ANNA FIERLING’S DUAL PERSONA IN BERTOLT BRECHT’S MUTTER COURAGE UND IHRE KINDER

Abstract

The study of women during wartime includes the analysis of both elites and subalterns alike with regard to the diversity of their attitudinal composure. Researchers have showed that women exhibit different personality behavior during war situation, with the example of the work of Vickers (1993). In Mutter Courage und ihre Kinder (1939), personality clash is represented through Anna Fierling, the main character’s individual deviation from the
standards of conduct operating, being a humanist and anti-human, within the given culture. To Anna Fierling, who must see the end of the thirty years European war, we see the struggle between virtues of motherhood and vices for livelihood. However, a behavioural balance in Anna Fierling’s character could seldom be achieved away from cultural relativity. This paper, therefore, presents a humanistic approach for explaining the bifoci of Anna Fierling’s personality; a woman at the crossroads of playing her motherly as well as economic role in a capitalist, war-torn era.