Shen Te
E616179
Shen Te is the central character in Bertolt Brecht’s play "The Good Person of Szechwan," a compassionate but struggling woman whose attempts to live morally in a corrupt society force her to adopt a harsher alter ego.
All labels observed (1)
| Label | Occurrences |
|---|---|
| Shen Te canonical | 10 |
How this entity was disambiguated
This entity first appeared as the object of triple T6751269 — resolving that mention is where its identity was fixed. The disambiguator weighed these candidate entities and picked the highlighted one (or “None”, minting a new entity). This is how homonymy is resolved: the same surface form can point to different entities.
NED1
Entity disambiguation (via context triple)
gpt-5-mini-2025-08-07
Target entity: Shen Te Context triple: [The Good Person of Szechwan, protagonist, Shen Te]
-
A.
Lady Chen
Lady Chen was the mother of the Hongwu Emperor, founder of China’s Ming dynasty, and is remembered primarily for her role as the imperial matriarch of that ruling house.
-
B.
Madame Liu-Tsong
Madame Liu-Tsong, better known as Anna May Wong, was a pioneering Chinese American film and television actress who became Hollywood’s first major Asian American movie star in the early 20th century.
-
C.
Chi-chung
Chi-chung is an alternative romanized spelling of the Chinese given name commonly written as Zhizhong.
-
D.
Snow Ruyi
Snow Ruyi is a landmark ski jumping venue in Zhangjiakou, China, built for the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics and named for its resemblance to a traditional Chinese ruyi scepter.
-
E.
Xiangmei
Xiangmei is the Chinese given name of Anna Chennault, a prominent Chinese-American journalist, author, and influential political figure in mid-20th-century U.S.-China relations.
- F. None of above. chosen
- G. Unsure - the case is ambiguous/there is not enough information to decide.
NED2
Entity disambiguation (via description)
gpt-5-mini-2025-08-07
Target entity: Shen Te Target entity description: Shen Te is the central character in Bertolt Brecht’s play "The Good Person of Szechwan," a compassionate but struggling woman whose attempts to live morally in a corrupt society force her to adopt a harsher alter ego.
-
A.
Lady Chen
Lady Chen was the mother of the Hongwu Emperor, founder of China’s Ming dynasty, and is remembered primarily for her role as the imperial matriarch of that ruling house.
-
B.
Madame Liu-Tsong
Madame Liu-Tsong, better known as Anna May Wong, was a pioneering Chinese American film and television actress who became Hollywood’s first major Asian American movie star in the early 20th century.
-
C.
Chi-chung
Chi-chung is an alternative romanized spelling of the Chinese given name commonly written as Zhizhong.
-
D.
Snow Ruyi
Snow Ruyi is a landmark ski jumping venue in Zhangjiakou, China, built for the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics and named for its resemblance to a traditional Chinese ruyi scepter.
-
E.
Xiangmei
Xiangmei is the Chinese given name of Anna Chennault, a prominent Chinese-American journalist, author, and influential political figure in mid-20th-century U.S.-China relations.
- F. None of above. chosen
Statements (46)
| Predicate | Object |
|---|---|
| instanceOf |
fictional character
ⓘ
theatrical character ⓘ |
| alterEgoRole |
Shui Ta is a ruthless, pragmatic businessman persona
ⓘ
linked to:
Shui Ta
|
| appearsIn | The Good Person of Szechwan ⓘ |
| appearsInForm |
prose dialogue
ⓘ
songs ⓘ |
| associatedWithConcept |
Verfremdungseffekt (alienation effect)
ⓘ
linked to:
Verfremdungseffekt
|
| centralThemeRelation |
conflict between morality and survival
ⓘ
critique of capitalist social relations ⓘ |
| characterTrait |
compassionate
ⓘ
generous ⓘ morally conflicted ⓘ self‑sacrificing ⓘ |
| createdBy | Bertolt Brecht ⓘ |
| createdForForm | stage play ⓘ |
| dramaticArc | from hopeful beneficiary of divine aid to desperate user of a harsh alter ego ⓘ |
| facesConflictWith |
economic hardship
ⓘ
exploitative neighbors ⓘ |
| firstAppearedIn | The Good Person of Szechwan ⓘ |
| firstPerformanceYearOfWork | 1943 ⓘ |
| gender | female ⓘ |
| hasAlterEgo | Shui Ta ⓘ |
| hasLoveInterest | Yang Sun ⓘ |
| hasMedium | theatre ⓘ |
| hasMoralDilemma | choosing between helping others and preserving her own livelihood ⓘ |
| hasNameOrigin | Chinese‑sounding name chosen by Brecht ⓘ |
| hasOccupation | prostitute ⓘ |
| hasRelative | Shui Ta ⓘ |
| influences | interpretations of female agency in Brecht’s theatre ⓘ |
| isFrom |
Szechwan
ⓘ
linked to:
Sichuan Province
|
| isJudgedBy | the gods at the end of the play ⓘ |
| isSubjectOf |
literary criticism on ethics and capitalism
ⓘ
theatrical performance studies ⓘ |
| languageOfWork | German ⓘ |
| laterHasOccupation | tobacco shop owner ⓘ |
| narrativeFunction | embodiment of the problem of being good in a corrupt society ⓘ |
| receivesGift | money from the gods to start a business ⓘ |
| receivesHelpFrom |
the gods in The Good Person of Szechwan
ⓘ
linked to:
The Good Person of Szechwan
|
| roleInWork | protagonist ⓘ |
| setIn | a fictionalized Szechwan in China ⓘ |
| strugglesWith | maintaining goodness while ensuring survival ⓘ |
| symbolizes | the impossibility of pure goodness under oppressive conditions ⓘ |
| undergoesTransformation | adopts male disguise as Shui Ta to protect herself ⓘ |
| usedAsExampleOf | Brechtian character designed to provoke critical reflection ⓘ |
| workGenre |
didactic play
ⓘ
epic theatre ⓘ |
How these facts were elicited
The pipeline generated the facts above by prompting gpt-5.1 with this entity's name + description and the instruction below.
Instruction
You are a knowledge base construction expert. Given a subject entity and a description of it, return factual statements that you know for the subject as a JSON list of dictionaries(triples), where keys must be "subject", "predicate" and "object". The number of facts may be very high, between 25 to 50 or more, for very popular subjects. For less popular subjects, the number of facts can be very low, like 5 or 10. # Requirements - If you don't know the subject at all, return an empty list. - If the subject is not a named entity, return an empty list. - Include at least one triple where predicate is "instanceOf". - Do not get too wordy. - Separate several objects into multiple triples with one object.
Input
Subject: Shen Te Description of subject: Shen Te is the central character in Bertolt Brecht’s play "The Good Person of Szechwan," a compassionate but struggling woman whose attempts to live morally in a corrupt society force her to adopt a harsher alter ego.
Referenced by (10)
Full triples — surface form annotated when it differs from this entity's canonical label.