Mother Courage and Her Children | The Danger of Empathy in Mother Courage
In the following critical essay, Woodland discusses
the manner in which audiences identify with
Mother Courage’s continual suffering, examining
Brecht’s dramatic technique and the ways in which
it, quite contrary to the playwright’s intentions,
serves to make his title character such a sympathetic
one.
It is by now a critical commonplace that Brecht’s Mother Courage and her Children owes its success, if indeed it has any, not so much to the author’s implementation of his many theories of playwriting as to his inability, in spite of himself, to put these theories into full practice in his own work. Thus, it is claimed, we respond not to the story of Mother Courage but to the character herself. We are inspired by the woman’s courage and sent home from the theater admiring her fortitude, ourselves encouraged to emulate her ineffably good qualities. We respond to the play in...
[The entire page is 2066 words long]
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