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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
22
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.
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