Mother Courage is famous as an anti-war play, but we think there's a whole lot more to it than that. Saying war is no fun is one thing, but this play is really about the violent intersection of war and class. Mother Courage gladly sees herself as part of the "little folk," the lower classes of seventeenth-century Europe who fight and make their living off the Thirty Years' War. We hear a lot from the play's characters about the relationship between these "little folk" and the leaders who are waging the war. One of the Big Questions posed by Mother Courage is whether these "little folk" will ever realize the power they have to stop the war, or whether their leaders will continue to profit on the war forever.
Questions About Society and Class
- Does the chaplain sympathize with the situation of the lower classes, or is he prejudiced against them?
- Is Mother Courage's obsession with business a symptom of her being unable to think beyond her daily needs, or is it just a strategy to cope with the war?
- How do the peasants fit into the picture of the lower classes given to us by Mother Courage and her friends?
- What kind of class relationship exists between soldiers and non-soldiers, including peasants?
Chew on This
Mother Courage is a pessimistic play that suggests the lower classes will never escape their subservient role in the war machine.
Mother Courage is directed toward the lower classes of our time, aiming to show them they could have more power if they could see only beyond their everyday needs.