Mother Courage
Bertolt Brecht, In Mother Courage, challenges the accepted concepts of three major values of western society: capitalism, religion, and heroes. He shows how capitalism is flawed by the actions Mother Courage does in order to sustain herself. He challenges religion by showing the hypocrisy of its leaders. Brecht rejects the traditional notion of a hero as being obsolete and presents in the story two examples of traditional heroism and the outcome.Mother Courage represents the people who struggle to survive in a capitalist system. As a result of her position, she has to be greedy, impersonal, and solely interested in the welfare of her business. Brecht does intend that Mother Courage be seen a proponent of the capitalist system, but as being a victim of the system, working for basic survival. “They call me Courage, sergeant, because when I saw ruin staring me in the face I drove out of Riga through cannon fire with fifty loaves of bread in my wagon. They were getting moldy, I had no choice.” An example of Mother Courage’s greediness is when Swiss Cheese is caught as a Protestant soldier. Mother Courage’s primary concern is to bribe the Catholics for the release of Swiss Cheese with as little money as possible. Her haggling takes t
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Some common words found in the essay are:
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Approximate Word count = 1005
Approximate Pages = 4 (250 words per page double spaced)
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