"When something seems the most obvious thing in the world, it means that all attempts to understand the world have been abandoned." How does Brecht attempt to ensure that the obvious is absent in this play? Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an original essay Brecht's intentions when writing Mother Courage were to communicate his beliefs and make people aware of two major issues facing society: war and capitalism. According to Brecht, people deserve the wars they receive if they adhere to a political system that is unjust and favors a specific sector of society, namely capitalism, in which it is up to the individual to secure their own means of survival. In other words, if the system is in any way unjust, war and conflict are inevitable. For this to be understood, it would be essential for the audience to see the work for what it is, rather than getting caught up in its story. This means that they should be alienated from the game and made constantly aware of it as a game and nothing more. To do this, Brecht upset audience expectations and deliberately avoided theatrical techniques that would have made appearances realistic. In this way, people were forced to confront the issues at hand and decipher the meanings behind what they were shown. The "obvious" to which Brecht refers is that which is clearly seen, that which cannot be missed. It requires no reflection and does not arouse thoughts. By alienating the audience in this play, they see that nothing is happening on an obvious level and can gain a true understanding of the reasons why the characters behave the way they do and the context in which they exist. Brecht incorporated techniques of alienation into the staging methods used in the performances of Mother Courage, primarily by keeping a very bright white light aimed evenly across the set. This eliminated any opportunity to create an atmosphere; any magical or romantic visions of the stage were kept strictly at bay and no attempt was made to convey a sense of any specific place. A banner was also used to introduce each scene, instead of a narrator, as was more common in dramatic performances of the time. This innovative technique appeared unusual to the public and differed from the traditional way of telling stories. Furthermore, because no words were spoken to them, it was difficult to become involved in the story, as it were to be drawn into an emotion, for example, by an excited tone of voice. Furthermore, the scene changes were made in full view of the audience, reminding them of its existence as a play, alienating them once again from the impression of a "real life" tale. This sense was what was intentionally expressed in other comedies of the time, and one method used was to convey the impression that a fourth wall had been cut out of the scene and that the audience was seeing episodes from the characters' lives, almost as if they were spying on them. In Brecht's work, however, this effect has been eliminated; viewers were not meant to be involved, so the fact that it was simply a spectacle was constantly imposed. As for acting, the actors didn't have to "become" their characters or persuade someone into a transformation, they simply had to show the character's behavior. They were not intended to evoke empathy, but to scare the audience into thinking objectively. Theatrical illusion was used to a minimal extent. The stage machinery improved some representations of reality, but not enoughto distract the audience from the awareness of still being in a theater. All these methods were used to alienate the spectators, so that they would adopt and maintain an attitude of inquiry and criticism in dealing with the incidents and issues raised by the play, which is what epic theater focused on. Songs are often used in this show, and interpret the story in an objective tone. Mother Courage's first appearance on stage began with a song, ensuring that the audience is not empathetic and drawing attention to it as a play from the start. During the show, this is what the songs did, as well as make poignant observations and address real issues that Brecht wanted the audience's attention to focus on. The sudden appearance of a song at seemingly unlikely points in the show, when least expected, is alienating and can confuse the audience. Often a silly or lighthearted song would emerge immediately after a dramatic event, creating a lack of moral perspective and irony. Another alienating feature is the fact that the melodic and lyrical delivery of the songs contrasts with their serious, sometimes distressing content. In the third scene, for example, the chaplain's song tells the horrors of the story of Christ, yet the form resembles that of a nursery rhyme. This occasional use of song makes the show difficult to define in terms of theatrical form; Brecht mixes these forms in the same way as his writing style, which is both poetic and demotic. This alternation between quasi-romantic poetry and everyday, colloquial speech is recurrent and the fluctuations are sudden. It is alienating that the two opposing styles are not separated in any distinct way, constantly ensuring that the audience's expectations are denied. Differing from the audience's expectations is the purpose of the structure of the work: the space of time that passes invisibly between scenes is often large. . After a dramatic event occurs, one would expect the characters' reactions to be depicted, or at least considered, and expected emotions to be seen, but instead events that occurred several years later are shown. Therefore, dramatic climaxes are missed. Furthermore, just as it is not always possible to see a connection between the songs and the surrounding dialogues, each scene is poorly connected to the next, to the point that the viewer has the impression that if a scene were eliminated, it would not be worth much. difference. There is no defined sequence of events, negating the characteristics of traditional storytelling. Brecht introduces realism into the theater by conceiving the play not as a convenient series of dramatic events, with a known beginning and a distinct end, because this is not reality. He also uses what he calls gestures, the denial of the audience's potential for empathy. This is an effect created by epic theater, designed to force the audience to remain distant from the story. The methods used in this epic theater produced an alienating effect and deliberately separated themselves from the conventional attributes of Aristotelian theatre, which appealed to audiences. emotions and empathy evoked, causing them to share the characters' feelings. Epic theatre, by definition, aimed to engage people's thinking and reasoning; Brecht opposed the soporific attitude of the audience and did not want them to be lulled into passive viewing, but instead forced them to confront what they saw and analyze it. A significant method of alienation that ensures that the audience does not get caught up in the "what happens next" suspense element of the story is the fact that Brecht anticipates that each scene is introduced with a summary of subsequent events, establishing an inevitability that denies the.