characters systematically respond, in a plot that has a beginning, middle, and end. Human reality in epic theatre evolves in response to the various environments in which it is obliged to function. In epic theatre there may be multiple environments and multiple realities of experience at work. The given universe may be moral or immoral, and indeed the found reality may foster a kind of behavior that exposes the moral (immoral) truth of that reality to the spectator. This explains why so many scenes in Brecht's plays are accompanied by scene headings that function as placards or screen projections and that so often have an ironic or jarring tone. For example, the placard in Scene Two of Mother Courage is jarring because of the combination of "the successful sale of a capon [insignificant in the scheme of history] and great days for brave son [who is not brave and whose day is accidentally great because he slaughters the enemy via subterfuge]" (Brecht 849). Indeed, epic theatre exposes the absence of abiding truths, showing how human beings are forced to behave in a world where circumstances determine the choices before them. The characters themselves may learn nothing from their experiences, so strongly are they determined by their environment. But part of the lesson to be learned from the profound disillusionment with reality that dominates epic theatre is that justice or injustice is an attribute of the decisions that the audience will make in the real world.
6. Embodied in the character of Mother Courage is the moral wasteland that is, nevertheless, efficient in survival, in the context of the inexorable process of war. Now Mother Courage does not see things in such terms. Although she pauses momentarily to reflect that a smart emperor "couldn't do better" than conquering the whole world and is probably really disappointed when imperial plans are "spoiled by the common riffraff that only wants a jug of beer . . not the higher thing...