Bertolt Brecht's Play - Mother Courage and Her Children

In Bertolt Brecht's play Mother Courage and Her Children we can examine the relationship Mother Courage has with her children during this tough time of the Thirty Years War. In particular, Mother Courage's and Kattrin's relationship opposes society's views of a traditional mother and daughter bond and stresses to the reader to learn from their mistakes and to embrace what they have. Kattrin's self-sacrifice at the end of the play brought to light the genuine qualities of both of these characters selfishness in Mother Courage and selflessness in Kattrin. In scenes 1, 5, 6, 11 and 12 we especially see these characters develop into who they truly are.

Early in the play we learn that Mother Courage is infatuated with her wagon more than she is with her own children. As much as she wanted to keep her children safe, her business interfered with her fully being attentive to her kids. Mute Kattrin tries to get her mother's attention by "emitting raucous sounds" to keep her brother from going off with the recruiter but her mother is too fixated on making a sale. "Just a minute Kattrin, Just a minute. The sergeant's paying up" (338). Eilif, her eldest son volunteers to join the army and untimely dies. Had Mother Courage listened to Kattrin's efforts in getting her attention Eilif may have never left his families side. Mother Courage sees Kattrin as an idiotic girl and does not take her seriously, thus explaining why she didn't take notice of her daughter's cries. "Always keep very quiet, that ought to be easy seeing you're dumb" (338). This scene clearly depicts Mother Courage's egotistic personality.

In scene 5, we see The Chaplain in need of a bandage and Kattrin is more than glad to hand some linen over but Mother Courage responds "I can't give you a thing. With all of my taxes, duties, fees, and bribes! I can't give you anything, you can't make me I've got to think of myself" (359). In this same scene that we see Mother Courage's greed, we see Kattrin's valiance and sympathy. "Kattrin emerges from the ruins carrying a baby" only to find that her mother disapproves of her heroic performance. Instead she says to her "Oh, so you've found another baby to carry around with you? Give that baby back to its mother this minute, or it'll take me all day to get it away from you" (359). Kattrin shows more maternal instincts than her mother ever did towards her own children.

In scene 6 Mother Courage sends her daughter into town and isn't worried about someone assaulting her because she's "not pretty enough" (362). Kattrin comes back from town raped and with a "wound across her forehead and over one eye," still managing to defend her mother's merchandise in the process (363). In response, instead of showing remorse for sending her loyal daughter