Sweeney Todd Analysis
Sweeney Todd Analysis
Benjamin Barker, a skilled barber, is falsely charged and sentenced to a life of hard labor in Australia by the corrupt Judge Turpin, who lusts after Barker's wife Lucy. Now under the assumed name "Sweeney Todd", Barker returns to London with sailor Anthony Hope. At his old Fleet Street lodgings above Mrs. Nellie Lovett's pie shop, he is led to believe that Lucy, having been raped by Turpin, has poisoned herself, and his teenage daughter Johanna is now Turpin's ward, and like her mother before her, is the object of his unwanted affections. Todd vows revenge, reopening his barber shop in the upstairs flat. While roaming London, Anthony spots Johanna and falls in love with her, but is ejected from the Judge's house by Turpin and his associate, Beadle Bamford. Turpin, grooming himself one day, and was prepped to be killed by Sweeney as he sits for his shave. His plan thwarted, Todd has an epiphany, and decides to vent his murderous rage upon his customers while waiting for another chance to kill Turpin. He is indiscriminate about his victims he believes that he is punishing the corrupt aristocracy for their exploitation of those below them and, at the same time, saving the lower classes from their misery. Lovett becomes his willing accomplice, suggesting they dispose of the bodies by baking them into pies to improve her business. Todd enthusiastically agrees, and rigs his barber's chair with a pedal-operated mechanism, which deposits his victims through a trap door into Lovett's bakehouse. As the weeks pass, Todd's murders accumulate. Meanwhile, Anthony begins to search for Johanna, who was sent by Turpin to Fogg's insane asylum as punishment for her refusal to marry him. The barbering and pie-making business prospers financially, and Lovett takes in young Toby. Anthony finally discovers Johanna's whereabouts and, following Todd's plan, poses as a wig-maker's apprentice, allowing him access to the asylum to put a rescue plan into action. Todd's
Benjamin Barker, a skilled barber, is falsely charged and sentenced to a life of hard labor in Australia by the corrupt Judge Turpin, who lusts after Barker's wife Lucy. Now under the assumed name "Sweeney Todd", Barker returns to London with sailor Anthony Hope. At his old Fleet Street lodgings above Mrs. Nellie Lovett's pie shop, he is led to believe that Lucy, having been raped by Turpin, has poisoned herself, and his teenage daughter Johanna is now Turpin's ward, and like her mother before her, is the object of his unwanted affections. Todd vows revenge, reopening his barber shop in the upstairs flat. While roaming London, Anthony spots Johanna and falls in love with her, but is ejected from the Judge's house by Turpin and his associate, Beadle Bamford. Turpin, grooming himself one day, and was prepped to be killed by Sweeney as he sits for his shave. His plan thwarted, Todd has an epiphany, and decides to vent his murderous rage upon his customers while waiting for another chance to kill Turpin. He is indiscriminate about his victims he believes that he is punishing the corrupt aristocracy for their exploitation of those below them and, at the same time, saving the lower classes from their misery. Lovett becomes his willing accomplice, suggesting they dispose of the bodies by baking them into pies to improve her business. Todd enthusiastically agrees, and rigs his barber's chair with a pedal-operated mechanism, which deposits his victims through a trap door into Lovett's bakehouse. As the weeks pass, Todd's murders accumulate. Meanwhile, Anthony begins to search for Johanna, who was sent by Turpin to Fogg's insane asylum as punishment for her refusal to marry him. The barbering and pie-making business prospers financially, and Lovett takes in young Toby. Anthony finally discovers Johanna's whereabouts and, following Todd's plan, poses as a wig-maker's apprentice, allowing him access to the asylum to put a rescue plan into action. Todd's