Medea and Mother Courage

A detailed Summary of Medea and Mother Courage

Bertolt Brecht's Mother Courage and Emile Zola's Therese Raquin are both works with characters that possess maternal instinct. There is not a definite explanation for maternal instinct because it can be viewed differently. Although this is true, there is often a stereotype woman with the 'right' qualities of maternal instinct. This often articulates unrealistic images in people's minds. Instinct means "an imposed set of values, imposed by the society" and the way they think a mother should naturally act by. Realistically, the instinct depends on the mother's disposition, the way she wants to behave depends on her emotions, which cannot be articulated. Therefore, it is not possible to impose a definite set of values for how a mother should act for it varies from one mother to another.

Mother Courage is a mother who fights for a living so that her three children can survive the war. War to her is a necessity because she needs the business from the soldiers in order to survive, but on the other hand, war is her ultimate enemy. She is doing everything to keep her and her children from being involved with the war. It was her husband's death that lead to her natural defenses for her children and the war which in turn resu

Madame Raquin occupies the role of a very protective mother in the work, Therese Raquin. She also holds great responsibility for taking care of Camille and his female cousin, Therese. Camille has been ill since his childhood, so she is also considered Camille's guardian angel. During the later years of her life, she virtually had to take care of Camille's friend, Therese's second husband, Laurent, as well. From this, Zola decides to use Camille, Therese and Laurent to demonstrate what he perceives as the 'ideal' maternal instinct.

But just by looking at this protection towards her children, one cannot readily

"[Recruiter to Eilif] ...Got your bounty money here, come along. Eilif stands undecided."

Then loses her two other children because of her own self-interest in trying to protect her cart rather then her children. First she loses Swiss Cheese when she denies of knowing her son as she was asked and as a result, he is executed in agony. So in trade for her cart, she abuses Swiss Cheese's sovereignty. Then she loses her daughter while Kattrin was warning the town of Halle of invasion. These three experiences of 'trade' with war shows that Mother Courage embodies the qualities of cowardice; for preferring the cart for her own welfare over her children, dishonesty; when she denies to the Sargent of knowing Swiss Cheese, and selfishness; for choosing her own benefits once again.

Mother Courage, who had always distasted war, loses her most valuable thing, her bravest son to war whilst bargaining the price of a best with the Sergeant. Here, Brecht uses situational irony as an example of how Mother Courage did not 'meet the criteria' of a stereotyped maternal instinct. Brecht gave Mother Courage an unconventional response to losing her son, where she is very unsentimental when she realizes her son is lost.

Zola chose to use irony to show the great impact that Madame R

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Approximate Word count = 1283
Approximate Pages = 5 (250 words per page double spaced)

Category: English