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Bertolt Brecht: ,Mutter Courage und ihre Kinder‘:exam questions
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Bertolt Brecht: ,Mutter Courage und ihre Kinder‘ exam questions A LEVEL GERMAN
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A level GermanBertolt Brecht: ,Mutter Courage und ihre Kinder‘
Wie wichtig sind die Lieder in ,Mutter Courage und ihre Kinder‘? Begründen Sie
Ihre Antwort.
„Will vom Krieg leben Wird ihm wohl müssen auch was geben.“ Inwiefern drückt
dieses Zitat das Hauptthema dieses Schauspiels aus?
Brecht stellt Mutter Courage als eine Persönlichkeit dar, die vom Krieg profitiert.
Inwiefern stimmen Sie zu?
Welche Aspekte von ‚Mutter Courage und ihre Kinder‘ finden Sie besonders
effektiv? Warum?
Untersuchen Sie die Rolle von Mutter Courage im Stück. Sie können die folgenden
Stichpunkte benutzen:
Mutter Courage macht ihr Geschäft mit dem Krieg
Mutter Courage in einer Männerwelt
die Haltung der Mutter ihren Kindern gegenüber
Hat man Mitleid für Mutter Courage?
Possible content Mutter Courage is the principal character, present in eleven of twelve scenes. Her
actions, decisions and comments constitute the main focus of the play. For her ‘Krieg’ is ‘Geschäft’. ‘Der
Krieg ist nix als die Geschäfte, Und statt mit Käse ists mit Blei’. Background is the Thirty Years War,
(1618-48), which brought widespread misery and destruction, only surpassed in the 20th century.
Continuity of action is ensured by Mutter Courage’s trading from her ‘Planwagen’ (a sort of 17th century
NAAFI) always present on stage. Irrespective of which side is in the ascendancy, she sells drinks, food,
clothing, equipment and even munitions, to the soldiers. She haggles, tries to buy cheap and sell dear.
, She speculates on the continuation of the war – ironically, peace might ruin her – and is happy when,
after a momentary truce, hostilities begin again. Her principal objective is to bring herself, her children
and her wagon through the war, but ultimately the price of profiteering from war is the death of all her
children and her personal debilitation. Brecht presents the historical background as a war, declared by
men, Kings and Emperors, ostensibly in the name of religion – Catholic versus Protestant – but in reality
fought for material gain by armies, which consist entirely of men. In the action of the play, there are only
three main women characters against about twenty men, of greater or lesser importance. Both the
Feldprediger and the Koch become dependent on Mutter Courage. Mutter Courage generally pits her
wits against men customers to gain material advantage. Although endowed with determination and
cunning, Mutter Courage is sometimes outwitted by men, eg the recruitment of Eilif by the ‘Werber’ at
the beginning. The catastrophic consequences of being in a man’s world as exemplified through
Schweizerkas, Eilif and Kattrin. As a mother, she wants to bring her children safely through the war. They
are, part of the ‘business’ – pulling the wagon and helping her to trade. She tries, unsuccessfully, to save
Eilif from becoming a soldier. She is later quite proud of his success, yet remains ignorant, even up to
the end of the play, of his death. She tries to save Schweizerkas over the affair of the money. She
haggles too long over the price for the wagon – prepared even to sell the source of her livelihood – and
is then forced to view his dead body. She sends Kattrin on an errand to obtain goods and, not
unsurprisingly, the girl is attacked. The resulting facial injury makes an already disadvantaged dumb girl
unlikely to find a husband. While Mutter Courage is away, Kattrin is killed trying to warn the town of
Halle against surprise attack. Mutter Courage’s wrong decisions contribute significantly to the loss of her
children, but it can be argued in her favour that she refuses to abandon Kattrin, when the cook offers
her a new, safer life in the inn he has inherited in Utrecht. We do sympathise with Mutter Courage even
though we can see the dire consequences of her actions for her children. She is as much a victim as any
one of the ordinary people caught up in a war, which was none of their making. She has to trade to
survive and we pity a mother who has lost all her children. At certain points in the play the pathos of her
situation intensifies. She is forced, to save herself and Kattrin, to view the body of her son Schweizerkas
and deny all knowledge of him. In Scene 10 Mutter Courage and Kattrin listen to the voice singing the
virtues of a house and home, which they do not possess. Later, we condemn her for her resistance to
giving up the shirts, so that wounded civilians can be bandaged. When Kattrin is killed, Mutter Courage
sings the moving song ‘Eia popeia’, cradling the body of the dead Kattrin, as if she were a sleeping child
Inwiefern sind die Kinder der Mutter Courage wichtig für das Stück? Sie können
die folgenden Stichpunkte benutzen:
• Eilif, der Kriegsheld, geht zugrunde; er weiß nicht, wann Kühnheit wichtig ist
• Schweizerkas, der redliche, ehrliche Sohn, stirbt, weil er die Grenzen des
Prinzips nicht erkennt
• Kattrin, ein stummes Mädchen, die andere Mutterfigur des Stücks: sie opfert ihr
Leben, um Halle zu retten
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