The Mother (1938)
The Mother had four sons : Ondra a doctor, Jiri a pilot, Kornel and Petr twins of different political opinions and of unlike character. All four of them have already died. They've sacrificed their lives for honor, for the nation, for mankind. Even her husband has died in far away Africa trying to prove his ideas by fighting.
The dead visit the solitary mother in the room and talk to her. The mother reproaches them having needlessly risked their lives. She still has one more, fifth son, the beloved Tony. She fears for him, protects him. She doesn't want him to become another victim of a profligate destiny like his siblings and his father. She refuses to permit him to take up arms and go to war. All of the dead try to persuade her but she's strongly against such an idea with all her maternity.
Only when she hears on the radio a pressing voice of a woman, a mother urging all men to fight the enemy who murders children does the mother change her mind. Not only does she let Tony go to war but she also gives him the father's rifle and tells him to go and fight. All the dead agree with her.
The Mother is the climax of Capek's work. The heroin's daling proves the strenght of man (woman) whose ordeal is fate is to give life and to preserve it. Her conscience urges her to send her last son to defend their homeland that is under attack. Capek shows that by non-participation one cannot save mankind under threat.
Stanislav Smejkal
translation: Dominik Zunt
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