The play functions through a basic mechanism: a fabulously rich drunkard who when he drinks he becomes humanist and generous and when he is sober he becomes unfeeling and hostile. The drunkenness of Puntila gives outlet for the oppressed humanism of the exploiter only temporarily. Whatever good he has inside him blows off in his drunkenness and then, sober, he becomes more callous than ever because he believes that the poor want to take advantage of the good heart of the drunk. The comic element of the play is based on the efforts of the servant not to fall in the trap of the good manners of the drunk and give him his heart. Brecht places his play in a tradition of a festive theatre and of a happy satire of improvisation. His material is a series of sketches and narratives round the agricultural society of the Finns landowners and workers of the farm, in the time of the World War I.