Analysis Of Mother Courage And Her Children

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In order to discuss how Mother Courage and her Children is a piece of epic theatre, I must first define it. Roland Barthes stated “In epic theatre (which proceeds by successive tableaux) all the burden of meaning and pleasure bears on each scene, not on the whole. At the level of the play itself, there is no meaning, no maturation: there is an ideal meaning (given straight in every tableau), but there is no final meaning, nothing but a series of segmentations, each of which possesses a sufficient demonstrative power.” Brecht has said that it can best be described by Döblin who “provided an excellent criterion when he said that with an epic work, as opposed to a dramatic, one can as it were take a pair of scissors and cut it into individual …show more content…

Mother Courage doesn’t learn anything but the audience sees the manipulations and futility of war. Brecht turns the spectator into an observer, he is made to face something, there is a central argument presented (political/social aspect), the human being is alterable and able to alter. Brecht also wants to appeal to reason and not emotion, each scene is for itself (not necessarily following a plot), the development is not linear but happens in curves and jumps. Throughout this essay I will attempt to analyse and explain how Mother Courage and Her Children could be understood as being ‘Epic’. I will be doing this by examining what I have previously stated and applying it to Mother Courage and Her …show more content…

She is the mother of Eilif, Swiss cheese and Kattrin and she spends her time during the play to keep them alive to her own avail. Throughout this play the spectator see’s that Mother courage is completely fixed on her survival, as Brecht has stated she is “understandably bent on her survival, does not learn, failing to understand that no sacrifice is too great to stop war.” When studying epic theatre, there are a list of techniques used, and in the production of Mother Courage Brecht chose to use a lot of these techniques. Some of these techniques include dance, the stage “purged of anything magical” and music. In the national theatre’s production of Mother Courage and Her Children they actually place the musicians on stage and acknowledge that they are

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