Mother by Maxim Gorky

A COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS BETWEEN THE CHARACTERS OF MOTHER AND MOTHER COURAGE IN

GORKY’S MOTHER AND BRECHT’S MOTHER COURAGE AND HER CHILDREN

Maxim Gorky’s novel Mother was published in 1906. Set amidst Russia on the brink of a revolution, the novel focuses on the political upheaval and talks about Pelageya Nilovna or Mother, a widow of a boorish factory worker and how she changes her own ideology as her son becomes a leader of the social democratic circles. On the other hand, Bertolt Bretcht’s Mother Courage and her Children came out much later in the year 1938. Mother Courage and her children was set in Europe during the Thirty years’ war. We are introduced to Mother Courage, a canteen woman who pulls her cart with her three children in the wake of the army, trading with the soldiers, attempting to make profit from the war. Both Gorky and Brecht introduce a socialist realism theme in their works, Gorky highlights the reality of revolutions and Brecht depicts the real horrors of the war. However they differ in their treatment of the subjects and this is very evident by their main protagonists, Gorky’s Mother and Bretcht’s Mother Courage.

Gorky’s Mother endures physical abuse all her married life and it is only after her son becomes a socialist that she becomes aware of her own opinions and the world around her. She gains her lost voice be taking part in the socialist revolution and she regards her new formed ideology as her result of her immense love for her son. In contrast, Bretcht’s Mother Courage is a deeply contradictory character, she runs a wagon to sell bread to the armies in the wake of the war and her business seems her sole priority. War seems like an opportunity for her to earn and make a living; she was even called Mother Courage as she ran into a bombardment just to sell her loaves of bread. Although both Mother Courage and Pelageya share immense love for their respective children, they completely differ in their ideologies. Pelageya transforms as...