The dramatic conflict of Major Barbara written by George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950) and the conflict of Mother Courage and her Children written by Bertolt Brecht (1898-1956) are fundamentally based on the Hegelian dialectics and specifically on the concept of unity of opposites. According to Friedrich Hegels (1770-1831) theory a synthesis emerges out of the conflict of the contradictory forces (thesis vs. antithesis) as a correction and a resolution for these oppositions. (Egri: 1946, 50) In other words, a thesis gives rise to its reaction, an antithesis contradicts or negates the thesis, and the tension between the two is resolved by means of a synthesis. Hegel rarely used these terms himself: this model is not Hegelian but Fichtean. (1762 1814)