The most surprising aspect of this play that defies the readers expectations would have to be the ways that the characters are destroyed. At least to me, when reading the title Mother Courage and Her Children, I assumed that the children would play a significant role in the play and maintain a presence through until the end of the plot. However, contrary to these expectations, they all disappear from the story in saddening ways. Even though Mother Courage “predicts” this fate for each of her children, it still comes as a surprise for readers to see it followed through with.
The first to disappear from the plot (although seen later) is Eilif. Eilif betrays his mother’s wishes when he decides to enlist with the recruitment officer in the first scene. She makes the argument that he will die in battle and it is a foolish decision to get involved in the war. As she says, “Eilif, Swiss Cheese, and Kattrin, may all of us be torn apart like this if we lets ourselves get too mixed up in the war.” She sees the war as nothing but a death sentence and only wants minimal involvement for her capitalist desires. She relies on the army men to consumer the supplies of her cart. Eilif’s opinions don’t synchronize with Mother Courage’s and he follows the recruitment officer to his death. When he reappears as a prisoner of committing war crimes, the soldier says that he is going to do “Something not nice” to him. Eilif tells the cook that the only thing he should tell his mother is, “Tell her it wasn’t any different, tell her it was the same thing. Or tell her nowt.” This message seems to radiate a feeling of regret, and sadness about the life that he missed, and will miss out on as he gets executed/imprisoned. I get the feeling that Eilif recognizes that Courage was correct all along and is simply too proud to come out and say it.
The next to go is Swiss Cheese. He obtains the job of paymaster for the army and comes into the possession of a cash box. When the opposing army is soon approaching Courage, Swiss Cheese, and Kattrin, Swiss Cheese must hide the box so that it isn’t taken from him. Similar to Eilif, he faces an issue of pride. His duty to hold onto the pay box is valued the same as his life. When the sergeant interrogates Swiss Cheese on the whereabouts of the item that he placed by the river, Swiss Cheese lies and denies until his death. He is led off and later shot a multitude of times. His character dies as a victim of not giving up money to the opposing army. In this way, he could be seen as similar to Courage because of the fact that they are willing to do so much for material possessions. While Mother Courage predicted death for all of her children, this death, along with Eilif’s, both come as a surprise to readers.
As for Kattrin, it is not until the end of the play that she perishes. Left alone, after incurring a few traumatic experiences, she signs her own death certificate when she refuses to stop banging on her drum. She knows what is coming as she is crying while drumming louder and louder as the soldier is telling her to cease. While it is difficult to understand her character because of her disabilities, it can be seen that Kattrin experiences the same inability to refrain from something that brings her to her death just like the cases of her siblings. From the beginning of the play, it would never be guessed that the dumb, mute, daughter of Mother Courage would become so scarred by the events that occur in her lifetime, or that she would end up dead.
Through their unexpected deaths, one can come to the conclusion that each of the children of Mother Courage meet their deaths through an inability to know when to stop. In Eilif’s case, it was his inability to stop committing war crimes which is evident from the point when he says that he had committed them before. In Swiss Cheese’s case, he wasn’t able to stop acting dumb when the sergeant repeatedly asking him for the pay box and even when the threat of his life came into the picture. Finally, Kattrin couldn’t quit her drumming when the soldiers were trying to maintain a quiet atmosphere which led to her death. This lack of knowledge as to when to stop that leads to death comes as a total shock when each character dies off. If Brecht’s goal was to bring surprise through this manner, then I believe that he was very effective in doing so.
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