a.

George Bernard Shaw

George Bernard Shaw (1856---1950) was born in Dublin, Ire-

land, of English parentage. His father was a small oficial who habit-

ually got drunk and whose means was not enough to provide for the

family. His mother had a good voice and helped out in family finance

by giving music lessons. As 2 boy, Shaw did not distinguish him-

self at school, but was much interested in 1literature, music and art.

It was beyond his family means to send him to a university, and so

when be left school for good at 14, he was put into a job as clerk

and latet as cashicr in a land-agent's office in Dublin. Engaged in

the collecting of rents, he had go every week to the squalid Dub-

lin tenements und mixed with the masses of poor peopłe and this

experience enabled him to sympathize with the miseries of the poorand provided material for his
first play, The Widowers' Houses".

Also, all the years of his childhood and eariy youth he spent in Ire-

land made Shaw understand thé suffetings of the Irish people under

the oppression of the English ruling classes,. and left in him vivid im-

pressions of the bard lot of the Irish which he was later to introduce

into some of his plays, particułarly in "Joha Bull's Other Island'",

Then his family broke up and his mother weat to London to sing

concerts there and to give music kessons. In 1876, at the age of

20, Shaw resigneđ from his job and also went to London.

His first three years in London he spent chiefly in the libraries,

picking up an education for himself and only doing odd jobs for

small earnings. In 1879 be started to. write novels. From .1879

to 1883 he wrote a total of ffve novels and he had a hard time get-

ting them publisbhed, and the first to be published was the last of the

five novels, "The Unsocial Socialist", in 1834.. The first novel of

the series, "Immaturity", a story about a lerk, was not published

till 1930, while the other three, "The Irrational Kngot" (about a poor

musician), "Love Among the Artists" (about an electrical engincer)

and "Cashel Byron's Profession" (about a world-famous prizefigh-

ter marrying a priggishly refined lady of property), appeared in seri-

als in the magazines of "Our Corner" and "Today", respectively in

1885-87, 1885-88 and 1885.-86. All these novels have one thing

in comnon, the portrayal of one principal character who is detach-

ed from his surroundings and who is conscious of a distance of su-

periority between himself and others. This aloofness and feeing of

superiority, which were to last throughout the author's life and were

responsible for his love of paradoxes and witty remarks and for his

striving for the unusual and unconventional, very naturally attract-

ed him to the Fabians who placed their hopes for the world in the

intellectual and intelligent few. Of these five novcls, the most im-

portant is The Unso cial Socialist", which was written after the

author had attended socialist meetings and read Marx's "Capital".

The hero of the novel, Sidney Trefusis, son of a cotton manufactur-

er, is shown at the opening of the book as having discovered the orj-gin of his wealth and of that of
all his class, And with this knowl-

edge the hero of the novel wishes to break every tie that binds him with

his class and he starts by leaving his wife whom he loves and going

to a hermit's cave in the countrg and living there as labourer. He

decides to devote his energes and money to assisting the organizá-

tion of the workers, to uoite them in a vast international associa-

kion" with socialism as its aim. Then his wife dies and he returns

to his former enviropment and begins to attack the men and women

of his own class from within, as one of themselves. He also engages

bimself in "working out a schemne" for the reorganization of in-

dustry. But at the close of the story.the hero marries a girt who has

not the least interest in problėms of capitálism and socialismn, and

he proposes to interfere no mọre "with the slowly grinding mill

of Evolution !" And this ultimate belief in evolution as against

revolution for the bero shows definitely Shaw's incination ałready

then toward Fabianism.

In 1882 Shaw happened to attend a speech by Henry George,

author of *Progress and Poverty who advooated the nationali-

zation of land as a solution to the social problemns of the time,

and this made a decp impression on Shaw and he began to take in-

terest in social theories. Tben, shortly after this, Shaw attended a

public neeting of Hyndman's Democratic Federation and there he

was told of Mar%. So he went to the British Museum Reading

Room and there read Marx's Capital" in a French translation.

Then, in 1884, he joined the Fabian Society shortly after its founding

and in 1885 he was clected a member of its Executive Committee.

The Fabian infuence was obvious in many of Shaw's plays.

Over a period of thirteen years (1885--1898) Shaw was engaged

chiefiy in a journalistic career, serving as critic of art, music and

drama for different newspapers and magazines. As a critic he was

strongly against Art for Art's Sake", and as a dramatic critis he

levelled his attack on the plays with well-constructed plots but very

meagre contents which then filled the theatres, and he fought for the

staging of social dranas of Ibsen's. He delivered a number of lec-tures on "The Doll's House'",
Ghosts", and Ibsen's other plays,

and ia 1891 published his criticał essay "The Quintessence of Ibsen-

ism." He also wrote other critical essays, including chiefty "The

Sanity of Art" (1895) and "The Perfect Wagnerite" (1898). Shaw

also delivered many lectures on socialism during this period.

Shaw's dramatic career began in 1892, with the appearance

of his first play, Widowers' Houses", on the London stage. This

is the first of the tbree "Unpłeasant Plays" which include also "The

Philanderer" (1893) and "Mrs. Warren's Profession'" (1893), and

which wil be dealt with more fully later. These were followed by four

"Pleasant Plays'", including Aros and the Man" (1894), “Candida"

(1895),The Man of Destiny"(1897),and'You Never Can Tell':

(L898). In "Arms and the Man" and The Man of Destiny"" Shaw

tries to shatter the romantic halo that was thrown around war heroes

and military heroism, while in "Candida"" the romantic veil is torn

off the conident clergyman, the great preacher, the orator of won-

derful eioquence who does not even have enough time to speak to

all the organizations that invite him to speak. *You Never Can

Tell", the weakest of the four, touches on the problem of the disin-

tegration of a bourgeois family. Then, the third serics of Shaw's

plays, appearing ncar the cose of the 19th century under the title of

"Three Plays for Puritans", include The Devil's Disciple" (1897),

"Captain Brassbound's CoRversion" (1897) and "Caesar and Cle-

opatra" (1898). In the preface to these thrce plays Shaw explains

the titie of "Plays for Puritans" and attacked the English theatres

of the time which were then run on purely business basis and in which

vulgar dramas on meaningless erotic themes were produced to cậ-

ter to the low tastes of the bourgeois audieRces. Shaw considers

it necessary for "Puritans" of his age to stop the production of such

vulgar plays as did the Puritans of the 17th century. In the plays

*The Devil's Disciple" and "Caesar and Cleopatra" Shaw turns to

history but still keeps an eye always on contemporary society. So

the figures at the time of the American Revolution in 1777 in the

first play and Caesar and Cleopatra of ancient Reman history in thesecond are both given the feelings
and speeches and actions of mo-

dern men and women. In Captain Brassbound's Conversion'"

Shaw touches on the colonial problem by having the scene placed in

colonial Morocco. All three plays show the dramatist's attack on

British imperialism and his severe criticism of the oppression and

hypocrisy of the British bourgeoisie.

In 1898 Shaw got married to an irish millionairess who Was

isc a Fabian, and after the marriage Shaw went to no more str:et

mcetings and to few SOcialist lectures outside of the Fabian çircle.

In 1903 came a weil-knowa play of Shaw's, "Man and Super-

man", *hich has as its sub-title "A Comedy and a Philosophy" and

to which is appendixed a collection of aphorisns and paradoxes on

social themes, "The Revolutionist's Handbook and Pocket Comp-

anion." Here Shaw dropped his attacks on capitalisn and his preach-

ing of socialism but embarked on the biological theory of the mys-

terious "Life Force", He rejected Darwinism and followed the teach-

ings of Lamarck and pointed out that this "Life Force" was

resr ans:'e for a: growth ín the natural worid and was the expiana-

tion of the relationship between man and woman. So in three of

the acts of the play, the lst, 2nd and 4th acts, which are separable

from the third act and are the only parts for actual staging, the story

tells particularly of the love and marriage of the hero and the hero-

ine and Shaw tries to explain that the woman is more an instrument

of the Life Force and therefore takes the active part in love and mar-

riage so as to fulfill the human duties cf procreation, and that as

usually tries to run away from Life Force so as to be able to develop

his potentialities in art and other activities in life. The third act is

set apart by itself, in which the bero, runring away from the hero-

ine and the Life Force, falls asleep on the way and dreams of being

in hell and conversing with the Devil. This act, though also contain-

ing an explanation of the Life Force and a sort of parody of the con-

troversies in the socialist movement of the 1880s, nevertheless touch-

es on criticisms on the bourgeois civilization, and there are satir-

ic remarks against mili tarism and the use of modern technołogy forthe purpose of destruction,

Man and Superman" was foilowed by John Bull's Other Is-

land"" (1904), which was written for, but rejected by W. B. Yeats'

Irish National Theatre. It is Shaw's most powerful attack on Eng-

lish imperialism, bccause he was himself an Irishman and his know-

ledge of the miseries of the Irish peopłe gathered in his younger days

made him hate the terrible oppression and exploitation of the Irish
by the English ruling classes for so many centuries. The story is

about an Englishman, Tom Broadbent, who, with the help of his

Irish partner in civil engincering, a dreamy Irish idealist turned real-

ist, Larry Doyle, works out a scheme for a land syndicate, which

tries to lend more money to the small farmers than the latter can pay

the interest and then to foreclose the mortgages and take posses-

sion of the land. Broadbent aiso gets himself adopted as Parlia-

mentary candidate for Rosscullen on the platform of Home Rule

for Ireland. In the play all the tricks used by the English imperial-

ists for the attainment of their ends are exposed via the actions

and speeches of the hero Broadbent.

"Major Barbara" (1905) is perhaps the most powerful of

Shaw's plays written between the Boer War of 1899--1902 and the be-

ginning of the First World War in 1914. It is significant for its search-

ing analysis of the capitalist society and for its sharp criticismi on

the hypocrisy and the Mammonism of the capitalists and wil! be dis-

cussed in detail later.

The plays written after "Major Barbara" and before the begin-

ning of the First World War show a detinite decline in the sharpness

of social criticism. So, in "Getting Married" (E908), *Misalliance*

(1910) and "Fanny's First Play" (1910), is discussed chiefly the prob-

lem of family and marriage, though once in "Misalliance" the is-

sue of capitalism and socialism is touchcd upon.

Then in The Doctor's Diemma" (1911) there is the satire on

doctors, journalists and art critics and on the place of science in bour-

geois society. In "The Dark Lady of the Sonnets" (1919) the theme

is tbat of the nccessity of the creation of a national theatre in Eng-land, plus Shaw's attempt to show
Shakespeare as not a born đramat-

ic and poetic genius but rather an indefatigable artist who takes

down every poetic phrase and dramatic situation in his notebooks

and later turns them to Use in his plays. In "Androces and the
Lion" (1912-13) Shaw makes use of the old story of a run-away

slave being made to cornfront a lion in the circus in ancient Rome

and writes a satite on the early Christian martyrs and on Christian

teligion.

Of the group of plays written before 1914, "Pygmalion" is bet-

ter knoWn, and was a great theatrical success. At the beginning

of the play the external difference is pointed out betwoen the lan-

guage of the rich and the well-eđucated and tbat of the common people

of the streets and we are totd that *"correct speech" has been con-

sidered by the upper classes as the mark of culture. Then a inguist

makes an experiment taking in a flower giri from the streets who

speaks the simple, uncultured language with a vulgar cockney ac-

cent, and after six months of training in "correct speech" the vulgar

girl becomes as cultured as any aristocratic woman and is consid-

ereá so by all the men and women of thc so-called "high" society of

cułture. So here Shaw ridicules the worthless dolis of the London

"Society'" and satirizes the fashionable sohools for noble ladies

which take such pains to give "cułture*" to aristocratic women. But

there is anothér point of significance in the play. The linguist only

gives the flower girI the external coat of "culture" by training her in

"correct speech', but the- giti turns out to be a really *cultured"

person, much mnore "cultured"" than may aristocratic women who

only have the pose of "culture'". At the end of the play when the

girl leaves his house, she indicates that the professor by treating her

like a cutured" woman has awakened in her the real culture she

has been born with: With. this Shaw undoubtedly tries to show

that the simple peopie have the real aulture in them which the nobie

ladies do not have. Therefore the linguist is compared to the "yg-

malion" in ancient Greek mythology, a famous sculptor who çreat-

es a beautifu! statue of a woman and then falls in love with herwhen she is turned into a real woman
of fiesh and biood by thc God-
dess of Love. However, by showing the heroine at the close of the

drama as a real "Lady" stitching genteelly at her ncedle work and

carefully pronouncing all her correct vowels, Shaw defeats his owa

purpose in trying to exalt the simple girl above the duchesses and

baronesses who are cultured"" only in their exteriors.

During the years of the First World War, Shaw was a paci-

fist. At the end of 1914 he wrote a pamphlet, "Commonsense about

the War", in which he showed his support of the war but pointed

out the responsibility the English policy for the outbreak of the

hostilities. He pointed out that the enemy of humanity is not Ger.

many nor England, but capitalists and imperialists, and that if

German imperialists ssem worse than their English counterparts,

it is because the latter are more consummate masters of hypocrisy.

He even said:

No doubt the heroic remedy is that both armies should

shoot their oficers and go home to gather in their

.harvests in the villages and make revolutions in the towns."

Then, when the Great October Socialist Revolution carne, Shaw

was among the îrst representatives of the advanced Western Euro-

pean intelligentsia to greet it with enthusiasm. At a stomy meet-

ing of the Fabian Society he arose abruptły to make his statement,

We are socialists. The Russian side is our side."

During the war years he wrote a number of short plays which

were later collected and published under the titie of Playlets of the

War" (1919). These include: "OFlaherty, V.C", in which is shown

the futility of heroism in the unjust war; "Augustus Does His Bit".

a true farce presenting the false patriotism of the Britisb bourgeoi-

sie; The Inca of Perusalem', a satire on German militąrism, and

"Ammajanska, the Bolshevik Empress", a discussion on the ques-

tion of revolutionary methods of struggle against militarism.

"Heartbreak House", begun in 1913 but not published till 1919

is one of Shaw's more important works. It has as its sub-title "A

Fantasia in the Russian Manner on Engish Themes", and in itspreface Shaw acknowledges his
indebtedness to the great Russian

writer Chekhov. Disillusioned after the war, Shaw in this play at-

tempts to comprehend the deepest contradictions of the modern

time.

<"Back to Methuselah" (1921) is an ambitious attempt with

five parts, equivalent to five piays, and the time of the action extends

from the time of Adam and Eve to the year 31920 A.D. Here Shaw

believes that the chief obstacle for man to achieve a life of reason

is the shortness of his earthiy existence, and that it is necessary for

man to live at.least to 300 years of age, comparabłe to the long-

lived Methuselah, before he can accumulate enough experience and

wisdom to live a really rationai and happy life. n the ifth and

last part of the long work, as mankiad is shown to have reachcd their

utmost imit in development, in the year 31920, 1he physiologica!

functions of marn are then reduced to the minimum and the men-

tal faculties are raised to the highest pitch of development. Shaw

the Fabian who believes in the superman of high intellect here tries

again to utter his faith. The play also contains scenes where the

world of politics at the time of the First World War is satirically pre-

sented, and Lloyd George and Asquith, two prominent English politi-

cians, are ridiculed under ictitious names as typical representatives in

bourgeois politics.

"Back to Methuselah was followed by "St. Joan" (1923)

which is one of Shaw's most popular and most successful plays on

the stage. The story is that of Jeanne d'Arc who led the French

people to drive out the invading Engiish troops but who was finally

betrayed and tried and executed by the English invaders. in the

first three of the six scenes of the play we see the surge of a popular

rising, with Joan its bead, winning over the. waverers and carrying
them along with it, sweeping aside all thosc who say that France

can never be liberated, infecting the court and the king with its own

enthasiasm, inspiring the army and. making straight for the enenuy's

gun in the conidence of victory. But soon Shaw's faith in individu-

afism turns the confict into one between individuais, and Joan is nolonger shown as a leader of the
people but morely as an individual

fighting against her betrayers and her enemies. Then in the Epi-

logue to the play Joan becomes a lonely saint and the whole atmos-

phere becomes one of religious mysticism. However, there are pas-

sages in the play in which confidence in the common people makes

Joan a truly great figure, and the great confict between the people

and their rulers gives significance to the play, somewbat in spite of

the author's intentions.

In 1929, a wortd-wide cconomic depression set in, and Shaw

began to turn again to politiçal themes and voiced his sharp criti-

çism the current political events in the Western world. He

wrote "The Apple Cart" (1929), a satire on Western parliamentary

system that deals with à cabinet crişis and with the attempt of Amer

ican imperialism to swallow up Britain. Here we sce again Shaw's

wit and sarcasm, manifested in the form of paradoxes.

In 1932, Shaw wrote "Too True to be Good". As the title of

the play indicates, Shaw neans here to speak the bitter truth rather

than sugared falsehoods. The entire society is shown to be ful! of

lies and those who wish to live an upright life strive in vain for the

true path out of the contradictions of the society. Both the old

and the young generations of the intelligentsia have lost their ide-

als and illusions as a result of the war. There is a definite note of

despair in the words and views of many of the characters in the play.

Shaw scems himself to sce the inevitable doom of the British Em-

pire in the loss of hope among the intellectuals of the day.

The Fabian view that only intellectuals and not the workers
can carry out the task of socialism is very vividly ilustrated in the

play "On the Rocks" (1933), where the leader of the workers' party

rejects the plan for socialist reforms in Engiand but the supporters

of the plan are shown to be rather the representatives of the ruling

class. Of course Shaw was rather alluding to the betrayal of the

working class by the leaders of the British Labour Party like Mac-

Donakd, indeed in this play there are also other topical allusions

to events of the day such as the Fascist police and unemployed work-In the comedies that followed,
in "The Simpleton of the Un-

expected İsle" (1934), "The Millionairess" (1936), Geneva" (1938)

and "In Good King Charles's Gokden Days" (1939), Shaw continued

with his critícism on the bourgeois society and with bis paradox-

es, but his satires grew weaker and more ineffectual with time.

During the Second World War Shaw published a book entitled

Political What's What" (1944) in which are summed up all his ob-

servations on social ife and on the progress of science and culture.

Here once again Shaw showed his aegative attitude toward capitalis:

but declared that he remained a supporter for the graduai change

in social system. Although in this book there are to be found ex-

araples of Shaw's confusion in his theories, yet it is obvious that Shaw

is deeply convinced of the necessity for the creation of socialist or-

ganizations in England and in the whole world.

Bernard Shaw consistently fought against the representatives

of decadent art, as he openly and frankly declared himself in favour

of the art of ideas. Once he said, "I am not an adherent to rt for

art's sake. I will nọt even lift a finger to write artistic works in which

there is nothing but artistic quality." And this view is to be found

in his numerous critical writings.

Shaw died in 1950, in his 94th year. A brilliant dramatist and

publicist, Shaw played an important role in the literature of his age.

He had his limitations of a Fabian, as he himself knew of this and

said once that he had long been laughed at in Russia as 'a good

man fallen among Fabians". But these limitations should nọt

over-shadow the great contributions he made to literature.

Possibly Shaw's three most powerful dramas are two plays from

his earliest days, Widowers' Houses" and "Mrs, Warren's Pro-

fession", and "Major Barbara" from his middle period, for these

three Shaw's briliant satires were aimed at the capitalist system it-

seif and not simply at some of the vices or foibles of the bourgeois

society, as he tried to point out the terrible crime of economie ex-

ploitation as the foundation of all other sociaf evils including polit-ical oppression and all other kinds
of tyranny.

"Widowers Houses", the very first of ali Shaw's plays which

only had a run of two days before it was stifled by the press and the

audience, was based on the author's early experience as a rent-col-

lector and the theme is the intense exploitation via the renting of

họuses in the slumns. A young aristocrat and medical student, Har..

ry Trench, becomes engaged to Blanche Sartorius, daughter of a rich

slum-landlord of London, but when he finds out from the rent-co-

leçtor Lickcheese the disgraceſul source of his future father-in-law's

income, he insists that Blanche refuses to take any of her old man's

money after their marriage and that they car live on his own small

income of 700 pounds. Soon enough, however, he learns to his

great horror tbat his own money is also derived somehow from

Sartorius' slums via a mortgage, and he surrenders finaliy and he even

willingty participates in new and more heartless scheme of making

still more money with those slums, when Lickcheese, now indepen-

dent and wealthy, comes to suggest to Sartorius to make certain re-

pair. on the shums in order t gt a bigger amcunt of compensation

by the time thesc slums are puiled down to make way for a new

street runing into the Strand.

The chief objet of attack in this play is therefore the prevalence

of economic exploitation in the bourgeois world, so that Trench who

oniy has a comparatively small income of 700 pounds also lives on

exploitation, and in fact, there's exploitation not onły in the invest-

ments of money in factories or banks or commerce or as exported

capital for foreign lands, but even in houses, particularly houses in

sium districts that pay high returns, higher even than from big man-

sions. So, as Shaw himself writes the Preface to the play, "In

Widowers Houses' I have showa middle-class respectability and

younger son gentility fattening on thc poverty of the slum as Aies

fatten on flth." Here Shaw tries to drive home his point of the

ruthlessness of exploitation in capitalist society. So Lickcheese

the rent-collector tells the uabelieving Trench: "Look that bag of

money on the table. Hardly a penny of that but there wąs a hungrychild crying for the bread it should
bave bougbt.'" And Lickcheese

proceeds to reveal how these "tenement houses, Jet from week to

week by the room or half-rooM-aye, or quarter-room" and "calculat-

ed on the cubic foot of space' pay higher rents tharn mansion in

the most fashionable district in London, and also how three womea

have been hurt on a staircase because it was not mended. A third

object of attack in the play is the bypocrisy of the dignified-looking

exploiters. Sartorius to al1 appearances is a prosperous business

man who takes good care of his extravagant daughter and is ready 1ɔ

look after her and her husband upon their marriage, and only when

ibis practical landlord of the slums laughs a t the sentimental views

of his would-be sOn-in-law Harry Trench and declares emphatical-

ły that a business man should never be influenced by morai consid-

erations, do we see Shaw tearing the veil of hypocrisy off the ruling

class of exploiters. And then Lickcheese's proposal to Sartoríus

to speedily repair his slums in Robbins Row in order to obtain great-

er compensations because he has ilched the government secret

that a strect will be buiit through this lot furtner adds to the territe
picture of all the dirtiest means of money-making possible in bour-

geois society, And Trench whọ at first seems to have moral comn-

punctions against dirty exploitation suceumbs eventualiy and even is

wiling to join in the new venture proposed by Lickcheese and ap-

proved of by Sartorius. This also shows how great the temptation

is for dirtying one's hand in making money in the capitalist world

and also how a man from the parasitic class of smali exploiters scts

as Trench very naturally joins forces with other and bigger explvit-

Crs.

After "The Philanderer" which is supposed to be a sort of a

satire on whạt was then popularly known as the Ibsenite new woman

but which is actually a diversion between two serious dramas, came

"Mrs. Warren's Profession" which was banned as imnoral by the

censors but which was considered by the dramatist himself as much

ay best play" and should be ranked among the greatest of Shaw's

plays, because the social satire here is the sharpest and the bitterest. The titular heroine of the
drama Mrs. Warren comes from

a very poor family and after working for some time as waitress and

bar-maid becomes a prostitute and then is part-owner and manag-

er of a chain of prostitution houses in different capitals of Central

Europe. The play opens as she comes back from abroad to visit

her daughter Vivie who has been brought up as a girl of a well-to-

do family and given a good education. Mrs. Warren comes with

two of her friends, one of whom is a partner of hers in the business

of running brothels, an old, dissolute aristocrat, Sir George Crofts.

He tries to make love to Vivie, and is rejected by her after she

finds out about the real nature of her mother's so-called business.

Disillusioned and unable to live on ber mother's income any long-

er, Vivie goes to work in London. Such is the centra! thread of

story in the play. A minor thread is Vivic's relationship with a neigh-

bour boy Frank Gardner whose fatber, a solemn clergyman, hap-

pens to be an old lover of Mrs. Warren's, and whase attempt to make

love to Vivic is called a halt to by Crofts' ill-intentioned revelation

to the two of them of their half-brother-and-half-sišter relationship.

But this secondary plot only serves to expose the promiscuous lives

of seemingly dignificd and cven religious persons in the bourgeois

society and to add to the complexity of plot and character-drawing.

The important confict in the drama is that between Vivie who is cley-

er and well-educated but does not know much of the world and the

terrible bourgeois world represented first by Crofts and also by her

own mother.

The theme of the play is the use of prostitution houses for pur-

poses of exploitation in the capitalist society. In order to point

out emphatically the prevalence af cxploitation everywhere and via

the dirtiest possible means in the so-called civilized world, Slhaw

shocks his audience by showing how poor but good-looking women

not only sell thei good looks and their very bodies to maintain their

existence and are exploited by factory owners and restaurant and

bar proprietors whiie working for them, but also, what is far more

terrible, how prostitution houses- are used as a means and a safe, one too for investment and
money-making, even by such respecțable aris-

tocrats like Sir George Crofts, Hert we see the resembiançe be-

tween thbis play and "Wiđowers Houses" in that both hit at the very

heart of capitalism as a social system according to which economic

Cxploitation is a legitimate thing to be adopted everywhere and even

via the lowest and dirtiest mcans. And Crofts, like Sartorius, is

thoroughly unashamed of playing such dirty tricks to get high pre-

miums as he answers Vivie's challenge with blatant self-righteous-

ness even: Why the devil shouldn't I invest my monėy that way? I

take the interest on my capital like other people. I hope you don't

think I dirty my own hands with the work." Here Shaw strikes

the very foundation of the capitalist society where it is a mater of

course for one to take the interest on one's capital, and let the devil

care by which dirty means. And also the bypocrisy of bourgeois

respectability is satirized for it is also the common thing with all in-

vestors of capital to take the interest on one's capital but without

dirtying one's own band in the work. Crofts further voices Shaw's

exposé of the prevalence of exploitation in the capitalist socicty by

teiling Vivie that all the most respectable and honourable. persGns

in the English bourgéois society, including the Duke of Belgravia,

the Archbishop of Canterbury and Crofts' own brother the M. P.,

all get their money via the dirtiest ways of expioitation, and that,

therefore, if you're going to pick and choose your acquaintances

on moral principles, you'd better cicar out of this country, unless

you want to cut yourself out of all decent society."s

In "Mrs. WarTen's Profession'", therefore, Shaw proceeds

from attacking one of the abuses in the capitalist world to the con-

demnation of the entire bourgeois society, the whole capitalist sys-

tem, by pointing out how commonly and with what dirtiest means

capitalist exploitation is normally carried on. And at the same time

Shaw exposes the extreme hypocrisy in that society for at the back

of the respectability and moral dignity and nobility of character

and ali that sort of gibberish uttered all the time by the ruling class-

es to cover thetmselves wițh bonour and glory, there are the dirtiest and the crueicst ways of
expioitation with which they make their

raoney and live their grand, civilized lives but which lead to untoid

miseries for millions of p0or down-trodden people. In this sense

this play is the fiercest of all, Shaw's attacks on capitalism, more vivid

and effective than "Widowers Houses" because the chief charac-

ters, Mrs. Warren, Vivie and Crofts here are fuller portraits than

Sartorius, Lickcheese and Trench in the earier drama.

While there are only expioiters among the major igures in

Widowers' Houses", there is at least the semblance of a positive

character in Vivie in the later play. But cven Vivie who seems to

uphold her idealistic views against not only Crofts but also her moth-

er and to fnd a way out of the dirty mess of capitalist exploitation

by going to live on her "honest work", does not really find her way

out (though Shaw obviously intends that she does), for first of

all it is impossible for any one individual to break thoroughly with

the society untess one goes in for revołution to overthrow that socie-

ty, and then, after all, Vivie's "honest work" at "actuarial caicula-

tions and conveyancing" at Honoria Fraser's chamnbers ia Chan-

cery Lanc is no "honest work" actually but rather dirtying one's own

hands" in slaving for the capitalists who are the ones to need such

calculations for their dirtiest practices of expioitation, while her

other seemingly innocuous intentions of doing "some law" and

"with one eye on the Stock Exchange" (in her speech with "dear old

Praedie" Act I) would mean even more direct participation in the

cvil doings of the ruling classes in their oppression as wel as cxploi-

tation of the poor millions. So Shaw's dream of a positive charac-

ter and of a correct path out of the labyriatb of capitalist society

is no more than an idle dream a reformist.

One other serious shortconing in the drama needs to be point-

ed out. The choice of Mrs. Waren as the protagonist in the drama

is unfortunatc, for her dubious position of being at irst one of

the oppressed and exploited and later becoming herself one of the

exploiters brings unsurmountable confusion to the theme of the dra-

ma and the result is that the author seems to have drawn a line be- tween Mrs. Warren and Crofts,
intending for the audience to con-

denn Crofts but sympathize with Mrs. Warren, while actuaily Mrs.

Warren may deserve one's sympathy in her early stage of suffering

under exploitation but she certainly cannot be pardoned for becoming

an exploiter hersel of other girls.

"Major Barbara'" again touches on the fundamental issue of

capitalism, aithough here again Shaw's Fabianism comes to the

tore. The story evolves chiefy round the titular heroine Major Bar-

bara, her father and her fiancé. Andrew Undershaft, the girl's fa-

ther, is the "cannon king", a big manufacturer and merchant of am-

munition. Barbara is a "major" in the Salvation Army and sincerely

wishes to save the souls as well as the bodies of the poor people,

and Cusins her fiancé, a professor, shares her wish to help improve

the couditions of the poor Workers. The conflict here is chiefly

that between Undershaft on the one hand and his daughter Barbara

and her fiancé Cusins on the other, and Undershaft wins the first

battle by buying over the organization of the Salvation Army yith

his money and that of the Whisky King, Bodger. Barbara quits

the Salvation Army but finally her fiancé inherits Undersbaft's prop-

erty and she goes to work in the factory for the saving of the poor

workers souls. From the development of the story Undershaft

secms to be the hero and the well-meaning Barbara and Cusins seem

to submit, but Shaw rather suggests here that to figbt successfully

against capitalism one must have power" and that Cusins

to gain the needed "power"" by securing inheritance to the buge prop-

erty of Undersbaft's. But that of course is an iliusion, it is Fabi-

anism, especially since here again the workers are shown to be quite

uaabie to ight the battle themselves, and such bourgeois intellectu-

als as Barbara and Cusins are needed .to fight the battle for them.

And the ending of the play is almost a sort of compromise with capi-

talisun, when Barbara and Cusins go in together to the cannon found-

ry to work.

means

But *Major Barbara" is stil a great satire on the capitalist socie-

ty. In what Undershaft does and says are revealed the outstand- ing characteristics of capitalism and
capitalists. First of all, we çan

see that tricks are played by the capitalists in order to prevent a rev-
olution. Undershaft spends a large sum of moncy to buy over

the Salvation Army because this religious institution is considered

useful in feeding the poor workers with bread and with salvation

and thus pacifying the workers and diverting them from revolu-

tionary activities. Another trick employed by Undershaft is to

create an aristocracy among the workers in his foundry, so that the

only ambition of these workers is to rise in the social scale, to join

the Primrose League and shake hands with a duchess, and not to get

involved in overthrowing the capitalist system. Here we fnd the

two most commonly useđ methods with which the capitalists all

over the world try to lead the workers away from any thought of rev-

olution, and here they are vividly presented in the play.

Undershaft also represents the capitalists in his religion of mon-

ey, his cash worship. He manufactures weapons of war for the

purpose of proft and for nothing else, so he đeclares that he sells

arms to all men who offer an honest price for them, without respect

of persons or principles, to Royalist and Republican, to Commun-

ist and Capitalist, to Protestant and to Catholics, to burglar and po-

liceman, to black man and whitė man and yellow man, all sorts

and conditions, al nationalities, all faiths, all follies, all causes and

all crimes." And like Sartorius and Crofts he too says he is “un-

ashamed" of doing all this, he is never trcubled by moral considera-

tions or conscience, Because cash only is the all-important thing with

him. And with this cash he has great power, so much so that he

and the other big capitalists are actually the rulers of the whole world,

with all governments under their control and all the politicians as

their personal servants and puppets in their hands. So he impress-

es his son with his show of contempt for the government cabinets

and parliaments in the whole capitalist world;

**The government of your country! I am the government

of your country: I and Lazarus. Do you suppose that

you and half a dozen amateurs like you, sittihg in a row in that foolish gabble shop, can govern
Undershaft and Laz-

arus? No, my friend: you will do what pays us. You wll

make war when it suits us, and keep peace when it doesn't.

You will find out that trade requires certain measures when

we have decided on those measures. When I want any-

thing to keep my dividends up, you will discover that my

want is national need. When other people want somệ-

thing to keep my dividends down, you call out the police

and the military. And in return you shall have the sup-

port and applause of my newspapers, and the delight of im-

agining that you are a great statesman.'

Ali this is a realistic picture not only of the first decade of the 20th

century when the play was staged and published, but also. of the

decades before and the decades after, so long as monopoly capi-

talişm holds its sway in Britain and in all other bourgeois nations.

The big capitalists, the monopolists, have tontrolled the capitalist

governments everywhere, though on the surface there are different

political parties and different prime ministers and presidents ańd

parliarments who are invested with power to rule. And when tbe

war comes, armament industrialists and merchants, capitalists and

monopolists, actually sell their products to all and everybody who

are ready to pay for the weapons of war, to both sides of the bellig-

erents, to the enemies of their own countries even, and this we find

in the First World War and in the Second World War and in many

other small and local wars in đifferent parts of the globe through

all the decades of the 20th century..

So in the character of Undershaft are exposed the essential char-

acteristics of the capitalists in their shameless actions to make mon-

ey and to gain power, and this expos& is presented with all the bit-

terness of satire. This is Shaw's contribution in this play. But while

on the one hand Undershaft shamelessly declares in all frankness

his entirejy unscrupulous ways for making moncy, on the other hand

he also used underhand means to undermine the workers' movemenis

by creating an aristocracy among the wOrkers and by supporting and buying over such seemingly
harmless and even spiritual institu-

tions as the Salvation Arny. So there is at once frankness and hy-

pocrisy, used to suit the needs for direct gains of money and for in-

direct gains of money by first spending huge sums of money.

Bu

beyond this sharp satire on capitalism and its dirty tricks and its

shameless actions, Shaw seems to get confused and can only sug-

gest a certain sort of compromise to defeat capitalism by some vague

and indirect means Or other in the dim and uncertain future.

Yet, in spite of this serious limitation, "Major Barbara" is a coura-

geous indictment of monopoly capitalism.

Diferent from the three plays of Shaw's as analyzed above,

The Apple Cart" ushers in, as it were, a new type of đrama for the

Irish playwright, the satirical comedy on contemporary politics, of

which he was to write a goodly number in the last stage of his dra-

matic career. Written in the year (1929) of the landslide of economic

depression which swept through the whole of the capitalist world,

"The Apple Cart" dealt a powerful blow at the tottering political

structure of bourgeois England by attacking chiefly the pseudo-

democratic parliamentarianism in England and exposing the treach-

ery of the Labour Party and also hinting at the dependence of the

English bourgeois nation on American -monopolists and imperia-

lists.

The seemingly nonsensical Pralogue", which contains noth-

ing but the irrelevant but very exciting dialogue betwoen King Mag-

'pUs and his mistress "Pompilia", is actuaily a sharp satirical thrust

not only at the moral degeneracy of the king or thbe ruling clique
but also at the compicated situation of all sorts of dirty tricks and

intrigues employed in the struggle for power among the different

politica! cliques and individuals in bourgeois England. The main

body of the play contains two parts. In Act I a cabinet crisis is, de-

scribed through which the party in power (resembling the Labour

Party government in England in the 1920's) tries to force the English

king to do whatever they ask him to do, but the king refuses to do

so by threatening to retire from the throne in favour of his son and then to compete with the party in
question in a government election

campaigu in the capacity of a mere citizer. This frightens the party

in power for they know too well that they have Iong lost the sup-

port of the people, and so a compromise is reached, with both sides

promising nọt to trespass on each other. But actually it is not the

question of a struggle between the party in power and the king, for

the rea! power to rule rests with the big monopoly capitalists repre-

sented in the play by The Breakages, Limited" which, according to

one of the characters, can interfere in almost cvery enterprise where

there is money interest to be gained and against which it is impossi-

ble to gainsay. Shaw explains this intention of his ia the Preface

the play: "The conflict is not really one between royalty and đemoc-

racy, but between both and plutocracy. The plutocrats frst use de-

mocracy as pretext and openly shatter the king's power with vio-

lence, and now buy up and swallow up democracy. Money talks.

money prints, money broadcasts, money reigns, and kings and La-

bour leaders alike have to register its decrees ;and even,by a staggering

paradox, to finance its enterprises and guarantee its profits! "

In this play we may see Shaw's disiliusionment in the Labou:

Party, as shows here in the person of Mrs. Boanerges, a Labour

member of the Cabinet, how these Labourites disguising themselves.

as workers and pretending to be serving the interests of the work-

ing class are actually no more than adroit old foxes tenaciously hold-
ing on to their warm snug jobs and receiving a fair share of the govern-

ment pie without even the moral compunction of having deceiv.

ed the workers. And all the other politicians besides the Labour-

ites are shown to be just as cager above everything e lse to strugglc

for their oWn personal interests, and an extre mely ugly picture is

painted here by the playwright, especially in the ridiculous appear-

ances of the women ministers in the cabinet.

In Act II the especially signiñcant thing is tbe revelatioD first

of the growing economic dependence of England upon the imperi-

alist United States of America after the First World War and then

pf the threat of American imnperialism to swallow up Britain eco- nomically and politically and also
culturally. Here the American am-

bassador Vanhattan goes to see King Magnus of England and an-

nounces that the American government suggests the return of America

to the British Empire. The king collapses upon hearing the news

for he considers this "the end of England"" and declares his intention

to fight for national independence to the last drop of his blood, but

Vanhattan answers latly that that is impoşsible for the American

governmnent would use the leet of the League of Nations to block-

ade Engiand and would also launch a boycott and "the two thou-

sand million dolars a year Would stop". And Vanhattan goes to

point out how Americanized England has already become: we

find here everything we are accustomed to; our industrial products,

oyr books, our plays, our spirits, our Christian Science churches, our

osteopaths, our movies and talkies. But it is a smali parcel and say

our goods and our ideas.'" And this satire on the subordination of

England to America is not only true of England in the post-First-

World-War period but is equally applicable to England of today.

"The Apple Cart" may be a topical play in the sense that it re-

fers pariiculariy to the. England of the late 1920s and to the Labour

Party and to the other political phenomena of that day, but it bas
its lasting signiicance for, so far as the bourgeois parliamentarian

system still operatcs and the English government remains dependent

upon American monopolists the satire in this drama will continue

to have its pungent, critical efect.

Shaw has written so many plays and most of them have attained

to such a high level of artistic achievement that it is difficult to say

which are the best of bis works, or which are the most represcnta-

tive, but even with a none-too-careful analysis of four of his better

dramas as we have done with "Widowers" Houses", "Mrs. War-

ren's Profession", "Major Barbara" and "The Apple Cart", we may

see quite clearty. that Shaw.was a most courageous satirist on capi-

talism and imperialism and that with his brilliant character-portray-

al and scintillatíng dialogue he succeeded in rnaking use of the drama

as an effective weapon to atack not alone the various social evils in the bourgeois world. but also the
very foundations of monopoly caț-

italism, thọugh he fell unfortunately under the influençe of Fabi-

an reformism.