Mother Courage and her Children (1939)(1) by German playwright Bertolt Brecht and Love in the time of Cholera (1985)(2) by Colombian author Gabriel Garcia Marquez explore the theme of obsession and its’ detrimental influence on human relationships. Whilst in the plays the protagonists’ obsession leads to the destruction of relationships with loved ones, in the novel a thwarted relationship leads the main character to develop dual unhealthy relationships with women. The first sees him obsessed with his lost first love and the second is a sexual addiction spanning more than 600 ‘conquests’.

Whilst Mother Courage and Florentino are both driven by obsession, these vary in their focus. Mother Courage lives in the time of the Thirty Years war and runs her own cart selling wares to the armies to survive and support her children. This business and the pursuit of money becomes an obsession for her. On page 73, Scene 9 Mother Courage declares: “Sometimes I sees meself driving through hell with me cart selling brimstone, or across heaven with packed lunches for hungry souls. Give me my kids what’s left...”
This line juxtaposes the images of heaven and hell and brings to the readers mind a well-used phrase that people use to emphasise their dedication to a task, ie “I’d drive through heaven or hell...”. Whilst it becomes apparent to the reader that Mother Courage is obsessed with making money from the war, in Love in the time of Cholera Florentino’s obsession is with his lost first love, Fermina. This is evidenced in Chapter 2 …………….. where he observes: “Fermina Daza seemed different without the school uniform, for she wore a narrow tunic with many folds that fell from her shoulders in the Greek style, and on her head she wore a garland of fresh gardenias that made her look like a crowned goddess.”
Here the author has used simile and imagery to convey the extent of Florentino’s obsessive worship of Fermina, referencing Greek mythology and religion as well as using the symbols of a goddess in toga-style dress, head garland and crown. In both texts, the writers have used heavenly symbols to powerfully communicate the magnitude of the main character’s obsessions as well as contrasting their difference.

The outcomes of both Mother Courage and Florentino’s obsessive pursuits, destructive relationships, can be seen as the greatest similarity between the two works. In the play, Mother Courage manages to destroy her relationships with all of her children by making the expansion of her business her first priority, which ultimately leads to their deaths. In a quotation taken from the final scene of the play, directly after Mother Courage leaves her daughters corpse for the local peasants to bury, she mutters: “Hope I can pull this wagon by myself. Gotta manage. Not much in it, now. Gotta get back to business” Scene ...........
This line demonstrates that she has learned nothing from the loss of another child, as well as her cold-hearted continued dedication to her business. Whilst usually a child’s death would leave a mother in turmoil, because of Mother Courage’s focus on making money she has ruined another relationship and lost another child. She barely even reacts when the peasants accuse her of being the cause of her own child’s death. Wearily, Mother Courage continues conducting her normal business, the one that serves as her material and psychological support. This obsession with making money from the war also leads to the deterioration of her mental state, which in turn results in further destroying her relationships with the people in her life. Marquez similarly demonstrates that Florentino has destroyed relationships with others because of his obsession with Fermina. The most obvious demonstration of this is Florentino’s sexual relationship with young school girl América Vicuna who commits suicide. Due to a fresh rejection by Florentino and failing her final examinations, América made the conscious decision to end her short life. “Florentino Ariza knew in the depths of his soul that the story was incomplete.”Scene.........
Here Florentino knows that he was the main contributor as to why América had decided to end her life. This reference to “the depths of his soul” shows just how far down he has pushed acknowledgement of his role in the death. Her suicide demonstrates the selfish nature of Florentino’s love for Fermina and how it destroys his relationships with others.

The profession of psychiatry has long claimed that obsession can lead to abnormal behaviour. As previously noted, psychiatry defines obsession as “a persistent idea or impulse that continually forces its way into consciousness, often associated with anxiety and mental illness”. Both protagonists develop and demonstrate abnormal behaviour as a result of their obsessions. We accept as readers that love can have a very strong influence on people and the way they act. When heartbroken, many people normally experience strong emotional pain or depression. In the novel, Marquez uses the setting and time period of his book to compare Florentino’s ‘love’ sickness with actual sickness: Chapter.................... “After Florentino Ariza saw her for the first time, his mother knew before he told her because he lost his voice and his appetite and spent the entire night tossing and turning in his bed. But when he began to wait for the answer to his first letter, his anguish was complicated by diarrhoea and green vomit, he became disoriented and suffered from sudden fainting spells, and his mother was terrified because his condition did not resemble the turmoil of love so much as the devastation of cholera.”

Here Marquez endows Florentino with extreme behaviour that mimics a person suffering from the symptoms of cholera. Marquez also skilfully uses the technique of irony and symbolism having Florentino describe Fermina’s first marriage as follows, together with its resulting effect on his life:

“Fifty years later, when Fermina Daza was freed from her sacramental sentence, he had some twenty-five notebooks, with six hundred twenty-two entries of long-term liaisons, apart from the countless fleeting adventures that did not even deserve a charitable note.” Chapter ....................

In the novel, Florentino sleeps with over 600 women in order to try and survive the torment of Fermina. These conquests evidence an obsessive sex addiction, which could also be considered as abnormal behaviour. Similarly in Mother Courage and Her Children abnormal behaviour is also seen in the protagonist:

“I won’t let you spoil my war for me. Destroys the weak, does it? Well, what does peace do for em huh? War feeds its people better.”

This quotation demonstrates that whilst Mother Courage has previously cursed war, she has rapidly changed her mind and decided that war is a good thing for all people and that peace is much worse. These sudden changes of behaviour, as well as the neglect of her children, demonstrate Mother Courage’s increasingly abnormal behaviour. Whilst can never be said that a parenting style is ‘normal’ or ‘abnormal’, it is seen as abnormal in some societies for a mother to place the welfare of her children second to that of business.

Whilst the protagonists in both texts exhibit the symptoms of obsession, these take the different forms of obsession with money and obsession with a lost love and sex. For both Mother Courage and Florentino, these obsessions result in the destruction of relationships and lead to them exhibiting abnormal behaviour. The fact that they obsess continuously over one main important person or object leads to the death of loved ones for both of them. This exploration of obsession and its resultant side-effects is accomplished through the authors’ effective use of simile, imagery, irony and symbolism. Both of these works thoroughly and successfully explore the idea that that obsession can indeed be a negative passion.

Bibliography

(1) Brecht, B. 2005 (1940), Mother Courage and her Children, trans. J. Willett, Methuen Drama A and C Black Publishers, London.

(2) Garcia Marquez, G 2007 (1985), Love in the Time of Cholera, trans. E. Grossman, Penguin Books, London.

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“Paul Carvel quotes”. ThinkExist.com Quotations Online 1 Mar. 2012. 22 Apr. 2012