Reading Order
Mother CourageMother Courage and Her Children Reading Order
Mother Courage and Her Children (1939) by Bertolt Brecht is the most important play of the twentieth century in the Brechtian tradition — the canteen woman Anna Fierling (Mother Courage), who pulls her cart through the Thirty Years War (1618-1648), selling provisions to soldiers on both sides, and loses all three of her children (Eilif, Swiss Cheese, and Kattrin) to the war she is profiting from, without ever understanding the connection. Brecht wrote the play in 1939 in the three weeks after the invasion of Poland, as a warning against the war he saw coming, and to his disgust, audiences consistently sympathized with Mother Courage rather than seeing her as the object of critique he intended: they saw her as the indomitable survivor rather than the war profiteer whose commercial complicity keeps the war going. The play's most famous scene — Mother Courage denying that the dead Swiss Cheese is her son in order to protect herself from implication — and its most famous image — Kattrin beating the drum to wake the sleeping city of Halle, knowing she will be shot — are the images around which the play's central questions orbit: what is heroism, what is complicity, and what does the commercial system of modern war make of both?
Where to start
Mother Courage and Her Children (1939, premiered 1941) — in Eric Bentley's translation (the standard English text) or David Hare's 2010 version. Best Brecht reading order: The Threepenny Opera → Mother Courage → The Good Woman of Setzuan → The Caucasian Chalk Circle → Life of Galileo → Galileo
Complete Mother Courage Book List
- 1Buy
Mother Courage and Her Children
Bertolt Brecht·1941·The most important Brecht play — Mother Courage, the cart, and the Thirty Years War. Written in 1939 in three weeks after the invasion of Poland; Brecht's warning against the war that was coming. The play that established Brecht's reputation in the postwar period; the 1949 Berliner Ensemble production under Brecht's direction with Helene Weigel as Mother Courage is one of the great theatrical productions of the twentieth century - 2Buy
The Good Woman of Setzuan
Bertolt Brecht·1943·The companion Brecht play — the good woman Shen Te in a Chinese city, who must invent a ruthless male cousin Shui Ta to protect the goodness she cannot otherwise maintain. The Good Woman of Setzuan and Mother Courage are companion investigations of the same Brecht question: what does it mean to be good in a bad system? Both plays refuse any comfortable answer - 3Buy
The Threepenny Opera
Bertolt Brecht·1928·The earlier companion — Macheath ('Mack the Knife'), Polly Peachum, Jenny, and the London underworld. The Threepenny Opera and Mother Courage are companion investigations of the capitalism that Brecht believed organized modern life: in The Threepenny Opera, capitalism is investigated through the comic-satiric analogy between criminal enterprise and business; in Mother Courage, it is investigated through the catastrophic analogy between commercial enterprise and war - 4Buy
Life of Galileo
Bertolt Brecht·1943·The companion Brecht play — Galileo Galilei's recantation of the Copernican theory under pressure from the Inquisition. Life of Galileo and Mother Courage are companion investigations of the same Brecht question: when is self-preservation heroic and when is it complicity? Galileo's recantation is Mother Courage's denial of her son, transposed into the intellectual sphere - 5Buy
All Quiet on the Western Front
Erich Maria Remarque·1929·Remarque's companion in the literary tradition of the anti-war text that refuses to glamorize war — Paul Bäumer's experience in the trenches of the First World War. Mother Courage and All Quiet on the Western Front are companion investigations of what war actually does to ordinary people, but from different formal positions: Remarque's is the first-person naturalistic account; Brecht's is the epic-theatrical account designed to prevent sympathetic identification - 6Buy
The Good Soldier Švejk
Jaroslav Hašek·1923·Hašek's companion in the Central European anti-war tradition — the hapless Czech soldier Švejk's adventures in the Austro-Hungarian army during the First World War. Mother Courage and The Good Soldier Švejk are companion investigations of the relationship between the ordinary person and the military system: Hašek's Švejk survives by radical compliance; Brecht's Courage survives by commercial adaptation; both are investigations of survival in a system that should be resisted - 7Buy
The Caucasian Chalk Circle
Bertolt Brecht·1948·The companion Brecht play — the servant girl Grusha who flees with the governor's baby during a revolution, and the rogue judge Azdak who decides the case about who is the baby's true mother. The Caucasian Chalk Circle is the more hopeful companion to Mother Courage: where Mother Courage ends in catastrophe, The Caucasian Chalk Circle ends in a kind of imperfect justice - 8Buy
Antigone
Sophocles·441·Sophocles's companion in the theatrical tradition of the woman who must choose between the demands of the state and the demands of her own moral sense — Antigone's burial of Polynices. Brecht made his own adaptation of Antigone (1948) as a direct political statement, and the comparison between Sophocles's Antigone and Brecht's Mother Courage is illuminating: Antigone refuses to survive in the system that would require her complicity; Mother Courage does not refuse, and loses everything anyway
Mother Courage — Frequently Asked Questions
What is the moral of Mother Courage by Brecht?
Brecht's intended moral — which he was frustrated to discover audiences did not receive — is that Mother Courage is not an admirable survivor but a war profiteer whose commercial complicity keeps the war going. The argument goes like this: the Thirty Years War is sustained by a commercial system of supply and demand (armies need provisions, Mother Courage sells them), and Mother Courage is part of that system. Her losses — Eilif killed for a heroic act that is heroic in war but criminal in peace; Swiss Cheese executed for protecting the regimental cash box; Kattrin shot for beating the drum to warn the people of Halle — are all consequences of the war she is profiting from. Brecht wanted audiences to see that the same system that profits Mother Courage also kills her children, and that her failure to draw the connection is the play's indictment. But audiences consistently sympathized with Mother Courage, seeing her as the indomitable woman who survives against all odds rather than the woman whose survivalism is the play's subject of critique. Brecht's 'Verfremdungseffekt' (alienation effect) — the formal technique he designed to prevent exactly this sympathetic identification — failed in the case of his most performed play. The play's moral is about commercial complicity in systems of violence; audiences' response to the play is about the human capacity to see survival as heroism.
Monthly Newsletter
Never miss a big release
Get the most anticipated upcoming books delivered to your inbox once a month — no spam, no filler.
Monthly only. Unsubscribe anytime.
Book links are Amazon affiliate links. As an Amazon Associate, BookReleaseRadar earns from qualifying purchases at no extra cost to you.