Mutter Courage und ihre Kinder

(Mother Courage and Her Children) by Bertolt Brecht.

   Premiered 1941. The "mother" of the title is Anna Fierling, a camp follower during the Thirty Years' War. Her three children accompany her as she sells liquor and provisions to soldiers. One by one, all three of her children are killed in various situations, and her wagon likewise disintegrates as the play progresses. But Anna courageously muddles on to the end of the play, not fully realizing that she has provided the occasions of her children's misfortunes. Her boast at the end, as she pulls the wagon by herself off the stage, is that she engaged in the business of camp following to provide for her children. Brecht's intention was to show how political systems force people like Fierling into war profiteering and in effect prolong wars. He did his best to "alienate" audiences from the character of Mother Courage in correspondence to his theory of the Verfremdungseffekt, but she nonetheless wins empathy of most spectators by virtue of her remarkable tenacity and wit. Most critics agree that Mother Courage probably fails according to Brecht's theory; the play succeeds remarkably well on its own.