Blog Post 5 - Mother Courage and Her Children

By: John Adams

In Mother Courage and her Children the author, Bertolt Brecht, introduces/utilizes an entirely new form of theater – something he called the Epic Theater. This style of drama, in contrast to the more traditional forms, invites calm, detached contemplation and judgment over the issues/topics at hand. Onlookers must arrive at their own understanding of how a play’s events are connected, and in turn, are left contemplating the legitimacy of their deeply-rooted social and political views. Rather than simply presenting a thesis, Mother Courage and her Children is designed instead to question the audience’s attitudes, perceptions, and beliefs about numerous social institutions: warfare, business, motherhood, and morality. This Epic Theater form is in stark contrast to more traditional dramas that seem to (essentially) force-feed audiences the “correct”, or accepted, beliefs/views of the society we operate in and the world we inhabit. Playwrights following this format largely overwhelm reason with passion and emotion, and spectators share/connect intimately to the experiences of the character(s). Moreover, such dramatic plays tend to take place a) from the hero’s point of view (distorting judgment) and b) as happening now (preventing calm detachment). It appears then, that these more traditional dramatic works more-so direct the audience to feel rather than to think. Thus, herein lies what is perhaps the most fundamental way in which Brecht’s Mother Courage and Her Children differs from earlier pieces of dramatic literature – it is aimed at achieving exactly the opposite (that is, a call to think and not feel). It is in this way that this particular work defies our expectations about what a play should be or do: instead of simply associating ourselves with the events and characters in the play, connecting emotionally with them, we must now (as we read/watch) determine for ourselves what everything collectively means.

When I read or watch a play, I typically expect it to flow logically – in a natural progression of events through time. Mother Courage and Her Children, however, disrupts this preconceived notion and takes the audience by surprise: through the first six scenes, the setting (and year) changes five times! The highly episodic organization of the play is one of its critical components, and is something done quite deliberately. There may be a myriad of reasons why Brecht does so, though to me it seemed as if he aimed to make each scene a smaller play in its own right. Each segment, each scene, each contributing-portion of the overarching story, makes sense by itself – leaving us to fill-in-the-gaps, and thus forcing us to think critically rather than passively. Now, what makes this even more interesting is Brecht’s inclusion of a sort-of “mini-summary” at the outset of each scene (this is predominantly where/how we know the setting and time jumps around so much). Because Brecht gives the audience/reader some context before the scene unfolds, its almost as if he is trying to influence us into establishing some pre-conceived ideas about what to expect, what to feel, or what to believe.

What we come to find out, however, is that the ideas/views we develop in response to these tidbits of information are misguided. For instance, the “mini-summary” preceding scene I mentions Anna Fierling – Mother Courage – loses a son. Many of us might initially feel sorry for her, even though the play literally just started and we have no idea what this really means: How/why did she lose her son? What exactly does “lose” mean (death, kidnapping, he got separated from the wagon, etc.)? Despite having none of these answers, we are nonetheless compelled to feel compassion for the mother; sympathizing for her before the details of the event is revealed to us. As the scene unfolds, this preconceived notion we have (sympathizing for the mother who just a son) becomes much less clear-cut. The losing of her son, as we discover, is partially her fault: because she was so focused on business-affairs, the whereabouts/safety of her children became a secondary concern – opening the door for her son (Eilif) to vanish (into the military). This is but one of many points in the play where the audience is forced to reassess the way they think – to question their preconceived views and ideas.

As a reader, this is an interesting curveball; one that I thought made the play more enticing and engaging. I enjoyed the subtleties of Brecht’s work in challenging our perceptions about social institutions (the above example concerns motherhood and business), and showing us the fragility of those perceptions, which he believed were largely influenced by society. In this, I thought Brecht was extremely effective. He strove to engage us on a deeper level of thoughtfulness by (among other things) telling the story in an episodic fashion, and not allowing us to connect too intimately/emotionally with the characters.