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Chapter – 1

INTRODUCTION

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Drama is the medium for perception of an agile instruction and

a mode for rendezvous of great art performed on the stage. Drama in

its novice roots dates back to sixth century BC in Greece. People give

more importance to the sacrifice of the goat at the beginning of the

celebration on the altar built at the centre of the stage called as

Orchestra, and after that the celebration transforms to a

systematically adopted dance and the sounds of the hymn with

similar uniforms of people on the stage. The hymn known as

‘Dithyramb’ is a collection of different sound patterns adopted from

various places of Greece to honour Dionysus, the Greek god of

fertility, wine and celebration. Women were not allowed to participate

and were restricted to a lesser number compared to men to rejoice the

celebration of the god of Dionysus.

Thespis invented masks into drama and ‘hypokrites’ originated

from his fresh mind of new thoughts. ‘Hypokrites’ involves the

speaking of the actor with a mask on his face on the stage. This

system of drama is called ‘tragedy’ and Thespis was regarded as the

first actor on stage in the Western world. This method turned the

course of drama that reinstated the saga of multiple characters

thereby leading to a discussion between the two actors. Masks of gods

are worn by the actors to create natural aura of dramatisation. Petr

Elliott remarks, “The two famous masks of Comedy and Tragedy most

commonly associated with both drama and theatre are Greek in

origin. Thalia is the mask or muse of comedy and has a smile on her

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face, while Melpomene is the muse of tragedy and has a mouth that

curls downwards in sadness.”1 Thespis travelled on his cart to

different places of Greece to conceptualise his novel idea of hypokrites

and spread the drama in his own style. Every year in Greece a drama

festival commemorates in the honour of Dionysus and in this festival

great dramatists take part to show the world their work of art on

stage. Thespis won the first prize for his dramatic work, a tragedy that

shook the audience’s emotions. The female characters are introduced

in his play by men wearing female masks and discussing various

concepts of the societal life such as ritual, tradition, marriage and

honesty.

The three great dramatists of the fifth century BC were

Aeschylus, Sophocles and Euripides. Aeschylus invented the second

actor on the stage to assist the first actor in discussion rather than

creating hymns from behind. He wrote eighty plays and only seven

survives. Sophocles introduced third speaking actor on the stage

reducing the chorus of the play and these three actors on the stage

make tragedy even closer to the audience. He is the man who has

invented the painted panels at the background on the stage known as

‘Pinakes’. He is best known for his Oedipus the King and Antigone that

rattles the audience mindsets. He has written complex plays with

complex characters. The third greatest ever is Euripides, the last well-

known playwright of the fifth century. His famous plays are Medea

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and Helen of Troy. His plays are realistic in nature that attributed

humanistic advances and the promulgation of reality.

These myths are retold by each generation in a new perspective

to put them fresh and bring these myths to life in the olden Greece.

The Greeks called this interpretation or retelling as ‘theatre’. The

Greeks divided drama into three categories: satyr play, tragedy and

comedy. Satyr plays are based on the oldest myths related to the

Greek gods. Satyrs are half humans with a goat’s body from the

waists. These satyrs are considered the close associates of the god

Dionysus. The satyrs are the interludes between the tragic plays to

provide comic relief in the middle of such plays. The audience relaxes

by the light comedy performed through the mixture of satyr and comic

interventions of actors. The tragedy is of course a crucial medium for

the playwrights and continues up to present generation. The comedy

is as good as it is in the oldest form, takes its advantage in

re-inventing the old and complicated masks to a newer one with a

tinge of softness and natural exposure of a character.

Kotter points out that “Drama is introduced to England from

Europe by the Romans, and auditoriums are constructed across the

country for this purpose.”2 Drama in England started with street

theatre of folklore themes such as Dragon and Robin Hood. The actors

perform across England to explore new traditions and also for money

and good hospitality in return of their performances. Slowly the people

of England started to show interest on Mystery Plays that represent

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Biblical Concepts. These performances take place on moveable

pageant wagons. After this period, the English Renaissance that dates

back around 1500 to 1660 achieves potential success in dramatics.

Mystery plays such as Nicholas Udall’s Ralph Roister Doister and

unknown author’s Gammer Gurton’s Needle are more popular dramas

of sixteenth century. This century also witnessed the world famous

dramatist William Shakespeare (1564-1616) whose plays still amuse

us with its complicated netted characters that follow the footprints of

the playwright himself. He wrote thirty eight plays that include the

combination of tragedy, comedy and history. Some of his great works

are Hamlet (1603), Othello (1604), King Lear (1605), A Midsummer’s

Night Dream (1594 - 96), Twelfth Night (1602), and Henry IV (1597).

Other successful dramatists are Christopher Marlowe, Ben Jonson,

Thomas Dekker and John Webster. Ben Jonson is curious about his

characters in his plays to wear masks to give a new dimension in

dramatics. His masking of characters on the stage takes over the

orthodox embellishment of conventional performances and gave a new

twist of real characters through his masks. The Alchemist and

Bartholomew are his best works of masquerades.

In the year 1580 four stalwarts formed a group who wrote for

the public stage known as ‘University Wits’ and this name was coined

by George Saintsbury, a nineteenth century journalist and author that

include Christopher Marlowe, Thomas Kyd, John Lyly and Robert

Greene. These four major wits witnessed a drastic change in shaping

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English drama to its extreme with their powerful skill in ordaining

each other’s talent. Christopher Marlowe’s Edward II and Doctor

Faustus, Thomas Kyd’s The Spanish Tragedy, John Lyly’s Campaspe,

Endimion, Love’s Metamorphosis, Robert Greene’s Friar Bacon & Friar

Bungay and James IV are the leading stage performances of the

sixteenth century. John Fletcher’s A Wife for a Month and The Scornful

Lady are noteworthy plays that startled with their climaxes and

surprised the audiences. The Interregnum period that ran across

sixteenth century from 1649 to 1660 marked a disaster for the

English drama. The stage performances are banned during this period

by the puritans for religious reasons. After the coronation of King

Charles II (1630-1685), drama regained its strength under the

ubiquitous shadow of Charles. All for Love (1677) by John Dryden and

Venice Preserved (1682) by Thomas Otway stirred remarkable

resonance in the history of English literature.

In the eighteenth century ‘closet drama’ gained attention where

dramas are no longer performed on the open stages rather confined to

reading in a small domestic rooms for special occasions. The

Restoration Period is replaced by Sentimental Comedy and Domestic

Tragedy such as The London Merchant written in 1731 by George Lillo

and a passionate interest on Italian Opera dominated this era. English

Music Halls are the popular medium for entertainment for public in

contrast to English Drama in this century.

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All the major playwrights employed conflict based plots, irony

and paradoxical dialogues to gain attention and exploit audience of

what is to be a nonsensical attribute of myths turning to reality. The

shrewd conscience of the plays is to induce the labyrinth of

seriousness and pounding over the comic relief for entertainment. The

techniques employed are disguise, suspense, soliloquy, contrast and

allegory to satisfy the burlesque needs of the public. During the

nineteenth century a great marvel occurred with the birth of Henrik

Ibsen, Oscar Wilde, George Bernard Shaw and W.B.Yeats who

satisfied the niche of drama to its glorified potent and given the world

a miracle of ideas through their plays. Of these four valiant and

indomitable dramatists George Bernard Shaw stands out as the

cynosure in the dawn of the English Drama, who is the trend-setter

for the modern English drama and literature. He is regarded as the

tremendous reformer of the New English Drama and a meticulous

moderator of the English Plays from Shakespeare to Harold Pinter and

Ben Jonson to Samuel Beckett.

Shaw is influenced by the Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen

(20 March 1828 – 23 May 1906) who stirred the Victorian Society with

his impeccable plays such as Peer Gynt (1867), Pillars of Society

(1877), A Doll’s House (1879), Ghosts (1881), Hedda Gabler (1890),

and When We Dead Awaken (1899). Ibsen is regarded as the father of

modern drama whose target is to reform the Victorian society that is

masked under liberty which has all the features of despotism. Ibsen

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focuses on women’s rights and freedom, women’s suffering, societal

reformation, societal atrocities, financial difficulties, moral conflicts

rising from the dark secrets concealed from society. He sets a new

stage for his new drama of life and morality to be accepted by his

audience. As Shaw says, “Ibsen supplies the want left by

Shakespeare. He gives us not only ourselves, but ourselves in our

situations. The things that happen to his stage figures are things that

happen to us.”3 This arises in Shaw an urge to resonate with the

dimensions of writings in his plays that offer a major change in the

course of drama, and to introduce ‘discussion’ in his plays. This

medium makes Shaw through Ibsen an avant-gardism that survives

the technique of exposing the very realities of human situations. As

Shaw puts it:

“You had in what was called a well made play an exposition in

the first act, a situation in the second, and an unravelling in the third.

Now you have exposition, situation and discussion: and the

discussion is the test of the playwright.” 4

Discussion often leads to a solution at the end, and through

discussion the attitudes of the debater are changed and some

ascertain that the morality needs a turn-coat for refinement that

rejuvenates the aura of perfect society. Shaw has hundred percent

done the same experiment with his plays to reorganise the taste of

sugar not just sugar but a light vein of toxin coated pill to realise the

reader what are his intentions towards the problem raised. From the

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times of Shakespeare drama is a good medium of entertainment that

gives comfort to the audience with its supernatural elements like

magic, adventure and scepticism. But from Ibsen’s time drama is a

vehicle that instructs audience with a message on the societal

problems, domestic furore, individual identity, and complicated

relationships of marriage, love and responsibility. Shaw invented

‘Drama of Ideas or The Discussion Play’ under the guidance of Ibsen

in which he discarded the old convention type of plots and incarnated

a modern spoof with a serious plot that ushered discussion in the last

act of his plays. Shaw and Ibsen never met personally in their life time

but Shaw accepts himself as the successor of Ibsen through his plays.

As in one way, Ibsen is a feminist, so is Shaw with his remarkable

observation on social issues that flourish through his pen of ideas,

and most of Shaw’s plays mimic feminism. As Graham Phili points

out, “He has been neglected, even sometimes actively rejected by post

1970s feminist and gender historians writing about the women’s

emancipation movement in late Victorian and Edwardian England.”5

Life Force is such a beautiful concept which is an inherited genius

from Ibsen, emerges with Creative Evolution that paints Shaw’s plays

of every corner in each act and scene. The brush of Shaw is hard but

the paint is soft to motivate and spread awareness on burning social

problems of our times as well. He is an unequivocal messenger of

several gospels and doctrines of society man has never witnessed in

his life time. He shows the problem and tells the solution to us but the

solution he offers is a twisted one that does not match with the

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stereotype mind set of the present generation. He is ahead of hundred

years of his age in his ideas, thoughts and solutions.

George Bernard Shaw was born on 26 July 1856. He is a

rational thinker of the modern world. He believes to refurbish the

contempt of societal idiosyncrasy to a noble and glorified astute. He is

an Irish playwright and spent his early youthful days in Dublin by

working as a rent collector in one of the firms. Later London became

the abode of Shaw to witness success in his career as a great

dramatist of Europe in the nineteenth century. Shaw married

Charlotte Payne-Townshend (1857-1943), an Irish socialist and a

political altruist in London and an ardent member of the Fabian

Society. “The marriage was never consummated, at Charlotte’s

insistence, though he had a number of affairs with married women.”6

He was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1925 for his outstanding work in

Literature and an Academy Award for the best screenplay of

Pygmalion which was filmed in 1938. Shaw wrote nearly forty five

plays, five novels and numerous essays on societal issues such as

capitalism, war, and politics. He has earned name and fame through

his works that act as binoculars for his readers to observe the

problem closely, and this spirit in him is honoured even today. The

existence of Shaw with a specific relativity in polemics stirs the

capitalists and politicians of his age. He ushered a new thinking

known as ‘Shavian Thought’ among people to dissolve the nuisance of

scourging in the society and harness a new dawn with his prudent

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writing. He has given much importance in alarming his audience to

the cruel atrocities in the society. Shaw exemplifies his conduct by

assuring the gallantry of his plays to be written in paradoxical

culminations to uplift the burning issues from his age to the present

era. He is regarded as a stalwart and a cynosure in British literature.

His allusion towards society embarks fraternity of societal reformation

through his plays to sustain awareness; displays his magnanimous

triumph over retribution of sensible civic restoration. British Drama is

considered as a blatant period until Shaw takes over the stage in

1892, which marks societal, political, and religious confinement in its

own realm. Shaw breaks this barrier and creates a furore in the

annals of British Drama with his sarcastic and paradoxical plays that

caters to wise thinking for a matured elucidation of the problem. He is

the embodiment of Henrik Ibsen, a Norwegian playwright, with whose

torch revitalises the absurd system of congenital hypocrisy of the

societal extremities. Shaw passed away on 2 November 1950 at Ayot

St Lawrence, United Kingdom at the age of 94.

Shaw’s father George Carr Shaw was a grain trader and mother

Lucinda Elizabeth Shaw was the daughter of a land owner. Shaw’s

father was a drunkard and this made Shaw to become a teetotaller

after witnessing the domestic affliction and the scattering of his

family. After the death of George Carr Shaw in 1885, the family moved

to London except Shaw. Shaw went to Wesleyan Connexional School

and finished his formal education at the Dublin English Scientific and

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Commercial Day School. In 1876, Shaw went to London in search of

an employment and came across William Archer. Shaw is a close

associate and a good friend of William Archer, a dramatic critic,

playwright and a translator to Ibsen’s plays. Shaw is passionate in

reading and is often found in the British Museum Reading Room with

his red beard and “the odd combination of authors whom he used to

study... pouring over Karl Marx’s Das Kapital and an orchestral score

of Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde.”7 Shaw and Archer decide to have a

play performed and Shaw is assigned by Archer to write the script. In

the middle of the writing Archer finds the script to be irrelevant and

could not gel with Shaw. They have a different combination of contrast

ideas on dramatic plot and sequence, and Widowers’ Houses becomes

a failure that has to be stopped in the middle of the writing. Archer

believes in a mechanical construction of the plot whereas for Shaw a

play should be “a vital growth and not a mechanical construction... if

it has any natural life in it, it will construct itself; it will construct

itself, like a flowering plant, far more wonderfully than the author can

possibly construct it”8 points out William Archer.

Shaw was the drama critic for the Saturday Review in 1895 and

achieved the highest status as the greatest orator of England. He

contributed his writing for several newspaper magazines such as

Dramatic Review and Our Corner from 1885 to 1886, The Pall Mall

Gazette from 1885 to 1888, The World from 1886 to 1894, and for

The Star from 1888 to 1890 under the pseudonym Corno di Basetto.

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He is also a great music critic as his mother is a good musician and

singer, and through this music environment in his house he learnt to

play the Piano and the hornet. He has no formal education on music

and playwriting but attained a splendid success in both the

categories. He is the maker of his own fate and depends on his own

duty to acknowledge his own responsibility. His music criticism often

makes his contemporary musicians and the dramatists a painful

treatment at times, as they cannot reach the higher standards of

Shaw.

He became a member of the Fabian Society on 5 October 1884

to put his soul to achieve refinement in the societal issues. This

society preaches fine tuning of problems, especially sophistication of

the society. It focuses on health issues, women problems, labours and

wages, and protection to mankind. This society is quiet in contrast to

violent and sudden changes; rather, it emphasizes and cures the

problems with a gradual change. It does not impose dogmatism to

gain victory over the problem raised in the society. Many scholars and

dramatists are the members of this esteemed society established as an

off shoot of another society called ‘The Fellowship of the New Life’. The

members of the Fabian Society are G B Shaw, H G Wells, Sydney and

Beatrice Webb, Annie Besant, Virginia Woolf, Graham Wallas, Sydney

Oliver, Leonard Woolf, Ramsay McDonald, Emmeline Pankhurst and

others. The first pamphlet gives us an insight on the Fabian Society

that focuses:

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“For the right moment you must wait, as Fabius did most

patiently, when warring against Hannibal, though many censured his

delays; but when the time comes you must strike hard, as Fabius did,

or your waiting will be in vain, and fruitless.”9

Shaw and other members of this society work on this principle

to reform the society through the means of plays written by them, and

of course, the pamphlets are famous in motivating the public. Even

majorly, Shaw’s plays stand as an epistle in reforming the society that

conveys solution to the rising problems of that time with an apt plot

that suits the platform of the issue in the society. The plays act as

medium to instruct the audience with an artistic blend of modernism

and conventionalism under one dramatisation. Sydney Webb and

Shaw are the core persons with whom the society works and

contributes their legacy of attaining societal bliss. George Bernard

Shaw is an influential personality of his times. He blends several

themes and casts as one concept in his dramatisation of the play on

the stage. As T.F.Evans remarks, “Bernard Shaw’s first play was

produced in 1892 and his last in 1950, two months before his death

at the age of ninety-four.”10 Success for Shaw came with two persons

as well, namely, Harley Granville Barker, an English actor, director,

producer and critic, and J.E.Vedrenne, a West End theatre producer

who were the theatre production managers at the Royal Court

Theatre, London. In 1924 his piece of work Saint Joan ushered a great

applaud from the society of England and its people to a greater extent

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and success followed him. He is more compatible with his own

conscience and “the best authority on Shaw is Shaw.”11 He retorts

with an infallible comment about the failures he witnesses in his stage

performances of his plays that it is not the fault of the author, but the

audience themselves who have not understood the genius of such a

great author. Shaw as a journalist in London ascertains his genius

and began writing for the theatre as well and dominates the literary

world of English literature. He is a keen observant on political and

societal issues as well.

Shaw has a good association with Oscar Wilde, an Irish

playwright and a contemporary to Shaw. Wilde’s shadow on Shaw is

irrevocable as Wilde confines criticism from reality and art for art’s

sake should pave a way for another work of art. The functioning of

Shavian ethics dominates the writings of Wilde in the later part of the

literary career of Shaw. Wilde’s ideas are socially transgressive act by

high style and Shaw’s is of Life Force. The relation between the two

authors is good for a while and in the later part, their relationship

breaks, as their thought processes are different from each other. Shaw

cannot be matched with any of his contemporaries like Archer and

Wilde as he is unmatchable for himself. Both Shaw and Wilde write on

the similar themes and target “duty, respectability, the sentimental

view of poverty, the danger of self-denial and of ideal-driven

goodness”12 as observed by Christopher Innes. Shaw shows interest in

creative evolution which is a two way attack on the rich and the poor

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that caters his needs to quench his thirst on his political philosophy

whereas Wilde is a late romantic personality with whose memorable

flair of writing induces fact as a feature of fiction and art as a piece of

criticism, and Shaw indeed assumes that, art has refined and

improved us by its charm to a better novice. Wilde in distinction

believes that “The first duty in life is to be as artificial as possible.

What the second duty is no one has as yet discovered.”13 Oscar Wilde

is certainly a man of idiosyncratic admonitions and amortises his

competency in a rare spectrum of Shaw’s realistic creation projecting

the facts and truths in contrast, that eschew the development of the

society as individually that unites as one. As Stanley points out, “We

put each other out frightfully; and this odd difficulty persisted

between us to the very last.”14

The plays of Shaw are immense in cadence, a binding force of

sobriety that withholds the conscious of the readers to an infinite

apprehension and leaves the audience to an exalted state of

enlightenment. His plays give amusement and warn the society of

well-being statehood that combines instruction and a message.

Shaw’s works range from societal reformation to world crisis and

religion to prostitution. The themes are diverse and intensified and

ingrain the strength of the plot. The plots in Shaw’s plays are the

natural arrangement in step-wise sequences of the play. Shaw takes

simple yet powerful themes to put across his priceless message to his

audience. Themes vary in each play that constitute slum landlordism,

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poverty, love and marriage, prostitution, war, women’s freedom,

women’s rights, humanity, civilisation, life force, greed, professions,

liberation, and politics. These themes justify the existence of real

problems in our society from late fifteenth century to twentieth

century. These themes question the morality of a human being and

awaken the inner insignia of humanity.

Shaw being a part of Fabian Society is a committed man who

has radical views on people who are useless, idle and unfit to society.

He appeals to the chemists “to discover a humane gas that will kill

instantly and painlessly: in short a gentlemanly gas – deadly by all

means, but humane, not cruel,”15 as pointed out by George Watson.

He is a communist with a soft corner in his heart towards naturalism,

socialism and feminism. He supports Adolf Hitler and Mussolini for

being responsible on their parts towards their countries where

“Mussolini calls British democracy a sham and calls Hitler an

improvement on a so-called democracy that is not really a democracy

at all”16 and defines the governance of Britain merely a plutocracy and

nothing else. Shaw proclaims that “under socialism you would not be

allowed to be poor. You would be forcibly fed, clothed, lodged, taught

and employed whether you liked it or not. If it were discovered that

you had not character and industry enough to be worth all this

trouble, you might possibly be executed in a kindly manner; but

whilst you were permitted to live you would have to live well.”17 He

preaches teetotalism and vegetarianism for his whole life expecting us

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to be the followers of his footsteps for a better ‘living’ rather than

‘surviving’ in our own society.

Drama before nineteenth century is formless without life on

stage that reverberate the same old themes of love triangle(s),

supernatural elements, symbolic and idealistic concepts of the plots,

and entertainment. It is not before Ibsen, Robertson, Shaw and Wilde,

Drama ferments to a higher degree of realisation with a purpose

behind it. Dramatic Stage gets its meaning during the times of

T. W. Robertson (1829-1871) for the best managerial skills on/off

stage dynamics. He is also regarded as the architect of modern drama

along with Ibsen and Shaw. Henry Arthur Jones (1851-1929) and

Arthur Wing Pinero (1855-1934) are the men of different cardinal

changes in the work of art. They assert drama with themes of

sociological significance and Jones, of course tries his art to create

valuable instead of mere entertainment, especially for largeness rather

than cramped influences of pessimistic realism. Pinero on the other

hand takes the credit in assimilating the ‘cup and saucer’ base to

greater heights than Robertson, who is the actual profounder of this

sort. Pinero is influenced by problem plays of Ibsen as well, but could

not break the chains of orthodox and conventional morality of age old

traditions of women’s life. It is Shaw who breaks it and takes the lion’s

share of reviving the dramatic art, in fact, the complete share of

iconoclastic blending of traditions and values to give a new twist for

the existing contemporary beliefs and thoughts about society and

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women. Ibsen becomes famous through Shaw and Shaw becomes a

hero through Ibsen. Both are interconnected to each other. They form

a dual of ideas that is not fettered to an art that proclaims the

obedience of inventing a new form of drama. Ibsen teaches Shaw that

without tussle and scuffle between society and an individual, and man

against men, there is no development and evolution, and hence

conflict is a popular mode that is must and has greater relevance in

bringing up the fresh thought for a radical change in the society and

individual. In Shaw’s plays there are no heroes, no heroines, no

villains, no demigoddess, no conquerors, no celebrities, no right, and

no wrong but real struggle is discussed in the lengthy acts and scenes

of his plays.

Shaw is a preacher of women’s rights and freedom in true

sense, and in this unflinching quest he comes across other two

prominent persons though not personally, but literally,

Mary Wollstonecraft (1759-1797), an eighteenth century English

author, thinker and supporter of women’s rights and John Stuart Mill

(1806-1873), a philosopher, political economist and promoter of

women’s rights. These two legends ultimately changed the superseded

and conventional ideas on women towards the liberation of women’s

rights and freedom on par with men in the society. Gradually several

movements during the eighteenth century crippled the conventional

morality of the middle class society of London as well as the West.

Wollstonecraft’s Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792) and John

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Mill’s Subjection of Women (1869) are the Bibles for women to this

date. These gospels for women create tremendous discussions on: can

women digest such a freedom and whether the freedom to women has

the right to claim? So Ibsen, Wollstonecraft and John Stuart make

Shaw to carry their legacy to the twentieth century and the generation

to come, and show them how beautifully the new race of independent

woman is carved under the radiance of intrinsic writings of Shaw.

Taking the clue of Naturalism from Ibsen, Shaw has defined and

re-interpreted drama that defines modernism which becomes the

mainstream British Drama in the course of literature. Issues like

women’s rights and class justice have found their way on the stage as

major contemporary themes and Christopher Innes remarks: “1890

marks the beginning of modern drama in England as the date of

Bernard Shaw’s lecture on The Quintessence of Ibsenism. This can be

seen as the watershed between traditionalist and modern perspectives

of the dramatic experience.”18 The life of Jesus Christ is represented in

Shaw’s first incomplete play Passion Play (1878). This play narrates

about Jesus as a young man in his twenties and his journey to

Jerusalem with his friend Judas, confrontation of Mary Magdalene,

Peter and John. One of the finest novels by Shaw, Cashel Byron’s

Profession (1886) is a drawing room comedy on boxing profession that

ends in a marriage of Lydia, the protagonist and Cashel the boxer. It

assimilates the comic extravaganza of boxing that examines the

morality of prize-fighting towards a linear synchronisation of

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characters in a rut of discussing the paranoid view of life. An Unsocial

Socialist (1887) is the second novel that describes socialism and the

marriage of girls at the earliest. Love Among the Artist (1900) is about

the youthful Shaw’s views on marriage, love and art. The Irrational

Knot (1905) touches the chords of caste, love and marriage, and

society. Immaturity (1931) is a novel on alcoholism and its reverences

directly influenced by his father who was an alcoholic.

Shaw’s essays portray myriad of concepts on a diversified

themes such as socialism, feminism, women’s rights, freedom of

women, women politics, sanitation, common man, working class,

aristocrats, and world issues. A Manifesto (1884) written on the issues

such as land, increased products, industrialization and public

revenue. To Provident Landlords and Capitalists: A Suggestion and a

Warning (1885) on landlords and high rents collected by the

capitalists of London. The True Radical Programme (1887) speaks on

the replacement of Liberal Radical Programme with that of The True

Radical Programme. This new programme took up in the revival of

society and its laws from more despicable circumstances to a higher

note of refurbishing the society. What Socialism Is (1890) is a doctrine

on world wars, Tudor confiscation of land, and industrial revolution.

The Quintessence of Ibsenism (1891) defines the extension of Henrik

Ibsen’s critical reception in London and categorizing people into three

divisions, namely, the Philistines: the aristocracy, professions such as

army, politics and the Church; the Idealists are the active people with

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a burning desire to uphold and defend values such as duty and

responsibility and are more prone to love and sex. The third category

is the Realists, who according to Shaw are superior to the rest of the

two categories, as these people reflect and shock with their creativity

and modernism compared to orthodox embellishments.

The Fabian Election Manifesto (1892) is about the election

system that gauges the value of working classes to support the

different political parties. The Fabian Society: What it has done and

how it has done it (1892) talks about the reconstruction of the society.

Vote! Vote!! Vote!!! (1892) is a powerful essay on voting. It summarizes

the value and the vigor of voting during the elections and how to

utilize it in a right way. A Plan of Campaign for Labor (1894) explains

the responsibility of the working class to take up the duties in their

hands and upgrade the society by choosing fifty working men as

independent labor members to Parliament in London. The

Impossibilities of Anarchism (1895) promotes social democracy and

socialism. The Perfect Wagnerite: A Commentary on the Ring (1898)

preaches equality of work in its true sense for all. Women as

Councillors (1900), is an insight on the liberation of women as

Councils, especially, administration. Women problems can be

understood by women alone, so Shaw wanted to have a woman as a

Councillor to look after the needs of women in factories for sanitation

purpose.

23

Socialism for Millionaires (1901) is a dogma on the problems

faced by the millionaires. Everything is produced in millions but not

every millionaire is satiated with every product, because of its use by

the ordinary rich men and the common men in London. Maxims for

Revolutionists (1903) is an over-all guide for different aspects of life. It

reinstates and redefines the life-style of an individual with personal

reformation in oneself. Fabianism and the Fiscal Question: An

Alternative Policy (1904) is on social moralization and socialism.

Preface to Major Barbara (1905) chunks out with a gallop of enormities

on feminism, millionaire Undershaft’s concern about poverty and the

Salvation Army. On Going to Church (1905) implies fortitude of

Christian beliefs and teetotalism. How to Write a Popular Play (1909),

gives a brief account on writing a popular play and the situations

around it. The Fabian Society: Its Early History (1909) is about Fabian

philosophy that proclaims the existence of realists. Treatise on Parents

and Children (1910) is on the upbringing of the children, and the

parents have to mould themselves for a better development. Common

Sense About the War (1914) speaks about the brutalities of war and

the suffering of the people and the British government. Socialism and

Superior Brains: A Reply to Mr. Mallock (1926) is about national

income and the ignorance of political economy. The Intelligent

Woman's Guide to Socialism and Capitalism (1928) is on socialist and

Marxist thoughts. The League of Nations (1929) is on the assembling

of different nations in Geneva for the policy of the allied forces. Essays

in Fabian Socialism (1931) is a culmination of different lectures

24

collected collectively on various subjects such as Economics and The

Transition to Social Democracy by Shaw, Historic by Sydney Webb,

Industrial by William Clarke, Moral by Sydney Oliver, Property under

Socialism by Graham Wallas, Industry under Socialism by Annie

Besant, and The Outlook by Hubert Bland.

Short Stories, Scraps and Shavings (1932), is about short

stories, especially, about the tale: Adventures of the Black Girl in her

search for God. Shaw’s visit to South Africa in his Summer Vacation in

1932 made him write this story on a black girl who has quest for God

since her childhood. Our Theatres in the Nineties (1932) speaks about

the achievements made by Ibsen as well as Shaw in fabricating the

drama in a more approachable way to the common man with the

burning issues of the society that opens the minds of the audience of

their plays; where the viewer goes with a thought in his mind to

ascertain the truth and facts in the play. Everybody's Political What's

What? (1944) finds its resistance in admonishing the true colours of

politics in London and the World as well. Sixteen Self Sketches (1949)

is a pioneer of an unabridged collection of Shaw’s own identity in his

last years of existence.

The first three plays portray the social problems and are called

‘Plays Unpleasant’. The first play completed by Shaw was Widowers’

Houses (1892). It is an unpleasant one that deals with slum

landlordism during the eighteenth century England. It experiences the

readers the docile servitude of slum-dwellers in a pathetic living

25

conditions. These dwellers are not provided with the basic living

infrastructure and the landlord Mr. Sartorius is a despicable arrogant

who ignores the sufferings of his tenants. This play shocks the

audience with its witty dialogues that humiliate the conscience of

every person who peeps into the horizon of Shaw’s writings. Of course

this play is not so much a successful one for Shaw but it creates a

saga of prettifications and modulation is his own guilt. Actually it is

not the mistake of Shaw that his art is of the expression of his sense

and of moral perversity when compared to his sense of beauty in his

plays. As Mary Luckhurst remarks that, in a letter to Henry Arthur

Jones, Shaw wrote, “a work of art should have a social function, but

that a sense of purpose and social responsibility was essential, a sine

qua non of existence.”19

The Philanderer (1893) is another play that gives us a sordid

impression to seduce the capabilities of an extraordinary genius of

Shaw. It showcases philandering as the main theme that culminates

comedy of manners in its own realm. It ridicules the profession of

medicine and relationships with one another that attribute to the

emergence of New Women in the form of Grace Tranfield and Julia

Craven. These new women embody the cult of transforming enigmatic

accomplishment of decision making of their own responsibilities.

Prostitution is a harmful bacterium that eats away the sanctity among

pure relationships and withers the good living conditions of a family.

Mrs. Warren’s Profession (1894) is a specimen of such an issue of

26

societal reformation. He presents the fallacies between the daughter

and the mother, a gruesome play that revitalises the potent nature of

being a part of it as a reader. The novice Mrs. Warren survives her

death in her poverty with the facilitation of prostitution that comes

handy to her at her dreadful situation.

The next set of plays is ‘Plays Pleasant’ depicts the optimistic

view of Shaw. Disaster occurs in the world, be it a battle or a war,

both constitute the same cause for destruction. Shaw is ardent in

providing awareness on such worldly issues like war.

Arms and the Man (1894) is a romantic comedy that stands out to be

one of his masterpieces that regulate the Shavian concepts in the

play. It satirises war and supports marriage that is far better, where

the pair witnesses happiness at the end. Shaw ridicules the system of

war that weakens humanity, relationships, and normalcy in the world.

It is love and marriage that is superior to disaster. The Swiss

mercenary Bluntschli carries chocolates in the war rather than bullets

and Raina, a wealthy Bulgarian calls him a chocolate cream soldier,

both fall in love, and get married at the end of the play. Class struggle

is also one of the themes of the play. It decodes the humanistic values

to the brim of socialism that evaporates the existence of being human.

England experiences class struggle during the times of Shaw as a

profound socialist propounds him to write the play as well. Shaw

pejoratively rejects physical beauty to be always the cynosure and

27

brightens his focus on the darker world of class and character in his

plays.

Candida: A Mystery (1894) is the Mother Play of Shaw’s that

informs us about the women’s rights and freedom in a society and

household. Candida is the protagonist who gets a situation where she

has to choose between her husband Morell and her lover Marchbanks.

She chooses the weaker of the two, her husband Morell and not

Marchbanks. Marchbanks leaves Candida and goes out of her house

in the darkness for a life that is not known, and this mystery projected

in the play leaves audience to ponder over it. Marchbanks being the

creative poet cannot reconcile his emotions and bear the separation

from Candida, takes a giant leap into darkness without caution. The

play outcasts the fragile nature of woman and demands independence

in her thoughts and ideas take a fruitful decision with queer

responsibilities of home and values. Candida manifests as the

embodiment of Shavian woman fascinated by the societal religiosities

and maintains the balance between her chores and emotions. She

cleverly chooses her husband not because she hates her lover but she

cares more for her husband which is the shade of a Shavian woman.

Marchbanks on the other hand is an effeminate according to Shaw, as

he is just an admirer of Candida through his poetry and not the

arbitrator of her sentiments and emotions that squander the mind of

Marchbanks in alluring Candida.

28

Shaw wrote The Man of Destiny in 1895, a one act play on

Napoleon Bonaparte’s military career as a General in the French

Army. The play is a discussion between the protagonist and an

unnamed Lady on the letters exchanged between them and the

Director Barras which are spitefully sent to Napoleon. You Never Can

Tell (1896) is based on Comedy of Errors that glorifies the absurdities

and identities of characters in the play. It is a discussion play on

mistaken identities where the children Gloria, Dolly and Philip invite

their father to lunch without knowing the fact that he is their father.

The three children are shocked to realise at the end about the

relationship and end with a happy note. The play speaks about

maintaining relationships that last longer even after they are broken.

Gloria refuses the love of Mr. Valentine, a dentist and a waiter in the

restaurant, and Walter otherwise called William by Dolly is a shadow

of William Shakespeare who uses the phrase ‘you never can tell’.

The third set of plays includes ‘Plays for Puritans’ intended on

Christian beliefs, humanity, and clemency. The Devil’s Disciple (1897)

treats its audience with humanistic approach in way of life and is the

inversion of traditional melodrama. The goodness in human nature

wins over the worst and the alarm in every human tends to foster

humility with a sane responsibility that is best illustrated in the play

by Shaw. Richard Dudgeon is the protagonist of the play who is the

Devil’s disciple. He prays the Satan in the heart of hearts, who has

supported him in every wake of his life. But there is a good thing that

29

cling him for better development, especially towards sustainability of

good life. He revokes barbarism and entwines with societal and

individual development. He saves Anderson, the Pastor in the town

who is the rebel against the British soldiers. This act of humanity

shows the true colour of humility that works in times of need and

necessity.

Caesar and Cleopatra (1898), speaks volumes about the

clemency and the tutelage and is one of the splendid plays of Shaw

that satisfies the hunger of a dramatist to its fullest. The character of

Caesar by Shaw is depicted not as a lavish king with an aristocratic

air of pride but is a common man who is just like a neighbour or a

stranger who is known very well to us. Caesar teaches Cleopatra the

art of living and the clemency be showered onto the enemies as well.

This concept is completely in contrast to Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar

(1599). Shakespeare’s Caesar is murdered by his Courtiers and savage

alone takes over the plot where as in Shaw’s Caesar, he is portrayed

as an embodiment of art, tutor and a kind man who maintains

compliancy and modesty to the brim of its dramatisation. The other

play in the same category represents the same concept of clemency

over vengeance in Captain Brassbound’s Conversion: An Adventure

(1899). Captain Brassbound seeks vengeance on his uncle who has

deceived his mother in the property issues. Lady Cicely Waynflete

influences him in breaking his vengeance to clemency and marries

him. His uncle Howard Hallam is then reconciled to peace and realises

30

his mistake of deception over his sister and nephew, and ends with a

positive note. The suspicion is lost in due course of time through

Waynflete and Brassbound who gains importance under the shadow

of clemency.

The Admirable Bashville (1901) is a short play written to protect

the copyrights of his novel Cashel Byron’s Profession (1886) which

actually became a popular play in the USA. Man and Superman

(1903), is the heart throb and a cynosure among the plays of Shaw.

Jack Tanner is the protagonist and Ann Whitefield is the backbone of

this play. Act III of Don Juan in Hell is performed as a separate play

because of the modality of the concept of Life Force. Life Force is a

ubiquitous theme of the complete play that states the emergence and

necessity of a woman for Creative Evolution. It is the woman who uses

man for her destinies fulfilled, and not the man. Man in every

generation develops to acquire the status of a superman, to gain a

tremendous transformation from a normal human to a sophisticated

superman. In 1904 Shaw wrote John Bull’s Other Island on developing

barren lands and political influences on it. It deals with the elections

in Ireland, in which the protagonist Broadbent, a lively person whose

impression makes his ambiences last long, becomes the candidate for

Parliamentary elections. W.B.Yeats commissions this play to be

performed in The Abbey Theatre, Ireland only after making it into a

shorter version. In the same year Shaw wrote another play How He

Lied to Her Husband, a one-act comedy with three characters. It is a

31

triangle story based on Shaw’s genius: Aurora Bompas a cute and

beautiful woman of thirty seven who is the wife of Teddy. The beloved

of Aurora Bompas is Henry who is passionately in love with her. It is a

combination of comedy with tangibles of the love affair, and how the

two lovers lie to her husband about their relationship.

Major Barbara (1905) is a three act play that notch Christianity

to be overruled by a preposterous donator with whose money ‘The

Salvation Army’ runs its expenses. This irritates Major Barbara

Undershaft, a member in the Army to the extent that she is petrified

to experience the change in its own members. A poor should not be

frightened with bread in one hand and money in the other, and make

the poor accept the religion. It is evident in this play how the father of

Barbara, Mr. Andrew Undershaft donates the money and buys the

Army. This is not digested by Barbara in the beginning but at the end

of the play she too convinces herself that it is better that the heir of

his factory is her husband Cusin, whose ardent belief may give

salvation to the workers in the factory. This play annotates the fine

artistic blend of Shaw that plainly speaks on humanitarian grounds

on evolution of human as an eligible know-how of his own morality.

The Doctor’s Dilemma (1906) is a play on the confused decision of the

doctor Sir Colenso Ridgeon, a novice who has discovered a new

medicine for tuberculosis. He falls in love madly with the wife of Louis

Dubedat, Jennifer Dubedat, when she visits him with her husband for

treatment. At the same time a friend of the doctor calls him for the

32

same treatment, and the doctor with his new discovery can save only

ten patients. This predicament leads the Doctor into confusion and

the characters around him too add perfect sarcasm in the plot. Shaw

makes women to be the topic of discussion in his plays that alleviate

the drawing room comedy to a serious reclamation of the problem. He

presents Candida, Man and Superman, and The Doctor’s Dilemma a

new twist with woman at the centre and the other artists as the

competitors at the base line of the plot. Women usher the discussion

that are the sources of discussion, and are the versatile professionals

who have the ability to end the discussion. Such power is granted to

Shaw’s powerful women, thereby Shaw ending up with quick witted,

brilliant characters like Candida, Ann Whitefield and Jennifer

Dubedat.

Getting Married: A Conversation written in 1908 illustrates the

concept of marriage and an important issue to liberalise the laws of

divorce is quiet evident in the play. Press Cuttings (1909), is a

wonderful play on women’s vote and its consequences. In the same

year The Shewing-Up of Blanco Posnet: A Sermon in Crude Melodrama

was written based on religious conventionalities and prostitution

which was censored by the Lord Chamberlain. Misalliance: A Debate in

One Sitting written in 1909-10 is a soothing but lengthy ideas on

marriage that deals with socialism, physical fitness, the Life Force and

the New Woman. The Dark Lady of the Sonnets: An Interlude (1910) is

about William Shakespeare and the Dark Lady in his sonnets. It is

33

about the betrayal of the Lady and the disillusionment of

Shakespeare. It represents the perfect dramatisation of characters

through the medium of Shaw’s perspective. Fanny’s First Play (1911)

is a detractor play of Shaw’s that satirises theatre critics and

constitutes a play within a play.

Androcles and the Lion: A Fable Play (1912) preaches the

doctrines of Jesus in the light of Shaw’s own analysis. This play talks

about gospels, early Christianity, and traditional Roman values,

martyrdom and vegetarianism. Overruled (1912) conjures up the

discussion on infidelity, open desires and passion. Pygmalion (1913)

portrays the independence of woman with rigid British class system

that dominates the ambience of British acquaintances with an

impeccable speech articulation. This class system is best depicted in

the play to lure the audience with its flavoured distinction on

phonetics and the speech sounds. This play takes the credit of filming

that bagged Academy Award for the best screenplay in 1938 and a

musical hit titled ‘My Fair Lady’ in 1964. Heartbreak House (1919)

proclaims the destruction of Europe and the lucrative politicians who

fail to rejuvenate its charm at the backdrop of World War I. This play

discusses society, traits, and fate of London as well as Europe towards

the downfall.

Back to Methuselah: A Metabiologiacl Pentateuch (1918-20)

advocates longevity of human species on the earth, Life Force,

Creative Evolution and its five cycles of the play namely ‘In the

34

Beginning: B.C. 4004, The Gospel of the Brothers Barnabas: Present

Day, The Things Happens: A.D. 2170, Tragedy of an Elderly

Gentleman: A.D. 3000, and As Far as Thought Can Reach: A.D.

31,920’. It is a play basically about the Genesis to the Future. Saint

Joan: A Chronicle Play (1923) sketches the life and trail of Saint Joan

or Joan of Arc who is a French Saint. She hears the voices of God

through the Angel for the reformation of France, and coronate a true

king who believes in her for a successful battles and reign. It is a

tragedy without pessimistic approach and is regarded as pure historic

revival that befits in the basket of Shaw’s opulent plays. The Apple

Cart: A Political Extravaganza (1928) showcases its beauty on political

fervour in England. It decries the illusions of a politician to a disdain

astute of monarchy over people to rule in a strident reminiscences.

Too True to be Good (1931) offers a hoard of ideas on a good life style

with abundant richness on goodness. Alcohol, cocaine and cocktails

won’t give satisfaction in life but it is the Bible that merges in human

life to the end and raises hope in every individual. On The Rocks: A

Political Comedy (1933) is a succession play of The Apple Cart:

A Political Extravaganza on political assertion in England. The Prime

Minister’s development and ideologies are out cried through Shaw’s

sharp eye focusing on the grim petulant advancements of insatiable

hierarchies to outgrow the power of doing something achievable for

England. The thematic concern of the play echoes the sovereignty of

sustainability and porches the existence of incredulous authority over

the country.

35

The Simpleton of the Unexpected Isles: A Vision of Judgement

(1934) preaches the gospel of Shaw that the society has to be clean

without any atrocities, should survive and prosper in the right way as

it has to be, and no person in the society has to be irresponsible and

must take the call of the duty, be brought to judgement for perfection

either artificially or supernaturally. Reformation of society is the keen

observation Shaw makes through his point across the play. The

Millionairess (1935) is also a comedy in four acts on marriage where

the protagonist Epifania searches for a suitor even though she is

married. This play showcases that real bliss is derived not from the

rituals and traditions of marriage but from the hearts that exchange

love. She does not find happiness in her marital life and this suggests

that husband and wife are happy only if both have a good and mutual

co-operation between them. Shaw once again strikes his note on the

successful marriage and its limitations. In Good King Charles’s Golden

Days: A True History that Never Happened (1939) deals with leader

and his qualities, the mother nature and the power that gives a form

and mission to administer country’s outrageous polemics and

barbarism. Buoyant Billions: A Comedy of No Manners (1937) speaks

about the aftermath of World War II where a rich man adventures into

the world to become a world betterer and meets a young heiress who

plays saxophone, falls in love with her and family. This piece of work

of art again touches the strings of love and marriage along with the

reclamation of the world after the disaster. Shakes versus Shav

(1949), a penultimate puppet show of Shaw is a comic argument

36

between Shakespeare and Shaw that lasts for twenty minutes.

Farfetched Fables (1950) is the last play by Shaw that gives us a

vision to see through the technology we have at present and how far

can it be taken to uplift the society. It speaks volumes on eugenics,

universal chemical warfare, hereditary engineering, and the primary

dilemma of education. It is a giant leap from the present to the future

to show how absurd we are in the present and what wonders can be

achieved in the future.

Shaw has written most of his plays for the sake of actors,

actresses, friends, directors, and producers to save them from

bankruptcy. He culminated his efforts in raising his preachers from

the loss. In the words of Frank Harris “The Philanderer was written for

Grein... Mrs. Warren’s Profession was a response to a demand from

Mrs. Sidney Webb, who, disgusted by the sex-obsessed women in

The Philanderer, told him to write something about a real modern

unromantic hard-working woman ... Arms and the Man was hastily

manufactured to save his lovable and palatable Miss Horniman and

Florence Fair from having to close the old Avenue Theatre after a

failure.”20 Many plays hit the roof from Shaw’s pen either to make the

lasting impression on the minds of the public to mend the mistakes or

create a commotion in the heart of any government for a possible and

reliable solution for the problem. Shaw’s plays are for both men and

women that do not separate feminism from male dominated world.

Rudolf Eisler once commented on the captivating plot and dialogue of

37

Shaw’s “A man goes to see one of my plays and sits by his wife. Some

apparently ordinary thing is said on the stage, and his wife says to

him: ‘Aha! What do you think of that?’ Two minutes later another

apparently ordinary thing is said and the man turns to his wife and

says to her, Aha! What do you think of that?”21

The satirical dialogues and unmatchable plots make Shaw’s

stage lit with curiosity of dilemmas and make us probe deeper into

that realm and instigates us to think on every aspect of social and

moral confrontations between the audience and the characters on

stage during the performances. Fidgeting and thinking are the two

liabilities a Shavian admirer adores without conscious that he is being

bullied or learning in his own situation in his own real times. As

Richard Ohmann rightly says, “Shaw likes to see himself as right

hand man to the Life Force, it is natural enough that he proclaims

himself an agent of change, and rejects attempts by others...”22 Such

extravaganza conjures up to a medium of confinement of Shavian act

that conspires the rational thought of dramatics to its very existence.

It modifies the natural form of existence to a mode of shaping destiny

with a moral woman and the Creative Evolution to such an extent that

Shaw puts himself on the frontline of the existence of literature to

endure the panoramic view of his lessons to the world. He eschews

and ordains the limitations of Life Force by the mimic of the

Norwegian Henrik Ibsen to his absurdities of uplifting women’s

movement in biological as well as Metabiologiacl Pentateuch of a

38

potent gospel preaching. The reversal in his plot and the theme that

matches perfectly with the problems and situations of a common man

signifies his brevity of staging his work and giving them a stature of

global reincarnation for the existence of better mankind. Shaw is a

modern philosopher and a spiritualist of the first order. He achieves

this great and alluring revival of the dramatist to practice

non-conformist attitude that is sensible enough to change the world of

ideas in literature. He is a committed personality with a pure heart to

serve humanistic optimism and not the pessimistic failure of societal

indecencies that haunt society. He defends societal loopholes with his

witty dialogues and gives us the best treatment for the problem. His

course of observing the societal issue often takes to a prime peak of

amusement as a social philosopher and from that stance his

philosophy follows the grail of human development into a refine

humanistic nature.

Shaw is the only person who knows how to use comedy as a

vehicle to expose the grotesque brutalities hidden in the society. He is

a utilitarian playwright and his work of art is considered too extreme

and ahead of his times, envisions the changes that can happen in

future and indeed, today every one of us witnesses the prophecy of

Shaw which he has told and has written through his plays about

society, marriage, love, and women. He is the God of his own world

and anachronism is another vehicle he uses most to show the

correctness of histories that they belong to the present world with a

39

classic repartee of the past. The past blended into modernity shocks

the audience of every age.

Shaw contrasts his ideas to knit dialogues in a rare suspicion

that despises the exaggeration and proves him to be facetious when he

is serious and vice versa. He believes that a play is worth, if it speaks

about people, and not about things. A good play accompanies ‘The

Play of Ideas’ to an exalted state of instruction and realisation of what

happened, what is happening and what will happen in the

circumstances of our own realities. It offers a bed full of thorns in it

and asks the audience to collect the rose petals into the basket. Such

portrayal of plays that entertains and shocks the audience is possible

only by Shaw himself. He is the creator of the problem and a pacifier

of the solution with a little bribe of humanistic approach, a greatest

teacher on the earth who comes from the islands of the northern

sphere to educate and entertain and remains in the hearts of his

admirers forever. He is a north star who illuminates day and night in

the horizon of English literature even after his death in 1950 that

marks a saga of charismatic journey into the annals of modern

dramatic art.