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War is an addiction. War is business. War is necessity.

Brecht uses various voices in this play to reiterate these slogans over and over again. Sometimes by the same character. Written during the times when Nazism and fascism was becoming prominent in Europe, Brecht uses an older European war as a setting to voice his point of view on the growing political crisis during '30s. On one hand Mother Courage is a war profiteer which isn't all that new. She finds a way to keep her family fed by peddling food and alcohol to military camps. She follows military camps for years selling things that are hard to come by in a war zone. She, her family and even her business is always at risk of looting or getting killed. Of course she could have simply stayed put in her town and tried to make a living. But that wouldn't have worked out well for a poor woman since the society she lived in was always advantageous for the rich. War would have only made her poorer with all the resources being directed towards war and she followed what basic economics directed her. Follow the war, use war as a client and provide services.

Through the course of play, Mother Courage shares her perception on war, morals, virtue, loyalty etc which is almost Brecht talking to people under Nazi regimen. When her eldest son is recruited by the General, she says-

"Because he's got to have men of courage, that's why. If he knew how to plan a proper campaign what would he be needing men of courage for? Ordinary ones would do. It's always the same; whenever there's a load of special virtues around it means something stinks."

I am on fence on this one. It is hard to ascertain whether Brecht is implying war with a radical propaganda requires what Mother Courage here is talking about or war in general is pointless. Calling out for courage and virtue is propaganda speech while insisting on morality and loyalty is borderline communism. Its quite difficult to understand if Brecht is anti-war or its something else entirely. The irony lies in Mother Courage's view on men fighting the war reducing war to a job provider and soldiers to employees. She adds-

"In decent countries folk don't have to have virtues, the whole lot can be perfectly ordinary, average intelligence, and for all I know cowards."

Brecht detaches country and its people or more specifically he puts an added responsibility on the leader/king/government. It isn't a system that would hold up or work for a long time and Brecht knows it. It is a throwback to growing number of Nazi supporters and changing mental constitution of the nation itself. Its very tongue in cheek and blatantly disregards '30s propaganda. He wasn't entirely wrong with his argument about choosing the right leader. Along the same line he further says-

"The war will always find an outlet, mark my words. Why should it ever stop?"

Really, why should it? Conflicts have always existed and a war is always on in some part of the globe. It just changes route, gives birth to a newer war and a bunch of newer conflicts. In our lifetime we have already seen this happening and right now as I write this review I hear a news anchor talk about the continuing attacks on Europe.

Mother Courage loses her children to war or by products of war. Its the final scene that makes the entire play truly tragic. Mother Courage's daughter, only living child of hers, dies. Mother Courage asks the village folk to take care of the corpse as she has to move on with her business to find another camp. This, for me, negated the entire experience that Brecht had so carefully fulfilled till then. Brecht makes her bow to the only life that she has ever known and continue to be a part of a system that she truly abhors. It is hard to feel sympathy for this character and reconcile with the fact that she moves on with peddling. It is evident Brecht wanted her to be a victim of war just how her children were. In her case, in any moment, she could have stopped. But she didn't.

Maybe that's what Brecht's intentions were. One cannot really stop being part of war just because one wants to. Too sad.