George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950)

1
George Bernard Shaw
(1856-1950)

• Cecilia H. C. Liu
• Oct. 5, 2005

2
George Bernard Shaw

• Born in Dublin, where he grew up in something
  close to genteel poverty. Young Shaw and his two
  sisters were brought up mostly by servants.
• His father George Carr Shaw, in the wholesale
  grain trade a drunkard - his example prompted
  his son to become a teetotaller.
• - died in 1885.
• Mother Lucinda Elisabeth (Gurly) Shaw was the
  daughter of an impoverished landowner.
• - 16-years younger than her husband She
  eventually left the family home to teach music,
  singing, in London
• - died in 1913.

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George Bernard Shaw

• Shaw finished his formal education at the Dublin
  English Scientific and Commercial Day School. At
  the age of 15, he started to work as a junior
  clerk. In 1876 he went to London, joining his
  sister and mother. Shaw did not return to Ireland
  for nearly thirty years.
• In 1877-78 Shaw educated himself at the British
  Museum. He began his literary career by writing
  music and drama criticism, and novels, including
  the semi-autobiographical IMMATURITY, without
  much success.

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Shaw and the Fabian Society

• A vegetarian, who eschewed alcohol and tobacco,
  Shaw joined in 1884 the Fabian Society, served on
  its executive committee from 1885 to 1911.
• A man of many causes, Shaw supported abolition of
  private property, radical change in the voting
  system, campaigned for the simplification of
  spelling, and the reform of the English alphabet.
  As a public speaker, Shaw gained the status of
  one of the most sought-after orators in England.

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Prostitution in Victorian Britain

• a. Modern scholars support Shaw's claims that
  women turned to prostitution as better than the
  alternatives that they organised themselves,
  helped themselves (as the Warren sisters do) and
  had contacts with the highest classes, and
  protection from them and that most prostitutes
  hoped to retire to respectability.
• b. The nineteenth-century theatre portrayed
  prostitutes as repentant but tragic figures e.g,
  Dumas fils , La Dame aux Camélias (1852), which
  became Verdi's opera La Traviata (1853) Pinero,
  The Second Mrs Tanqueray (1893). Mrs Warren is
  different in not apologising for her profession
  instead, she is proud of herself.

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Performance Ban

• Embarrassment of this subject and the temptation
  to treat it with horror or jokiness.
• Shaw tries to counter this by adapting Ibsenite
  realism. Influence of Ibsen on Shaw, especially
  his social problem plays (e.g., An Enemy of the
  People (1882)) in terms of (a) realism of
  presentation (b) seriousness of social issues
  raised (c) technique of unmasking of characters
  and society.

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• Central revelation of play is Crofts' speech to
  Vivie in Act III where he shows that 'all decent
  society' is based on exploitation of the poor,
  especially women (i.e., prostitution is a symptom
  of economic not just sexual exploitation).
• But unmasking is essentially a comic technique
  (e.g., the discovery that the Rev. Sam Gardner
  was one of Mrs Warren's clients, end of Act I).

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• Vivie's response to Crofts is revolutionary - she
  refuses to join the rest in the society he
  describes, but sets off to look for a new life.
  This conversion referred to as 'a serious call'
  in Act IV (p. 273) and has a religious quality
  compare attitudes of characters in later plays by
  Shaw, e.g., Saint Joan (1923).

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Is Mrs Warren's Profession a comedy?

• a. Not a romantic comedy, despite discussions of
  marriage and conflict between lovers and parents
  - no wedding at end!
• b. Not a satirical comedy, since Mrs Warren,
  Crofts, et al., are not the abnormal contrasted
  with the normal, but the normal itself. Vivie
  tells her mother 'You are a conventional woman at
  heart' (p. 286) i.e., Mrs Warren occupies the
  same moral ground from which society judges her.
• c. Perhaps a divine comedy (despite Shaw's
  atheism), as the play shows an optimism about
  goodness. The apparent evil of society is a
  temporary error and the play describes a universe
  where benevolence and redemption, though
  difficult, are possible, to those who see it
  clearly and commit themselves to living honestly.

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Works Cited

• Comedy in English Literature. 4 Oct. 2005
  lthttp//www.st-andrews.ac.uk/www_se/personal/cjmm
  /Shaw.htmlgt.
• George Bernard Shaw. 4 Oct. 2005
  lthttp//www.kirjasto.sci.fi/gbshaw.htmgt.