A brief study of women protagonists in some of Bertolt Brecht's plays: an attempt at interpretation

Abstract

Brecht was one of the most controversial figures during his lifetime. From the moment his first play, Baal, was written (1918) up to his death in 1956 he presented a problem to literary critics. His beginnings lie in the tradition of Lenz, Büchner, Wedekind and the Expressionists but the main motivating force throughout his work was his opposition to the middle-class; to its double values, its petrified traditions, its moral standards, and most particularly to its bourgeois comforts. The European theatre at that time was dominated by bourgeois tastes and it was against this pandering to one social class that Brecht rebelled. Though himself from a comfortable middle-class home he rejected the norms of his background early in life and joined forces with the working class whose literary champion he remained to his death.