Mother Courage as Brecht Theatre or Aristotelian Theatre

Brecht theatre is a type that puts logic in the centre of the plays, has untraditional acts, emotional distance, non Aristotelian, shows alienation of society to everything, played as episodes and does not aim to raise curiosity or emotions but void and questions of how and why in audience, meanwhile Aristotelian plays aim to awake emotions, has catharsis, is plotted, has three unities, shows causes and motives, the reasons why actions are taken and has acts and scenes.

The play Mother Courage by Bertold Brecht is an example of Brecht theatre, for the lack of emotions in the play. The play takes place in war period, and has a mother who makes her living by selling war products and such. Mother courage, Anna, lacks emotions to show when her kids die because of the ongoing war and instead of feeling desperate, upset or having anger because of the war killed her children, she keeps on selling goods related to war. She devotes herself to the war instead of her children, untraditional act by a mother who does not show her motherhood to protect her children but focusses on herself to make a living for herself, she even falls in love with someone and thinks of him instead of thinking of her children. Motherhood and its virtues are accepted as traditional acts and she lacks them as well.

The play shows how and why people die during war and how and why people make a living for themselves, shows the capitalist reality of the world to the audience, aims audience to question the reality of the world and why all these happen. Something happens in the play, but instead of having a part in which the reasons or consequences of what happens are shown, the play moves into another devastating action or the scene of lunch time. It does not give the audience a moment to think and question what happened, but moves into the another scene, leaving the audience with lots of questions.

It is not an Aristotelian play for having episodes happening in different times and places. Mother Courage shows how the society and all got alienated towards everything, deaths, wars, famines and normalised them all. She does not show any emotions just like the audience and the real society who do not show any reactions to murdered children and innocent people. No one questions it as well and just accepts it as something normal which shows the alienation of the society.