Society and Conflict in Drama

According to Jimmie Briggs (2004) in Human Rights and Wrongs, "During the most socially challenging periods of history, art should more than mirror society; it should question the contradictions and injustices of it" (19). Perhaps nothing more apt could be stated in reference to the content of Brecht's Mother Courage and Her Children, Shaw's Major Barbara, and Pirandello's Six Characters in Search of an Author. All of these plays demonstrate the impact of socially challenging periods on the characters, while also questioning the contradictions and injustices of that impact. However, while Mother Courage and Major Barbara revolve around the impact of war on the characters, the characters in Six Characters believe they create and shape their own reality, irrespective of social challenges.

Bertolt Brecht's (1991) Mother Courage and Her Children occurs during the Thirty Year's War. The operator of a canteen wagon, Mother Courage is the mother of three children, Eilif, Swiss Cheese and Kattrin. Needing to survive, Mother Courage will sacrifice the lives of her three children to the war, a symbol of how humanity is eroded by war and what those who survive it lose. The action occurs as Mother Courage follows the soldiers around from one battle to another, providing them with food, drink, clothing and other goods for profit. A soldier who tries to recruit Eilif for the war is shocked at Mother Courage's resistance, "Do they h

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ey and gunpowder. Undershaft's daughter Barbara, involved with the Salvation Army, has joined with the Army to help correct the social ills she considers her father to be instrumental in creating. Unlike Mother Courage, Undershaft is not willing to sacrifice his children for profit and survival. He believes the individuals with the most money are the only ones in a position to influence society, not the poor. Undershaft decides he will give Barbara, after dispelling what he sees as her false illusions about society, the Undershaft inheritance of "money and gunpowder; freedom and power; command of life and command of death" (Shaw 91). In contrast to the helpless but strong Mother Courage, Undershaft has a different view about society and war. Undershaft recognizes that wars are made by men very much like himself, and he also recognizes that a man who possesses money and power can do and be anything at all. For Mother Courage, it is merely a means of surviving in a society created by those like Undershaft. The influence of Undershaft extends beyond his own small family and to the larger society. Undershaft knows himself very well. He says, "Think of my business! Think of the widows and orphans! The men and lads torn to p

Category: Literature - S