The Obvious is Absent in Mother Courage
Brecht's intentions when writing Mother Courage were to communicate his beliefs and make people aware of two major issues facing society: war and capitalism. According to Brecht, people deserve the wars they get if they subscribe to a political system that is unfair and favors a specific sector of society, namely capitalism, in which it is up to the individual to secure his own means of survival. In other words, if the system is unjust in any way, war and conflict is inevitable. For this to be understood, it would be essential that the audience see the play for what it is, as opposed to becoming engaged in its story. This means that they would have to be alienated from the play, and made perpetually aware of it as a play and nothing more. To do this, Brecht jolted audiences out of their expectations and deliberately avoided theatrical techniques that would make appearances realistic. In this way, people were forced to confront the issues at hand and decipher the meanings behind what they were being shown.
The "obvious" being referred to by Brecht is what is clearly seen, what one cannot miss. It does not require reflection and arouses no thought. By alienating the audience in this play, they see that nothing is happening at an obvious level, and can gain true understanding of the characters' reasons for behaving as they do, and of the background against which they exist.
Brecht incorporated alienation techniques in the methods of staging used in performances of Mother Courage, firstly by keeping a very bright white light trained evenly upon the set throughout. This eliminated any opportunities for creating an atmosphere; any magical or romantic views of ...
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...rinciples Brecht believed in: unless man has food and shelter, he does not have freedom. This tenet is what Brecht asserts in Mother Courage, and whose understanding can only be gained when audiences realise that the obvious is an irrelevance, that this play should be seen not as a tale but as a presenting of issues. By using the aspects of character, song, structure, style, inevitability, and staging, Brecht ensures that the audience remains alienated, and that their expectations are not met.
Works Cited and Consulted
Brecht, Bertolt. "Mother Courage and Her Children." Worthen 727-751.
Cook, Ellen Piel, ed. Women, Relationships, and Power. Virginia: American Counseling Association, 1993.
Hwang, Henry David. "M. Butterfly." Worthen 1062-1084.
Worthen, W.B. ed. The Harcourt Brace Anthology of Drama. 3rd ed. Toronto: Harcourt, 1993.
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To solve the foreclosure crisis we must take a multi-pronged approach that tackles the issues making the situation worse and that caused the problems in the first place. Our goal is to do this in an efficient and time conscious manner. Any solution is going to have its positive and negative aspects but we must try to maximize the former and minimize the latter.
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...ne else in the play the power of language to alter reality, and the issues of conscious or unconscious deceit.
Thousands of hardworking American families are being dragged down the path to foreclosure with no escape in sight. Despite hard work, they struggle to make the mortgage payments, lose hope, lose pride in homeownership, and eventually abandon payments altogether. We need to revive hope and rebuild the concept of pride in owning one’s own home by helping them make the payments through this plan. My solution does not require mere government giveaways, but rather allows for the recapture of government investments. One home at a time, we can successfully reconstruct the American Dream of home-ownership and end the foreclosure crisis.
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understanding of the play. The messages and themes prevail in Hamlet because of his strong textual
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In the words of Harvey Fierstein, “What looks absolutely fabulous in rehearsal can fall flat in front of an audience. The audience dictates what you do or don't change”. Clearly, the success or failure of any work of art depends, almost entirely, on its ability to engage and connect with its audience. Shakespeare, one of the greatest playwrights in history, certainly understood this concept. He targeted his Elizabethan audience skillfully, drawing them in and manipulating the way they interpreted his works. This is evident in one of his renowned plays, Hamlet. Attempts to target the audience are evident throughout the play, but focusing on one speech can provide a greater appreciation for Shakespeare’s deliberate efforts. In act four, scene two, while explaining that Polonius is dead, Hamlet says:
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