Bertolt Brecht’s view on the function of theatre was that it should provoke its audience to change. The epic theatre, Karl Marx and German directors Max Reinhardt and Erwin Piscator were all inspiration for Brecht’s theory on the social function of theatre. (??? 2004: 709)

Brecht’s essays ‘Theatre for Pleasure or Theatre for Instruction’ and ‘The Modern Theatre is the Epic Theatre’ clearly outline his understanding of what epic theatre is and how it should be used in practice. In both essays, Brecht explains what makes the epic theatre different from modern and dramatic theatre and discusses the techniques available with epic theatre and the effects they can have on the audience. When comparing his play Mother Courage and Her Children to the two essays, it is clear that Brecht has used the essays almost as guidelines to write the play and put his theories on epic theatre into practice. Mother Courage and Her Children is an extremely typical Brechtian play as it contains all the elements that Brecht wanted to include in his plays in order to present his new form of theatre which he believed had a greater social function.

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One of the most obvious examples of Brecht’s essays being put into practice in Mother Courage and Her Children is Brecht’s use of narrative instead of the plot. Each scene begins with a narrative description of what will happen in that scene, and the play itself starts with a prologue which introduces the central character (Mother Courage) and reveals what the play is about. Despite the fact that there is a storyline running through the play, the narrative style ties in with Brecht’s aim of not giving the audience the chance to become emotionally attached to the characters. The way in which the play jumps with each scene keeps the storyline general and tied more to the greater social events running throughout the play rather than single, individual events in a particular scene.

Having spent much of his life in Germany and experiencing two world wars, it should come as no surprise that many of Brecht’s plays, including Mother Courage and Her Children, feature war as the overriding theme of the play. Brecht believed that war was ‘a continuation of business by other means.’

Brecht’s theory on theatre meant that he did not want his audience to emotionally empathise with the characters on stage. In fact, Brecht deliberately created characters which would be subject to criticism from the audience. In order to invite this active rather than passive response from the audience, to provoke a reaction, Brecht instils traits in his characters which tend to make the audience not identify with them, but criticise them. Mother Courage is portrayed as a strong, witty, formidable woman whose sole purpose is to provide a living for both herself and her children. She is a sacrificial character and her love for her children draws an audience to like her. What prevents the audience from empathising with her is her extremely contradictory nature. Whilst pulling out a knife at the Sergeant and Recruiting Officer to protect her children, Courage calls refers to herself and her children as ‘peaceable sorts’. The Sergeant’s cool reply of ‘your knife shows the sort you are’ further displays Courage’s contradictions. (Brecht 2004: 715) When sending her daughter Kattrin into town with the Clerk, Courage tells her not to worry and that ‘nothing will happen’, but upon Kattrin’s return where she is wounded, Courage claims she should never have let her go. When arguing with the Cook over a possible move to Utrecht, Courage tries to end the conversation with ‘that’s enough’, only to continue it herself moments later. In the same scene, Courage encourages Kattrin for the two to go with the Cook to run his pub in Utrecht because ‘life on the road is no sort of life’, but after she sees Kattrin trying to run away she quickly turns on the Cook and questions what she and Kattrin would ever do in a pub. Of course the greatest contradiction of all throughout the play is Courage’s constant criticism of the war off of which she makes her living. It is this contradictory nature of Courage’s which constantly reminds the audience to view the character from a distance, analyse her so to speak, and not empathise with her situation. Had Mother Courage been presented as a fully-rounded character, the audience would have been tempted to empathise; but her presentation as a paradoxical character helps to ‘jolt the audience into some kind of reaction.’ (Leach 1994: 136)

Mother Courage is not the only character in the play that is given a specific trait to keep the audience empathising and becoming emotionally involved with her. Her sons – Eilif and Swiss Cheese – are both killed in the play, and it is because of their flaws that they are killed. Her eldest son, Eilif, is strong and intelligent, but his boldness costs him his life. Her younger son, Swiss Cheese, is simple and honest, but he too is led to his death because of his stupidity. The audience are constantly reminded throughout the play by Mother Courage that her children have these traits. ‘I have another who is foolish but honest’ is just one example of Brecht giving Mother Courage a specific line for two reasons: both to remind the audience of the paradoxes each character possesses, to stop them from being empathised with, and to support the epic idea of the play that each scene should be its own. It is frequently seen in Brecht’s plays for an off-stage character’s absence to be explained through an on-stage character’s dialogue. (ref)

Robert Leach argues that for Brecht, ‘character is only of interest in so far as it illuminates the fleeting event which provides the writer, or the actor, with a usable