Character Clues
Character Analysis
Actions
Most characters are defined by their actions, and the characters in Mother Courage are no exception. But a few actions stand out to us as particularly definitive. First off, there's Kattrin's heroic drumming in Scene XI. We discuss this at length in her "Character Analysis."
Second, check out some of Mother Courage's actions. One is when she bargains too long trying to sell her wagon to save Swiss Cheese. The other is when she refuses to abandon Kattrin to start up a business with the cook. These are the main actions that define Mother Courage's character as someone caught between her desire for profit and her love for her family.
Clothing
Yvette's clothes directly indicate her social position in the world. The first time Yvette appears (III, 8-10), she has her red high-heeled boots with her and she's decorating a large, colorful hat. She is, quite literally, at work on her own costume. These ostentatious clothes are supposed to tell us she's a prostitute. Later, when Yvette returns as the wealthy widow of an elderly general, she's dressed all in black. My, how things change.
See our "Symbolism, Imagery, Allegory" section for more about Yvette's red boots.
Family Life
The fact that Courage's children all have different fathers (I, 106-115), none of whom Courage seems to have married, might not strike us as unusual today. But this would probably have been a shock for Brecht's audience. Courage's non-traditional family makes it even more difficult for us to identify her as a typical mother figure. This aspect of her family life also emphasizes her singularity and independence from tradition.
Names
Names in Mother Courage are not only tools of characterization. They are also tools of "strangeness." (See our section on "Writing Style" for more about this.) While it's possible to interpret them, the names in Brecht's play are weird on purpose, and we don't want to push this one too far. Still, thinking a bit about why these characters have these weird names can lead to some interesting conclusions.
Mother Courage: Her real name is Anna Fierling. But as Mother Courage, she's the title character, and this nickname of hers is definitely significant. For one, she's a mother (duh). And as for the second part of her name, Courage, well, she has a few words to say about that in Scene I. She tells the sergeant and recruiter that she earned her name by breaking through the blockade at Riga, a Latvian city under attack by the Catholics, in order to sell bread to the starving inhabitants. But she says she did it was because she was broke, not because of any heroic impulses.
Later, in Scene VI, she speaks about the courage of "poor folk" who need to be courageous "'cause there's no hope for them" (VI, 144-148). What she means by courage here is not, say, bravery in battle, but rather the courage poor people need just to survive. And it's not much of a stretch to say she embodies this courage throughout the play.
Whenever someone is called "Mother" anything (take Mother Theresa, for example), it's hard not to think of that other mother—Mary, the mother of Jesus Christ. Except that Mother Courage hardly seems like a Mary figure. Well, in any case, it is worth noting here that "courage" is also an attribute often associated with Mary, as for instance in the writings of Saint Ambrose.
Swiss Cheese: There are two things to say about this name. First off, it's not really a name; it's a food. And that's not insignificant in a play in which the main character runs a canteen and food is often scarce. Instead of giving her son a name that says he's brave or virtuous or humble, Mother Courage calls him after something perhaps more important to her: food. As Brecht elsewhere writes, "First comes eating and then comes morality" (see introduction to the Penguin classics edition, xi).
Second, Swiss cheese (the food) has one remarkable feature: holes. Oddly, this comes up in something the chaplain says about peace in Scene VI: "Ah peace. Where is the hole once the cheese has been eaten?" (VI, 92-93). After war has destroyed a country and its people, peace doesn't mean going back to the way things used to be, just as eating a hunk of Swiss Cheese doesn't mean you get to keep the holes for later. In this case, Swiss cheese represents something that can never be restored once it's been destroyed. And that applies equally to the fate of Swiss Cheese in Mother Courage.
Eilif & Kattrin: These names aren't significant as such, but they are both notably of Nordic origin. Mother Courage was written in Sweden, and the first scene of the play also takes place there. However, Courage makes clear that her children aren't Scandinavian. So, what gives? This makes it seem like their names are simply afterthoughts that don't correspond to anything except their immediate surroundings. This might bear upon how we think of Mother Courage as a not-so-motherly mother figure.
Peter Lamb (the cook): Unlike the chaplain, the cook has a name: Peter Lamb. Insofar as the cook symbolizes the working class in Mother Courage (again, more on this in his "Character Analysis"), it could be said that his name refers to the sacrifices workers have to make to make a living. "Lamb" could come from Lamb of God, another name used for Jesus, referring to the way he sacrificed himself (i.e., like a sacrificial lamb) for the sins of humanity.
Sex and Love
Yvette's sexuality, like her clothes, characterizes the social position she occupies in Mother Courage. She is first a prostitute, and later, she returns as the widow of an ancient general—and it seems pretty obvious she didn't marry that guy for love. Yvette was in love with the cook once, back in Flanders (see her Song of Fraternization, III, 84-113) but he disappeared when he joined the army. Now she seems to have settled into a world in which sex sells and love is all but absent.
Kattrin is interested in Yvette's flashy outfits, but she doesn't seem to understand what the outfits signify. If we look at what Mother Courage says (VI, 124-126; V, 52-54), we see that Kattrin has her heart set on love, marriage, children—and peace. But after another assault leaves her with a scar above her eye, she rarely leaves the wagon, and she stops waiting around for peace, assuming no one will marry a disfigured woman (VIII, 65). In this world, Yvette's career path often seems like the only alternative to rape.
Finally, both the cook and the chaplain try to get together with Mother Courage at different points. Both characterize the other as untrustworthy, particularly when it comes to women (VIII, 86; VI, 182-187). Though Mother Courage warns Kattrin that "love makes the world go round" (III, 119-120), she doesn't seem all that susceptible to love herself. Nothing comes of the attempts to woo her.
Social Class
See "Themes" for more on this one. Mother Courage and the cook are both what Mother Courage calls "little folk" (III, 216-217), i.e., members of the lower classes. The chaplain, meanwhile, complains that he has to leave his old life behind and perform menial tasks with Mother Courage. He calls it "a sin," and reminds her that "studied to be a pastor of souls" (VI, 193-202). When he talks of being an educated man, we can tell that this is also a conversation about the class differences between the chaplain and Mother Courage, who likely has no education. Yvette, on the other hand, makes a dramatic leap from a poor prostitute to a wealthy widow, all through marriage. This characterizes her social position as uniquely mobile.
Speech and Dialogue
This one is closely connected to social class. Although Brecht invented the dialect that his characters speak in Mother Courage, he did not eliminate all class markers. Characters of a higher class, like the chaplain, tend to speak something closer to Standard English (or High German, if you're reading the original). And when Yvette makes her grand re-entrance as the Countess Starhemberg, her speech sounds noticeably fancier, such as when she calls Mother Courage's wagon an "establishment" (VIII, 82-83).