The Danger of Empathy in Mother Courage

THE DANGER OF EMPATHY IN MOTHER COURAGE IT IS BY NOW A CRITICAL COMMONPLACE that Brecht's Mother Courage and her Children owes its success, if indeed it has any, not so much to the author's implementation of his many theories of playwriting as to his inability, in spite of himself, to put these theories into full practice in his own work. Thus, it is claimed, we respond not to the story of Mother Courage but to the character herself. We are inspired by the woman's courage and sent home from the theater admiring her fortitude, ourselves encouraged to emulate her ineffably good qualities. We respond to the play in terms of our response to its title character. In short, we identify with Mother Courage, make her character our own, and turn her survival into an encouraging affirmation of our own human will to survive. Mother Courage is, ultimately. truly courageous, and her courage sees her through all her tribulations : so we, as audience to her courage, take comfort and gain succor through seeing ourselves in Mother Courage. We are better able to face with internal valor the hardships of our own existence, better able to bear the burdens placed upon us by our society. The ultimate nobility of Mother Courage is the play's success, whether Brecht wished it so or not-as indeed his constant revisions and reworkings , all with a view toward making the title character less sympathetic . clearly indicate. Even the more perfervid admirers of Brecht's theories and practices of dramatic art seem to insist that the play's success arises from its strength of characterization and its affirmation of human will. Martin Esslin writes that audiences at Mother Courage are "moved to tears by the sufferings of a poor woman who, having lost her three children, heroically continued her brave struggle and refused to give in, an embodiment of the eternal virtues of the common people."l Similarly, Eric Bentley finds in Mother Courage an affirmation and admiration for a certain kind of courage. "This is, to borrow a phrase from Paul Tillich, 'the courage to be'-in this case, the courage to exist in the face of a world that so powerfully recommends non-existence."2 If critics have made of Mother Courage primarily a play of character and attributed its success to the empathy audiences feel for the 1 Martin Esslin, Brecht: The Man and His Work (Garden City: Anchor, 1961). p. 230. 2 Eric Bentley, Introduction to Seven Plays of BertoZt Brecht (New York: Grove, 1961), pp. xliii-xliv. 125 126' '" September title:character, 'prooucets 'arid' actdrs have'beei{ .quicI tis ,contf9:~~9by!ndividlJa.l;: psychologyfthf;~l jndee1i~h their ta,sk. Brecht;. how~ver, we·ml.lst re~e~ber, w~,whet}leror not. he wa,san orthodox. Sovie~-09mm1,llJ;is!". ,a' thoroughly ·:conditioned .. and £vJly. believing· Mar~Jst"'lFor):lim, th~,primarYgeterminant of human. behavior was,external .· Individual be:havior, .to any.Marxist, .js the. product, 0': tl1~ s~c;ialand ~conolPic~truct;ur~.in_which tha~ i:ndividu~l)iv~. Individ:. u~l psychologyismere.ly a:superstructur~ built upon· apre~established:, socio-econoIl1i~. fQundatiQn~Giv~n this .presuppositi~n, :.Br~ch~, :when. he wro~e· pl~ys d~aling with individualhumanbe~pgs, ·h,adJo find. a way of showing ,the ~ctiQn of these individuals in relation to,its social foundations. To. do this, he turned .from th:eindividually oriented,cjrama of. character' to the drama of a-ctio~ Qrnarrative. II,l.: the drama of narrative, we are to beconcerqed not so much with the in,dividu,al dlaracter's psychology as with th~ relationship between one incident in the narrative and aJl