© Mike Jacobsen
File Under: recipe for Courage, less-than-honorable characters, self-proclaimed patriot, slithering snake, bad people need to be killed
The recipe for Mary Courage is a tablespoon of confidence, a teaspoon of spitfire, a pinch of vulnerability, a cup of saleswoman and a heaping handful of survivor. She’s a widower who doesn’t have time for her own weakness; she’s too busy trying to cure everyone else’s.
Previous installments
Part 1: Mother Mary Courage
Part 2: The Story of Mary Courage
I’ve always been fond of making less-than-honorable characters likeable. It’s not that I want people to emulate the person who is bad; I just don’t want them to tune out what they’re saying. If the character is likeable to some degree (or a great degree), the reader is more apt to pay attention to what the character says and does and, hopefully, recognize the selfishness and greed.
Whether Mary Courage is an antagonist or protagonist is up for debate, depending on which side of the war you throw your support behind. She’s a self-proclaimed patriot and protector of the people for making sure the Senate spends enough money to give the soldiers the tools they need to be successful. Or she’s a manipulative, slithering snake who plays on people’s emotions and uses piles of money to corrupt the corruptible. Most likely, she’s somewhere complicated in-between.
She’s a supportive mother to her children (the Senators) and a hands-off mother to her real children. She’s compassionate to the risks that soldiers take, but she’s unapologetic in saying that bad people need to be killed. She says it so that her children, the politicians, don’t have to. She’s the most powerful woman in Washington, but even she answers to a higher power: CEO.
Most of all, Mary Courage loves to sing.
