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Scene 11
Themes
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
Later that night, with the army in the distance, Mother Courage sits with Kattrin’s body near their wagon. The Old Peasant and Old Peasant Woman advise Mother Courage to leave before the soldiers find them. But Mother Courage remarks that maybe Kattrin is just sleeping, and she sings a short lullaby about her kids being happy and well-fed—but also dead and missing.
Mother Courage appears to be in denial about Kattrin’s death, which signals the complete destruction of her family and leaves her utterly alone. Needless to say, this is an understandable reaction to all the trauma that she has experienced—and the guilt that she may feel (but never shows) for leading her children to their deaths.
Themes
Mother Courage blames the peasants for what happened to Kattrin, because they mentioned their grandchildren. But the peasants blame Mother Courage for going to town in search of profit. Mother Courage again says that Kattrin is sleeping, but the peasants repeat the truth and tell Mother Courage to get going, for her own safety.
Mother Courage’s comment about the grandchildren again supports the interpretation that Kattrin sacrificed her life to save the children from the troops—likely because of the profound trauma that she experienced as a child in the war. But Brecht assumed that his audiences would no doubt see that the peasants’ theory is the right one: Mother Courage’s thirst for profit and short-sighted faith in the war are the real reasons for Kattrin’s death. Worse still, as the soldiers approach, Mother Courage’s denial now poses a threat to her own life, too.
Themes
The Old Peasant asks if Mother Courage has anyone left, and she says that at least her son Eilif is alive. The Old Peasant Woman promises to bury Kattrin, and Mother Courage gives them some money to do it. She gets in the harness and starts pulling her wagon. The soldiers pass in the distance, and Mother Courage yells out that she wants to go with them.
The play closes with a haunting scene of Mother Courage running eagerly toward the men who slaughtered her daughter in cold blood. But she is not delusional: she is not going because she thinks that these men are sympathetic or will save her, but rather because she knows that selling to them is her best chance at making a profit. Even if Mother Courage has learned her lesson about the perils of war, it seems, it is far too late for her to make a change—and it is not clear what alternative might be lying in store for her. So she continues on, cold and courageous as always, having both suffered and perpetuated the worst evils of humankind. Brecht’s message is clear: nobody wins in war—at least, none of the people on the ground do.
Themes
In fact, the soldiers are singing “The Song of Mother Courage.” They sing a new verse about how the war devastated three generations, and then the same refrain: “Christians, awake! The winter’s gone! / The snows depart, the dead sleep on. / And though you may not long survive / Get out of bed and look alive!”
The play ends as it began, with “The Song of Mother Courage.” It may have seemed quaint and optimistic at the beginning, particularly to audiences who didn’t know what to expect of the play or didn’t listen particularly closely to its lyrics. But now, it’s all but impossible to misinterpret it in the same way. It’s a cross between a battle hymn and a funeral march, and it makes it clear that Mother Courage has also suffered greatly from her involvement in the war. Like Kattrin’s drum, the beat of this song is a dire warning to the people of Europe about precisely what lies in store for them over the next few years.
Themes
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