Dhara's assignments

Paper - 5

Assignment  Topic

Mother Corage and Her Children

 

Name –Bhatt  Dhara Janakkumar

Roll No -06  MA-1

Year-2010-11

Submitted To–JaySir

Mother Corage and Her Children

       

Preface:

        Brecht states in the courage model book that the play conceive of war as

 

“continution of business some by means”

        War is neither some supernatural force nor simply a rupture in civilization but one of civilization‘s precondition and logical consequences. Mother courage is the play’s primary small businesswomen, parasitically living off of the war with her canteen wagon .As the model book observes the

“Big profit are not made by little people”

        Courage ‘s commitment to the business of  war  will cost her children ,the war taking back for what it has provided her in flash. 

A Complex Personality; and our Mixed Reaction to her:

       

        Mother Courage  is one of the best known character in modern European drama .Whatever Brecht’s own intention in portraying this itself creates in our minds the image of a formidable women possessing several admirable qualities though also suffering from  certain faults and  weaknesses. The contradictions in her perfectly understandable; and in fact. This contradiction   in her perfectly understandable; and in fact, these contradictions renders her all the more convincing our reaction to Brecht’s portrayal  of this woman is not only one of sympathy with her but  also one of the certain dislike of her.

        This woman has a complex character. In other words, she is many. Sides personality. She is not a simple kind of woman whose character can be summed up   in one or one phrase .Mother courage is it borrow a phrase from Walter Benjamin , the play’s “untragic heroin “. Her children can certainly be summed up character is a compound of several traits .

Her Bold, almost defiant manner of speaking:

       

        Mother courage is a bold women .who speaks to the recruiting officer and the sergeant in defiant ,almost  challenging  manner to  prevent  them from recruiting her sons in the army .she goes to the extent of pulling out her knife and threatening  to attack them if they go ahead with their plan she recruit her sons .Subsequently she often speaks in a curt and even haughty manner to catholic as well as protestant manner army  officers ,regarding  of the side to which they belong she has an elastic nature and can add part herself to changes in her circumstances.

A shrewd But Not an expert Business Women:

       

        Mother Courage is shrewd business and also a hard bargainer .she shows this trait of her character in the manner in which she haggled over the price of the capon which .she wishes to sell to the Swedish commander’s cook ; and later snatches  away a  fur coat from a soldier who has no cash to pay to her the brandy which ,he has drunk at the counter. In managing her canteen – business , she is all the worrying about the rise and fail in prices .And yet we cannot say that she is an expert business women because she is always seeking advice from others whether to dispose of her merchandise or to add to it .She consult the chaplain and later the cook about the course of action which she should adopt in this matter.

A    practical  women with a strong common sense:

       

        Mother courage has a strong and sturdy common sense .she is practical women who,  harbors   no illusion or false hopes .she knows that people that is why in opening  scene ,she being enlisted in the army she needs her sons for running her only source of livelihood . Later in the play ,she rejects the chaplain ‘s proposal to her because the chaplain does not attract her as a would be husband . still later  ,she agrees to accompany to cook to his native town of Utrecht because now it suits her to settle down to  comfortable kind of existence and to bid good bye to her traveling canteen business .she is now willing to ignore the cook’s past misdeeds because she thinks that she can handle him .Even both the chaplain and the cook that she would like them to behave towards her decently and that she could handle them both if they misbehaved.

The Basic Contradiction in Her character:

       

        The chief contradiction in the character  of Mother Courage is her advocacy of war and ,at the same time her opposition to was ,very often she expresses a strong desire for the continuance of this war ,but something,she also expresses a hatred of this war.

        When for instance the war has stopped because of sudden death of king Gustavas, she deplored the fact and tells the cook that the return of pence has “broken her neck “. She lament the end of war because now she would suffer a heavy loss as a result of decline in princes, and she may even loss her means of livelihood because it is only during the war that her canteen business, which caters only to the soldiers, can be carried on. It is because she disproved of the return of peace and express a strong preference for the war that the chaplain calls her “A hyena of the battlefield”

        And yet is it at this wary point that, replying to the chaplain ,she says :

                   

“There isn’t much love lost between me and the war”

        Meaning that she hates the war ; and she then goes on to tell him that she can no longer keep company with because he has called her a hyena of the battle field.

        All this clearly shows that she support the war and continuous because she can make a living by the sale of her good to the because the end of the war would mean the end of the canteen business. Her desire for continuous of the war only shows desire for her  own and her dumb daughter’s survival.

        Apart from being a mean of livelihood for her and her dumb daughter, the war is something which she detests and hate. There is one speech which clearly and unambiguously shows her hatred of war; and she makes that speech just after her daughter Kathrin been attacked and wounded by drunken soldier.

        In that speech she says that the movement of her daughter having been wounded upon her eye is a hioric movement to her because her daughter now never gets a husband.

        Even the Kathrin’s dumbness, she says that, was the result of the war because a soldiers had trust something into her mouth when she was little child. And then she adds the following words which almost break our heart.

“I will not see Swiss again and where my filif is the good  lords knows , curse the war.”

        In this connection we might refer to the song in which she says that the war is a business proposition and in which she also says that the soldiers who digs a whole to creep into it finds that he has dug only a grace for himself.

As self sacrificing kind of Mother:

       

        More than anything else Mother courage is a mother .Her love for her children is boundless .It will be utterly wrong to say that ,she loves money above her children ,or that she is merchant ,first and a mother afterward .

        She decide to sacrifice the very means of her own survival in order to save her son’s life .It is true that she wavers so much in coming to this decision that Swiss cheese is executed before her decision can be carried into effect ;but that is just her had luck and not unwillingness to make the sacrifice.

        After all ,she was thinking of kattrin to while coming to decision and indeed we cannot ignore her constant solicitude about the welfare of the dumb kattrin with what delicacy and affection does she tend kattrin when the unfortunately girl  has receive a bad wound over the eye !But the supreme moment of Mother Courage’s spirit of self sacrifice  comes when she decide not to go with cook to Utrecht but to stay with her daughter kattrin.

Her callousness  on one Occasion certainly a Fault :

       

        In the scene in which she refuses to give some linen away to be used for bandages when a number of protestants have been wounded in a catholic attack ,she certainly appears something of a hyena .

        The callousness in her is definitely a flaw in her character and we are not prepared to make light of it ,But this flaw shows that she is a human being after All .At the same time we should guard against calling her a monster on the basic of this fault in her.

Her Sense of humour ; Her wit and capacity for sarcasm:

       

        She has a strong sense of humor,and she has also the capacity to makes witty and sarcastic remarks .she can hold her own in a conversation ,no matter to  the whom she is talking .she shows this quality in opening scene when she has to deal with a recruiting officer and a sergeant who are of course ,close allies against her.

        When the cook ,feeling irritated ,says that she is opposing him tooth and nail ,she replies

“Don’t tell me you have been dreaming of my teeth and nails “

        Here is a part of that speech

“For weeks on end ,no grub Then when they get some by way of plunder ,they jump on top of the women folk”.

        What Mother Courage here means to say is that the soldier ,who have been starving ;not only plunder a town for food but also rape the women folk of the town.

A Tragic Figure Because of Her Spirit of Endurance :

       

        Mother courage deserves our admiration for all misfortunes .She does not collapse ,and she does not give way to despair .In the final scene of the play ,after she has lost her dumb daughter ,she yet has enough spirit left n her to be able to start her business afresh .She hardnesses herself to the wagon and get ready for the coming ordeals of her life .

        Mother courage is indeed a women of courage ; and This courage and the spirit of endurance which goes with it ,raise her for above average womanhood.

        At the end ,she strikes us a tragic figure because of her heroic endurance of her misfortunes ; and now her support of the war or her advocacy of the war can also be seen by us in the proper perceptive. The end we find her once more hoping to earn her livelihood from the continuance of the war .

Conclusion :

       

        Mother courage would impel its spectators to oppose war. We have no hesitations in affirming that Brecht’s own intentions regard to portrayal of Mother courage have not been fulfilled .We have understood the figure of Mother courage ; and she arouses not only our sympathy but also empathy on most occasion in the play.