Themes and Colors Key

LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Mother Courage and Her Children, which you can use to track the themes throughout the
work.

War, Failure, and Despair

Profit, Violence, and Power

Love and Nurture

Faith and Identity

Theater, Performance, and History

Summary
Analysis
Mother Courage sits on her wagon with her daughter Kattrin while her sons Eilif and Swiss Cheese pull it. She sings “The Song Of Mother
Courage” while Kattrin plays the harmonica, and her sons join the refrains. The song describes how she sells soldiers beer and wine, which
gives them the courage to face sure death in battle. She sings to the troops that she will sell them food to “fill up the hole in your belly /
Before you fill one underground.” Winter is ending, she sings to them in the refrain, “And though you may not long survive, / Get out of bed
and look alive!”
Like with all of the play’s songs, this opening number’s jovial tone sharply contrasts with its serious subject matter. Indeed, the play’s
protagonists introduce Mother Courage’s morally dubious profession, then underline the war’s senselessness and brutality by suggesting
that her real purpose is to give soldiers the liquor they need to accept a meaningless death. In this way, this scene strongly exemplifies
Brecht’s famous distancing (or alienation) effect—the characters directly tell the audience the message that is supposed to be the play’s
subtext. (Presumably, the actual Mother Courage would not have thought the things she sings about here.) This scene also advances the
distancing effect through its form: rather than playing out any realistic scenes, the actors make it clear that they are performing a
contrived spectacle for the audience. Notably, their haunting song is as much a warning for the audience—Europeans on the eve of World
War II—as it is for the soldier characters in the play.
Active Themes

Quotes
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Jennings, Rohan. "Mother Courage and Her Children Prologue." LitCharts. LitCharts LLC, 6 Jun 2023. Web. 16 Oct 2023.
Jennings,
Rohan. "Mother
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