Mother Courage and Her Children (Masterplots, Revised Second Edition)
At a glance:
- Author: Bertolt Brecht
- First Published: 1941
- Type of Work: Drama
- Type of Plot: Play of ideas
- Time of Work: 1624-1648
- Setting: Europe
- Principal Characters: Mother Courage, Kattrin, Eilif, Swiss Cheese, Cook, Chaplain, Yvette Pottier
- Genres: Drama, Problem play
- Subjects: Mothers, Parents and children, Europe or Europeans, War, Seventeenth century, Death or dying, Ethics, Business or business people, Capitalism
- Locales: Europe
The Story:
In 1624, six years into the Thirty Years’ War, a recruiting officer and a sergeant discussed the difficulty of recruiting in Poland, which had been at peace and was not organized for war. Mother Courage’s canteen wagon rolled on, drawn by her two sons, Eilif and Swiss Cheese. Mother Courage and her mute daughter, Kattrin, sat on the wagon. Mother Courage sang a song that both criticized war and enticed officers to buy her wares for their soldiers because “cannon is rough on empty bellies.” She told the officers she had been given the name “Mother Courage”...
[The entire page is 2047 words long]
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