Mother Courage and Her Children by Bertolt Brecht Essay

This extract by Mother Valor and Her Children, by Bertolt Brecht, translated by simply Michael Hofmann and David Willett, is located in the prologue and the starting scene from the play, in a point where author dispels the myths of chivalry and honour we have about war. The play is placed in the three decades war but was written at the outset of World War II. Quick the play is set in Poland, where a sergeant and recruiting official are on the outskirts of town standing in the nasty cold. From this extract, we could observe a recruiting officer’s troubles in enlisting new soldiers and the lengths by which he will head to gain fresh recruits. That’s exactly what complains that there is no honor and upstandingness among humankind.

This determines the character while hypocritical and desperate. The prologue of the play begins with a tune telling us of the daily hardships warfare can bring, not excluding fatality. The track lacks adjectives, taking a incredibly brief blunt view.

In addition, it takes a very disapproving perspective of war and this can be shown throughout the choice of terms. However , the song is delicately laced with humour that minimizes the impact the song might have presented. It explains the soldiers very impersonally, referring constantly to these people as one group, one army. Small , little objects without name joined together. Their items are identified as lumbering’ and straggling’ that gives the image of a strong dog (bear? ), with more brawl than brains.

This image is increased by the next line How could you flog all of them into fight as you usually flog large animals. This provides you with the impression that soldiers are mindlessly following the orders of their managers because loyalty demanded it of them. The other stanza from the prologue covers soldiers and the empty stomachs before battle.

It does not identify whether this is because of not enough food or perhaps because battle is so desolate that they simply cannot hold all their food down. The line Courage has rum with which to lace it talks of giving rum to military so they do not feel whatever and since valor is defined as the absence of dread, the soldiers are therefore courageous. The queue marching to death is likewise used.

This kind of links with the soldiers staying courageous because you have to be courageous to drive, knowing that at the end awaits loss of life. The speech by the Enrolling Officer contains mainly a single long rambling sentence. This means that the brawl is voiced by an uneducated jewellry.

It also suggests that the military cannot get enough employees to enlist that it must put military in positions that they have none the ability nor motivation to accomplish well. Also, the troops may not` have bought enough training to know tips on how to do their job very well. The second half of the speech echoes of the prospecting officer dulling the sensibilities of a potential recruit by alcohol in order that he would sign on to become a jewellry. The get then runs away plus the recruiting expert complains in the lack of honour and upstandingness among mankind.

This conversation speaks of the difficulty of recruiting people to die for their region and because of the lack of availableness, they accept standards very well below normal. In the debut, a tempo of ABAB CDCD and so forth is used. The set rhyming structure is used to capture audience’s attention also to give a tempo by which to read the composition.

This provides a flow in one line to a new that keeps you interested. The final four lines of each stanza are indented, drawing the reader’s focus and observing it as significant. The author’s range of diction makes a vivid landscape of imagery in which soldiers will be fighting disease and misery rather than the enemy. The line With crawling lice and looted cattle displays the poor condition of care and wellness the soldiers are in. This instantly dislodges the parable that conflict is all popularity and fame.

Instead, a vision of unhygienic environment that many military live in during war is done. This remove, especially the prologue, spares almost no time in easing the reader into the reality of war. Instead, it falls them as one of the even worse aspects of battle.

The hiring officer’s talk reveals much about human behaviour that this reader can relate to and this entices these to read on. The extract supplies a very good introduction to the book to get the reader and effectively summarises the hardships of conflict. The purpose of this extract should be to introduce you to various elements of war in a way that will not alarm nor bore you.

This is attained by various literacy features just like imagery, diction and duplication and by the hypocritical conversation made by the recruiting official.