals are brought to the surface as a way to support the Marxist point of view that without all the societal classes, there would never be such merciless exploitation and thus, no struggle. Additionally, in the scene where Sweeney and Pirelli engage in a shaving contest, Sweeney uses his razor to prevail in it, thus symbolizing another moment of vengeful success upon the upper class. Another metaphor can be seen at the end of the play where Sweeney Todd was also killed by his razor right after killing Judge Turpin. Sweeney Todd could be a representation of the working class while the judge could be symbolizing the upper-class elites; both died in the end and peace came afterward, thus reinforcing the Marxist theory that now the societal classes are gone, there would be no struggles between people anymore.

By and large, the tale of Sweeney Todd and his angry revolution on society’s classes delivered and emphasized the Marxist way of thinking that the capitalistic outlook of having societal classes is flagrant and that it is the cause of all the struggle. Just as what W. E. B. Du Bois said: “Capitalism cannot reform itself; it is doomed to self-destruction”, the story of Sweeney Todd is an example of such — using the more malignant but prototypical ideals of capitalism to destroy itself and hence, gain peace for the majority.

Works Cited

• Levy, Robert. 'Is Sweeney Todd an Anti-capitalist Play?' N.p., 2017. Web. 2020.
• Marx, Karl, and Friedrich Engels. Manifesto of the Communist Party: By Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. N.p.: International, 1969. Print.
• 'Sweeney Todd and Cannibalistic Capitalism.' Daily Kos. N.p., n.d. Web.
• Sweeney Todd, the Demon Barber of Fleet Street. Dir. Tim Burton. Prod. Richard D. Zanuck, Walter F. Parkes, Laurie MacDonald, and John Logan. By John Logan and Stephen Sondheim. Perf. Johnny Depp, Helena Bonham Carter, Alan Rickman, and Timothy Spall. N.p., n.d. Web.