Previous
Scene 1
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
The stage directions explain that Mother Courage has followed the Swedish army through Poland for nearly two years to Wallhof, where she will unexpectedly meet Eilif in the Swedish Commander’s tent. The scene opens with her negotiating a deal with the Dutch Cook: she wants 60 hellers for a capon, but he protests that they’re usually “ten hellers a dozen.” She points out that they’re in a siege; he replies that the Swedes are the attackers, not the victims; but she notes that they don’t have any food either and that the local farmers are dying of hunger. The Cook wants 30 hellers, but Mother Courage refuses and leaves him to finish his stew of rancid beef.
Mother Courage’s price-gouging again shows that she’s involved in the war primarily because she sees it as a great business opportunity. Her willingness to let the soldiers starve if she doesn’t get the price she wants exemplifies what Brecht saw as the fundamental brutality of capitalism: by definition, it puts profit above all else, including human life and well-being. Yet the Cook’s comments about the siege suggest that optimism about the war is foolish—rather, they demonstrate that war is brutal, miserable, and counterproductive even for its victors.
Themes
Eilif enters with the Swedish Commander and the Chaplain. The Commander praises Eilif’s heroism but complains about the ungrateful local peasants hiding their oxen (even though the Swedes are there “to save their souls”). Eilif asks the Cook for meat and complains that “skinning peasants” is exhausting. Suddenly, Mother Courage recognizes her son (but he doesn’t see her). She remarks that he must be doing well in the army and tells the Cook to buy the capon for 100 hellers. He protests, but reluctantly agrees. She starts plucking off its feathers.
Mother Courage is surprised to meet Eilif, but the audience is not surprised to see it happen: Brecht has already explicitly said this would happen in his stage directions, which are meant to be read aloud. This is another example of how he uses unconventional theatrical techniques to alienate his audience—to draw them out of the story and force them to analyze it, rather than drawing them into it and entertaining them. Brecht sets up a parallel between Eilif “skinning peasants” and Mother Courage plucking the chicken. Again, the comparison between humans and animals underlines how war destroys everything that makes human beings civilized. Lastly, it’s telling that Mother Courage’s first instinct when she recognizes Eilif is to raise the price on the capon—again, this shows that her single-minded obsession with commerce cuts her off from the emotional connections that give true, deeper meaning to human life.
Themes
The Commander invites Eilif to keep drinking and asks him to tell the story of how he got the oxen back. Eilif explains that he followed the peasants into the woods, where they were keeping the oxen, but they quickly cornered him. So he offered them money for the oxen. Confused, they paused, and he killed them. He remarks that “necessity knows no law,” and while the Chaplain notes that this phrase is not actually in the Bible, the Commander praises Eilif for bravely saving their soldiers from hunger. Mother Courage comments that good commanders make plans that ordinary soldiers can fulfill, so only an incompetent commander would need brave soldiers to win.
Eilif’s story demonstrates that the war has turned him into a monster by rewarding his most sadistic and brutal tendencies. He uses the often-misattributed line “necessity knows no law” to justify his actions, as though he had no option but to murder the peasant family because he was hungry. Clearly, this is an excuse, not the truth. (After all, he never considers the peasants’ necessity, and Mother Courage’s capon sale shows that the army had other way of finding food.) The Chaplain’s response shows how rulers—including the kings involved in the Thirty Years’ War, but also the Nazis in Brecht’s contemporary moment—twist religion to their own political ends, turning it into a justification for conquest and violence. Lastly, Mother Courage’s counterintuitive comment about bravery points to a motif that recurs throughout the play: war turns virtues (like bravery, honesty, and courage) into liabilities.
Themes
Literary Devices
The Commander guesses that Eilif’s father was a soldier; Eilif says he’s right and sings a song that his mother always sang: “The Fishwife and the Soldier.” In the song, an old fisherman’s wife warns a young soldier boy against going out to sea. But he says that he will live the life of a hero, marching across Europe with his gun and knife. He wades out into the water one night and the tide sweeps him away.
The mention of Eilif’s father again raises subtle but significant questions about the nature of his relationship with Mother Courage. Meanwhile, “The Fishwife and the Soldier” again demonstrates Brecht’s alienation effect: Eilif sings presciently about exactly the kind of folly that will lead him to his death.
Themes
Get the entire Mother Courage and Her Children LitChart as a printable PDF.
Mother Courage sings the song’s last stanza. Eilif recognizes her voice, runs to the kitchen, and embraces her. She tells him that Swiss Cheese is an army paymaster now, and that her feet hurt. The Commander asks if Mother Courage has more sons to send to the army, and Mother Courage lovingly hits Eilif over the ear for stealing the peasants’ oxen instead of surrendering to them.
Mother Courage and Eilif’s reunion is a rare moment of hope and tenderness amidst the play’s endless scenes of suffering and brutality. It’s a reminder of the love and human connection that war destroys—and Mother Courage sacrifices by participating in it (and by choosing commerce over family).
Themes
