R.D National College of Arts, Commerce and W.

A Science College,
Bandra - 400050

Affiliated to University of Mumbai, Mumbai

Department of M.A English Literature

Semester - I

PAENG303 - Paper XII: Drama

Play and Author: Mother Courage and Her Children by Bertolt Brecht

Topic: Mother Courage and Her Children is an anti-capitalist play

by

Ammar Kachwala

M.A English Literature (Part I - 2019)

Roll No: 59

Mother Courage and Her Children as Anti-Capitalist

Capitalism: Capitalism is an economic system where the commerce of goods, trade,
business, production etc lies with private conglomerates instead of government bodies.
They, by extension, also maintain control over labour, capital, natural resources, and
entrepreneurship. Ownership or maintaining control over labour needs context and
analysis to be defined due to certain labour situations being close to slavery. Additionally,
labour involves people hence it is a complicated aspect. Capitalism follows the mantra
"Greed is good" and is fully profit-driven at its core. Quantity is the essence of
Capitalism as greater amounts formulate to greater profits and control. For example, the
number of shares an individual has in a company enables them to exercise greater
influence over others in decision-making, lets them choose their own directors, and
thereby lets them be in charge of their profits. Capitalism is a competitive playground
where the prices are set as high as possible and costs as low as possible. This
competitiveness is also displayed by Anna in Mother Courage through her cold approach
to business and incessant bargaining. Additionally, she places her business at the top of
her priorities and desperately seeks out profitable situations. Sergeant says to Anna, "A
minute back you were admitting you live off the war, how else should you live, what
from?"

During the 12-15th centuries, the economy was run by Feudal lords wherein their work
was done by labourers in their region for which the labourers were expected to pay rent
from their harvest. This economy was narrowed down further by additional restrictions
such as withholding business to go outside the regional lord's geographical boundaries
and limited land for the labourers to work on. The leftover from the labourer's yield
would be spent into buying goods from the town craftsmen. After the 15th century, the
Feudal economic system started to falter due to the fact that there was a stark increase in
foreign trade resulting in an influx of merchants and mercantile capitalism. Merchants
were known to purchase goods from foreign lands for cheap and sell the obtained goods
for much higher prices. There was business outside and within Europe which undermined
the regional structure of Feudalism. The goods were usually sold to merchants who could
travel anywhere for commerce and through colonization, it was beneficial for the
dominating country to impose taxes and travel restrictions upon other nations looking for
business opportunities. Therefore, the market forces were the ones affecting prices,
supply & demand, and production instead of Feudal regimes. Ultimately, through
business tactics such as supplying the raw materials and paying wages for work done in
producing goods, the merchants started climbing the economic power scale and
essentially controlled the aspects of production. This is what started Capitalism as we
know it.

Capitalism has evolved from Feudalism and Mercantilism during 12-17th centuries, then
drastically inflated its reach during the Industrial Era with immense industrialization of
mass-market products. Capitalism urges the enforcement of capital and incentives being
derived from the capital just to repeat the process. Capitalism is the opposite of
Socialism; One represents authoritative ownership and the other represents shared and
collective distribution of the economy. Many commend Capitalism, they say that the rich
are more virtuous than the poor hence justifying the position the rich are in.

Bertolt Brecht - His political stance and Mother Courage: Bertolt Brecht was a
thorough Communist and Marxist. Marxism is similar to Communism in the sense that
both work towards economic equality. Although, Marxism in addition to Communist
theories, also maintains that exploitation derived from Capitalism will eventually result in
a revolution overthrowing Capitalism. In 1926, Brecht wrote that by reading Vladimir
Lenin's State and Revolution and then Marx's Kapital he understood where he stood.
Furthermore, he had formed close friendships with individuals who were also inclined
towards Marxism namely Hanns Eisler, Kurt Weill, and Karl Korsch, the latter said to
have introduced Brecht into Marxism in the first place. Brech used to attend Korsch's
discussion groups.

Brecht believed that true social change could only manifest through active involvement
from workers to counterbalance social antagonism (born from Capitalism) with collective
ownership of production and hence the economy. One of the purposes of Brecht's Epic
Theatre was to not only deliver or represent a social problem but also to discover
solutions. His plays were designed for intellect rather than emotion. He aimed that his
theatre would be "full of experts, just as one has sporting arenas full of experts."

It is often suggested that Capitalism depends on war, and capitalism is inevitable during
wars. How true this is can be debated but the statement does have some truth in it.
Capitalism is considered as the winner of World War II, especially in the case of the
Soviet Union and the USA. However, Capitalism is not entirely beneficial.

Brecht illustrates through his play Mother Courage and Her Children that how
Capitalism wrongfully influences susceptible individuals into acts of heartless
endeavours of gaining profits for which they end up bankrupting their morality which
later becomes their liability. The character that embodies most Capitalist traits is Anna
Fierling (Mother Courage). Typical of Brecht's realism, Anna is someone who contains
her share of good and bad traits. While she can be considered straightforward and
headstrong she can also be short-sighted and stubborn in her behaviour. She has certain
desperation for business, which is understandable for a certain extent, but to lose her
children because of it is extreme. The first example of it is in the first scene itself wherein
Anna is so engrossed in business with the Sergeant that she doesn't notice her eldest son,
Eilif, is taken away by the Recruiting Officer in order to enrol him in the Army. The play
features all 3 of Anna's dying while Anna is away on business. Her second son, Swiss
Cheese, becomes a paymaster after Eilif is taken away. His doom comes when he hides
the regiment's paybox and is executed because of it. It is interesting to note that during
the whole situation, Anna first attempts to bribe the soldiers for Swiss Cheese's freedom,
save his life, and redeem the money from the paybox. However, when Swiss Cheese
reveals that he has thrown the paybox in a river, Anna coldheartedly cuts down on the
bargain which results in Swiss being executed. This particular instance is perhaps the
most capitalistic version of Anna. History repeats itself when Kattrin is killed by soldiers
while Anna is nowhere to be found. Now Kattrin is the third child of Anna, her only
daughter, and the kindest from the bunch. Brecht speaks to us, the audience, through
Kattrin's unfair fate. Even though the play takes place during 'The Thirty Years War', one
must keep in mind that war never changes. It always harms the common people, workers,
and whoever that isn't among the richest while benefiting the higher-ups and that is what
Brecht believed and aimed to show us. We see that Kattrin, an innocent, is tormented in
unimaginable ways. Swiss Cheese, with all his drawbacks, was still a good person whose
fate proved unfairly worse than his karma. Anna's story holds more complications than
the rest of the characters in the play. Anna does possess a capitalistic mindset, as seen
through her acts of bargaining, way of business, and her inner longing for war. During a
brief peacetime in the play, she contemplates the next war. On the contrary, Anna is, in
reality, a poor individual desperately trying to survive in times of utmost turmoil. She is a
realistic character because it is difficult to pinpoint her personality. While her intentions
are understandable, one can't help but hate her capitalistic ways of exercising those
intentions. For example, at the end of the play when all her children are dead and she is
left with hardly any stock, she simply resolves to "get back to business." Although Anna
didn't lose her life, she lost much of everything else, that being her children (who
could've been her backbone for business later in life), her ethics, and perhaps the most
important to her - profits. Brecht has portrayed Anna's fate as a cup half full. Contrary to
those who propagate war and completely gain money from it, Anna only credits
temporary livelihood and debits peace and solitude with loved ones. It serves as a
realistic conclusion to capitalistic endeavours, considered as a devaluation of humanity.
Just like great plays, Mother Courage and Her Children too, instructs and it does so
through the estrangement/distancing effect from Brecht's Epic Theatre which encourages
critical thinking regarding the art.

Brecht was against Nazism and Fascism for which he was exiled. He was also against
Capitalism in Fascism and during his exile is when he wrote Mother Courage and Her
Children. He wanted to present the Fascist Capitalism for the war seeking and rich-get-
richer-poor-get-poorer regime that it was. War and Capitalism depend on each other to
survive by churning out the already lacking resources from the poor. In the play, the
concept of peace is criticized as being a period of laziness and war is shown as
purposeful. However, the very argument is at best baseless and absurd because it doesn't
take into account the injustice of war towards common people. The fact that everyone is
registered into the candidates' list mindlessly (like Eilif) shows how people are reduced to
mere commodities and how commercial war is.

Virtues were seen as fatal flaws during wars, for the virtuous always seeks to do to the
right thing and it ends up getting backfired. In scene 9 of the play, 'The Song of The Great
Souls of the Earth' is sung by the Cook, in which, the tragedies of Solomon, Julius
Caesar, Socrates, and Saint Martin are recalled. They stand parallel with Anna and her 3
children in terms of fate and virtues. Solomon represented wisdom, Caesar represented
bravery, Socrates represented honesty, and Saint Martin represented kindness. We see that
Anna loses everything by the end of the play due to her choices, Eilif is executed because
of his untimely display of bravery, Swiss Cheese is executed for hiding the paybox
attempting to be honest to his side of the war, and Kattrin is shot by the invading soldiers
for her kind act of alerting the villagers beforehand about the invasion. Capitalism in war
drives individuals to commit unethical acts in the name of survival and punishes
injudiciously the virtuous. By contrasting Socrates and the like with Anna and her
children, Brecht puts forward a bitter circumstance.

Conclusion: By adding all the elements of Capitalism, Brecht's affiliation towards

Marxism, Socialism, Communism, etc, and the analysis of Mother Courage and Her
Children it can be established that the play speaks from the writer's point of view the anti-
capitalist ideas contained within. Brecht's life of exile, Epic Theatre, political thinking,
friendships, etc too come in play as his design of Mother Courage and Her Children and
the themes of it reflect the thoughts Brecht had regarding Capitalism, Nazi Germany, and
war. Moreover, he constructed his play in the form of Epic Theatre which was famous for
its alienation effect consequently making the play a social dialogue rather than
entertainment.

References
 1. Capitalism, Its Characteristics, with Pros and Cons

https://www.thebalance.com/capitalism-characteristics-examples-pros-cons-3305588

2. Bertolt Brecht

https://www.cs.brandeis.edu/~jamesf/goodwoman/brecht_bio.html

3. Mother Courage and Her Children Play (written in 1939)