Do you consider “Mother Courage and Her Children” a tragedy? Give reasons for your answer.

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Do you consider Mother Courage and Her Children a tragedy Give reasons for your answer Or Consider Mother Courage and Her Children as a tragedy NU Bertolt Brecht s play Mother Courage and Her Children is often called an anti-war play But it also has many elements of tragedy It shows the fall of a mother who loses her three children in the Thirty Years War Brecht does not give heroic tears He shows harsh facts The life of Mother Courage becomes a tragic journey of loss The Tragic Beginning- Losing Eilif In the Prologue Mother Courage enters with her wagon Her sons Eilif and Swiss Cheese pull the cart Her daughter Kattrin plays the harmonica Together they sing Here s Mother Courage and her wagon Hey Captain Let them come and buy But joy soon turns to tragedy The Recruiting Officer and Sergeant take Eilif away Mother Courage sings

of trade but loses her first son to war This is tragic because her love as a mother clashes with her greed as a trader Eilif s Tragic Fall Later the Commander praises Eilif for bravery He kills peasants and steals cattle He even sings proudly The soldier laughs and loads his gun Mother Courage warns him Didn t I teach you to take care of yourself you Finnish devil you But later in the story when peace comes the same act of killing peasants is judged as a crime Eilif is executed The son who was once a hero becomes a criminal This is tragic irony Swiss Cheese s Tragic Honesty Swiss Cheese becomes paymaster Mother Courage says Don t forget they made you paymaster because you re honest But this honesty leads to his death He refuses to give up the regimental cash box when caught Mother Courage tries to save him but she bargains too long At last Swiss Cheese is shot The tragedy is that his honesty becomes his destruction The mother s bargaining kills the very son she wanted to protect Kattrin s Tragic Sacrifice Kattrin is mute and scarred yet she has a kind heart In the last scene near Halle she climbs a roof and beats a drum to warn the villagers of an attack Soldiers shoot her but she does not stop This sacrifice is tragic The silent girl gives the loudest cry She saves others but dies herself Mother Courage loses her only daughter the last hope of her family The Tragic End of Mother Courage At the end Mother Courage is alone She has lost all three children Eilif Swiss Cheese and Kattrin She is left alone with her wagon Earlier she had sung a fortune-telling song with slips of paper She said So shall we all be torn asunder if we let ourselves get too deep into this war That warning becomes true This ending is deeply tragic She knows the truth but she cannot leave the war She drags her wagon with nothing left Her survival is empty The audience feels the weight of loss not with tears but with deep thought Mother Courage and Her Children is a tragedy in a new form It does not follow the old style of tragic heroes like Oedipus or Lear Instead Brecht shows how ordinary life becomes tragic in war A mother loses her three children yet she goes on with her wagon The play ends in silence and loss It is a modern tragedy of war and greed

Mother Courage and Her Children

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Do you consider “Mother Courage and Her Children” a tragedy? Give reasons for your answer.

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Bertolt Brecht

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