In the 1920s, Bertolt Brecht began to formulate his ideas and develop his aesthetic of "epic theater," a style utilized in both Mother Courage and Her Children and Three Penny Opera. Writing alongside the rise of fascism in Europe, Brecht sought to distance the audience from the dramatic action of the play and discourage an emotional connection between the characters and the spectators. Brecht referred to this as verfremdungseffekt, translated as the defamiliarization or alienation effect.

Brecht considered the theater to be a place of intellectual and rational understanding, not a place for a sentimental experience. Because of this, Brecht used verfremdungseffekt to break the audience's habit of emotionally investing in the characters onstage. It is important to note that while Brecht did not want the audience to emotionally invest in the characters in the play, he did want the spectators to rationally engage with the characters and their situations.

Both plays serve as examples of Bertolt Brecht's "epic theatre". They are structured more like epic poems than the traditional tragedies that follow Aristotle's rules. In both plays, the audience is in a way forced to consider not only the plot, but the purpose of the play as it is being performed. They are designed to stimulate intellectual concentration of their themes as those themes are presented. This technique is furthered through Brecht's use of "alienation effects". The audience’s emotional involvement with the play and its characters is limited, in order to focus on the meaning of the action and its inherent social criticism.

Brecht also uses irony extensively in his plays. For example, Mother Courage takes an ironic look at war and its effects. Wrapped up in the struggle for survival, it is this very struggle which leads to the deaths of her children. So, while the entire play is centered around her attempt to keep her family alive, it actually leads to their demise.