Bertolt Brecht, In Mother Courage, challenges the accepted concepts of three major values of western society: capitalism, religion, and heroes. He shows how capitalism is flawed by the actions Mother Courage does in order to sustain herself. He challenges religion by showing the hypocrisy of its leaders. Brecht rejects the traditional notion of a hero as being obsolete and presents in the story two examples of traditional heroism and the outcome. Mother Courage represents the …showed first 75 words of 1025 total…

…showed last 75 words of 1025 total…survival of herself and her children: lying about being a Catholic, haggling about a bribe, Illicitly buying munitions, smearing her daughters face with charcoal. Brecht is trying to show that the people of the working class, the proletariat, live similarly to Mother Courage. Their lives are filled with constant struggle only to meet basic needs. Their struggles do not end until they are die, and they must continue to struggle endlessly or they will die.