Red Boots Symbol Analysis

Yvette Pottier’s provocative red boots represent Kattrin’s desire for love and freedom. In the third scene, Kattrin tries them on and Mother Courage responds by comparing her to a sex worker (like Yvette), taking them away, and making plans to sell them. In a later scene, after soldiers attack Kattrin, Mother Courage tries to gift Kattrin the boots as a token of goodwill, but Kattrin refuses them.

Since Kattrin doesn’t speak, moments like these offer rare and valuable insight into her true desires, complicated feelings about men, and her relationship with her mother. When she first takes Yvette’s boots, she acts out a fantasy of feminine beauty—which will presumably help her find the man whose love can save her from the brutality of war. Such desires are perfectly natural for a young woman coming of age, and yet Mother Courage recognizes that the only way for Kattrin to seek love during war would be as a sex worker. In fact, Mother Courage explains that Kattrin’s greatest desire in life is to get married, but this is impossible until the war ends. This is why she takes the boots away. But she also can’t resist the temptation to sell them and turn a profit—even if it would mean turning the symbol of Kattrin’s dream into just another commodity. When Mother Courage later repents and tries to return the boots, it is already too late: the attack has left Kattrin with a scar that means no man will ever marry her. Perhaps Kattrin refuses to take the boots because she now knows that men will not offer her salvation from her life with Mother Courage, or perhaps she does so because she does not want Mother Courage to dictate when and how she can feel free and independent.