Mother Courage
Mother Courage
Brecht opens his play with a conversation between two ordinary soldiers, the first of many choices emphasizing that this is a play about the war's effect in the people. The setting is not pretty the soilder's are cold, and the issue they face is organizational and pragmatic. Rather than presenting an active battle, Bretcht opens with a recruiting officer moaning about how difficult it is to get people involved in the war. The army is presented from the bottom up rather than from the top.
No historically significant figures make appearances in the play, being mentioned only in passing. Mother Courage , her family, and her companions are all the little people, and it's their story which Brecht finds interesting. They usually are unable to extract any benefit from the war. Notice, how often minor characters in the play are given only a profession or a description rather than a proper name.
The first scene is also heavily ironic. that is Brecht expects his audience to be alienated from the sergeant's hyberbolic stories about the villagers who forgot their names due to the absence of war, consequently viewing the opening scene with a suitable degree of ironic detachments. The point is not that war really creates order, but that is a system by which people and civilizations seem to survive. War is a system that most people not only accept but depend upon.
Brecht's purpose in writing the play was to show that in wartime " you need a big pair of scissors in order to get your cut. " Wr, as the play it, is itself a capitalist system designed to makr profit for just a few players, and it is perpetuated for that purpose. Therefore, despite the fact that she is constantly trying to make profit from it, Mother Courage is destined to lose by trading during the war, only the fat cats at the top of the system have a real chance of profiting from it. People in this play are always looking to get their cut, large or small.
Brecht opens his play with a conversation between two ordinary soldiers, the first of many choices emphasizing that this is a play about the war's effect in the people. The setting is not pretty the soilder's are cold, and the issue they face is organizational and pragmatic. Rather than presenting an active battle, Bretcht opens with a recruiting officer moaning about how difficult it is to get people involved in the war. The army is presented from the bottom up rather than from the top.
No historically significant figures make appearances in the play, being mentioned only in passing. Mother Courage , her family, and her companions are all the little people, and it's their story which Brecht finds interesting. They usually are unable to extract any benefit from the war. Notice, how often minor characters in the play are given only a profession or a description rather than a proper name.
The first scene is also heavily ironic. that is Brecht expects his audience to be alienated from the sergeant's hyberbolic stories about the villagers who forgot their names due to the absence of war, consequently viewing the opening scene with a suitable degree of ironic detachments. The point is not that war really creates order, but that is a system by which people and civilizations seem to survive. War is a system that most people not only accept but depend upon.
Brecht's purpose in writing the play was to show that in wartime " you need a big pair of scissors in order to get your cut. " Wr, as the play it, is itself a capitalist system designed to makr profit for just a few players, and it is perpetuated for that purpose. Therefore, despite the fact that she is constantly trying to make profit from it, Mother Courage is destined to lose by trading during the war, only the fat cats at the top of the system have a real chance of profiting from it. People in this play are always looking to get their cut, large or small.