Virtues in the Business of War

I am now approaching the end of my first quarter in humanities and we have moved on to Mother Courage by Brecht. This book is adaptation from Grimmelshausen’s book “Simplicius Simplicissimus” and also takes place during the 30 year war. In the play, Brecht conveys Fierling, or more known as Mother Courage as a woman with vast bravery and a motherly figure to her children keeping them alive at the beginning of the play. This however, changes as the play progresses and mother courage begins to lose her children whom represent virtues one by one. Mother Courage’s virtues slowly die off because of her indulgence with survival.

Swiss Cheese, Courage’s youngest son is in procession of the virtue of honesty and because he is the youngest one, he still has more innocence than all the other characters. He is the first of Mother Courage’s three children to die, this signifies how Courage loses her honestly and loyalty to anyone during the wartime first. For the sake of her own survival, she cannot be honest or loyal at times of war. Humans will always tend to deny their own beliefs amidst the war and sit in silence. Abnegation is prevalent throughout the play, such as when the Chaplin denies his own religion when the Catholics came to Courage’s carriage claiming “All good Catholics here”. Another example of this, is when Mother Courage’s own denial of claiming her son, she denies her own son in the sake of survival as decpicted in the picture below. Virtue is silenced at time of war by the atrocities that war creates.

Meryl Streep as Mother Courage in Theater of War

Kattrin represents both the virtues of kindness and pity, and the traumas of war. A soldier “stuck something in her mouth when she was small” this represents that the war made her mute, the violence caused her silence. Kattrin is unable to stand loss around her especially when they consist of children, she saves the child in the farm during scene five. In addition, the cause of her death was in order to save the “Children of Halle”. She represents all of war’s helpless victims as she is unable to save Eilif from recruitment or Swiss Cheese from the catholic spies. However, she displays to us through her indirect “speaking” with the drums that the smallest of actions against war can yield great consequences. No one has to be a victim of war, it’s a choice and Kattrin proves this by saving a whole town through her actions despite having no voice her actions still attain a consequence. She is one of the only characters to actually display a sense of courage with her actions. Courage does not derive from following orders, but from going against them when your life lies on the line.

Eilif is seen since the beginning by the two soldiers seeking to recruit young folks like him as a brave and dashing individual. Eleif is the representation of Courage’s virtues of bravery and loyalty. After his death, Courage is offered to go with the Chaplin, an offer that will yield a stable job output however, only if she will leave Kattrin behind. She of course refuses as her sense of loyalty towards anyone has died yet she still has Kattrin, her little virtue that she will cling on to until the end where she is taken from her too.

After all her children have passes, she is in possession of no more virtues, she has lost her virtues to war and has learned nothing. Real courage derives from refraining to obey the war and capitalism, something ironically Mother Courage fails to do. Her need to survive lead her to a path of capitalism in war, because of her need for survival she neglects her virtues, losing them and her will to create a change stuck in a never ending business of war.

Mother Courage's Struggle

Works Cited

• Brecht, Bertolt. Mother Courage and Her Children. Trans. Tony Kushner. New York: Bloomsbury, 2014. Print.

• Mother Courage’s struggle. Digital image. The Acting Co. N.p., n.d. Web. 11 Nov. 2015. <http://theactingcompany.org/plays/2014-15-season/mother-courage-and-her-children>.

• Meryl Streep as mother courage in theater of war. Digital image. The Mumpsimus. N.p., 2008. Web. 11 Nov. 2015. <http://mumpsimus.blogspot.com/2010/10/theater-of-war.html>.