#ucihumanitiescore

            Within the play, Mother Courage and her Children, written by

Bertolt Brecht, there tells a story about a woman’s life that feeds off the

war. Brecht focuses on Mother Courage, the protagonist of that play

that does not learn anything. He uses her character’s actions to de-

naturalize drama events that occur on stage. Through Mother Courage’s

actions, Brecht illustrates the horrible results in individual character due

to warfare.

           In this scene, Mother Courage tries to save all her merchandise

in hopes of making profit,half a guilder per to be exact, but ironically the

setting is right after the battle at Magdeburg where thousands of deaths

just occurred. Mother Courage is so caught up in her own world that she

refuses to help save any of the farmers as they constantly bleed right by

her side. She would rather wait to sell her linen shirts to some soldiers or

customers in the future, then use them to wrap up severe injuries to

save any of the lives.

           Mother Courage easily looks over the fact that these victims from

the town are literally about to die at any second due to great blood lost,

yet she strongly refuses to donate a single shirt for such a cause, not

unless she gets anything in return. Her understanding that these poor

farmers have nothing that they can give her solidifies her firm refusal.

Her selfish, self absorbed characteristics are the results of war which

leads Mother Courage to feel that the only way to survive is to drag her

cart after the war to sell her merchandise and make a living from it on

her own.

          She feels as if there is nothing that she can possibly spare during

these harsh times, even to help a dying victim. That in itself shows her

great lack of compassion and virtue. However, luckily the Chaplain lift

her up, and forcibly takes the shirts and tears them up to bandage these

poor victims. With so much death around, she even has the nerve to

say, “I’ve only had losses from your victory,” (Brecht 60) as a response to

hearing the victorious music. This demonstrates her priorities which only

focuses on her desires for profit.

           Although her daughter, Kattrin tries to threaten her mother to

help these poor people, Mother Courage could care less about her

daughter’s desires and happiness. At the end of the scene, Mother

Courage only loses four shirts, yet she cries and complains about them

while the people around her are dead from this horrendous loot of

Magdeburg where soldiers threatened, burned, and killed unarmed,

defenseless, innocent people for their possessions and for just the

reason that they could.

            Brecht uses Mother Courage’s actions to teach the audience by

giving them an image of what they should never become, and even

more, do something against. With Mother Courage’s traits, Brecht

provokes the audience to “un-make” the world he created. Brecht tries to

present a terrible world through epic theatre as pedagogical theater in

which the play will teach the audience on how to behave and hopefully

to become a collective of “thinking human beings” according to Professor

Newman.

                                        Works Cited:

                            Mother Courage and Her Children is a German play written in

1939 by a communist supporter, Bertolt Brecht. During the time this play

was written, there were many influences around Brecht which included

the rise of Hitler, World War II, and the Thirty  Years' War. Growing up,

Brecht's life was surrounded by war in which he critically observed the

authority around him. He noticed several effects of this authority in which

he portrays in his anti-war play. Serving as an Anti-War play, Mother

Courage and Her Children is Brecht's attempt in teaching his audience

to un-create the war he created on stage through de-naturalizing the

dramatic events as they appear.      

                    Brecht’s purpose was to use pedagogical theater, “teaching

theater”, to encourage his audience to act collectively to stop the world

represented by Mother Courage and Her Children. Mother Courage

supports the war due to her self interest to gain cash. Her life revolves

around following the war in order to sell her merchandise. She is so

selfish to the point of where she would not even give shirts to a dying

farmer because he are cannot to pay her. Her characteristics are effects

of the war surrounding her which needs to change. Brecht continually

interrupts the audience’s thought process through his series of songs in

each scene to de-naturalize the characters making them un-relatable.

Pity, sympathy, or any emotions connecting the audience to his

characters are undesirable to Brecht for he wants to isolate his

characters completely in order for the audience to become a collective of

“thinking human beings”. Through Brecht’s interruptions, he provokes the

audience to think about the values in the play, judge them, and un-

create them.

             However, there was a connection between the audience and

Mother Courage as they pity her due to her loss. Brecht’s great

concern caused him to add an extra line to the end of his play in which

the audience will disconnect with Mother Courage. Right after Mother

Courage mourns for her daughter, she quickly goes on saying her new

line, “I have to get back in business” which concludes in her overall lack

of learning throughout the play after losing all of her children. Through

Mother Courage and Her Children, Brecht ultimately hopes that his

audience will become critical thinkers and act collectively in order to

destroy the setting and values the play focuses on.

                After reading Mother Courage's last line, I was completely

disconnected to her character. Since those were Brecht's intentions, I

believed he did it successfully. Mother Courage's character full of greed

makes me never want to become like her, but narrowly speaking, I

should not let the circumstances surrounding her occur which forced her

to become the person she is. If Brecht was still I alive, I believe I would

be one of his favorite audience for falling completely for his desires.

                                     Works Cited

            After reading The Iliad, and listening to my amazing charismatic

professors, I did not see The Iliad like just another Greek novel that is

simply used for entertainment. To my surprise, this once orally told epic

contains detailed concepts pertaining to force and agency.      

                       Homer's Iliad is a poem of force, portrayed in each of the main

characters. From the onset of the epic, Agamemnon used force to take

away Achilles' prize and justified his right with his authority to

power. Force, the powerful idea of one man submitting to the other

to his rule. In this rule, a man must hand over his will on a silver platter to

the one in charge. With that said, agency, the will to decide to act on

one's own behalf, is loss. Force is a concept in which only one can

obtain it, and the multitude of others cannot. Many of the warriors in

both armies display a lack of agency due to both authority and force.

Each of the warriors, even the most powerful ones, must obey the one

in charge for they are unable to fight the leader. In book 6,

Menelaus almost spared a Trojan life, after listening to the poor soul beg

for mercy and bribe for his life. Treasures or gold and silver, anything that

Menelaus desires will become his if he were to spare this warrior,

however, Agamemnon joined in and changed his mind completely with

vulgar words discouraging his actions. In this scene, Menelaus lost

his agency as his actions resulted to the death of the one he almost

spared due to Agamemnon's words. 

                      The Iliad is not only a Greek poem, but also an artifact of

force and agency which reflects in modern society all across the world.

All around the world in developing countries, lives are threatened and

agency disappears. In China, being ruled by a dictator, there is

no agency of the society for their actions and beliefs all fall under the

dictator's influence. The dictator himself, Xi Jinping, controls all the forces

and anyone, in his country, against him will surely die or tortured in one

of their hostile camps. Everyone in china must submit to Xi Jinping's

dictatorship and let his force rule over them. China is only one of the

many countries ruled by dictators. In the end, force causes the lack of

agency for with increase force, agency decreases which can easily be

seen today.

                                       WORK CITED

           If you asked me thes questions during the summer, I would

vaguely  say humanities is the study of humans throughout time without

thinking too much about it. To add on, I would say it is not very

important to study because one can survive in the modern 21st century

without understanding this concept. War, being the main concept of this

year's course, was never interesting to me, but as I studied it

throughout the weeks, my views have changed. I now see that

understanding this concept will help with understand how the human

mind works.

            Ancient religions, music, cultures, politics, and society are all

parts of the wide range in the study of humanities. As the dominant

creatures of the Earth, humans have overcome many obstacles to be at

the top of the hierarchy; therefore, human history should be

acknowledged and understood. Our ancestors did something

that allowed us to be here today in this environment just as we are.

Important factors of how society worked thousands of years ago

contribute to how society works today. Questions like "What are the

similarities that society still have?" or "What is a major problem?" should 

be studied and answer to help better our understanding of history. One

obvious problem, occurring thousands of years ago, yet still today,

is war. Ironically, even as the top species on pyramid, we turn towards

each other.

                  In the beginning of time when the world began, war broke

out and killed thousands of people all around the world. A few centuries

ago, the same thing occurred in World War I AND World War II. War is

so threatening, dangerous, powerful, and damaging, yet it cannot be

avoided. Why? Before that question, let's start at the beginning. What is

war? War is the outcome of different ideas and morals clashing. It's a

constant battle that humanity faces due to one's prideful nature

believing one has more right than the other. Understanding the concept

of war would benefit individuals who become the new generation in

their society.

            War will continue to  be a constant problem in the human race

due to differences, but a higher understanding of it and why it truly

occurs, down to the root of the problem may help solve a few

wandering  views. Additionally, after learning about the concept of war,

one will also have a higher understanding of oneself. After reading and

discussing so  many war concepts and novels, my thoughts of war

changed. Before I thought it was just awful and needs to be completely

avoided to have peace, but looking at the patterns throughout history,

sometimes in order to have and maintain peace, war needs to occur