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ENGLISH 102:ENGLISH COMP & LITINSTRUCTORApril 24, 1999Mrs. Warren s main goal in life was providing a better life for her daughter. With the help of her sister she was able to get a brothel established and made it extremely successful. Unfortunately, the title of Madam has no honor and causes her daughter to reject her. She acquired wealth and power equal to that of her male business partner, Mr. George Crofts, but Mrs. Warren still lacks the respect by society due to her profession.She hated working as a bar made and didn t want to end uplike her half sisters. To the contrary, Vivie, Mrs. Warren s, daughter, having avery happy childhood did not become aware of her mother sincome until much later in life. Mrs. Warren provided a home, the finest education, and all manners of pleasantries for her daughter. During her upbringing, Vivie was unaware of how her mother s professional success was attributed to a lifestyle she would come to hate and reject later in life. Because Vivie attends a private finishing school, she rarely sees her mother onlyshadowing her mother s disreputable background. It is this background and Vivie s high morals and schooling that soon become the conflict that will drive that would end their relationship as mother and daughter. Another result of Vivie s schooling and upbringing is she becomesaware of how women are held back in society from attaining fame and fortune. Vivie later find out her mother is still exploiting women, as prostitutes, and hastrouble dealing with the situation. With great pain and anguish she decides to sever ties with her mother and makes a life for herself as an accountant. 3 ENGLISH 102:ENGLISH COMP & LITINSTRUCTOR: April 24, 1999Of the four men in the play only one man, the priest has
no lust for Vivie, he was possibly her father. The priestson, Frank Gardner, on the other hand was truly interested in her for the money to support his style living. Even after he found out Vivie might be his half-sister, he still wants to marry her. He only gave her up when he found out she gave up her mother s money and relationship. Praed was the most interesting male character. He was a likeable, friendly, great talker, andshows a deep respect and interest for Vivie and is a truefriend to Mrs. Warren. He supports them both until the end trying to protect their feeling and by keeping the mood pleasant and calm. However, he did make several gestures during the play to Vivie, to capture her heart. The scoundrel of the play appears to be Mr. George Crofts, a skilled businessman, who attempts to use his skills to gain Vivie s hand in marriage. He tries to blackmail Mrs. Warren by threatening to tell Vivie the secret of her mother s profession. Mrs. Warren throws himout of the house and wants nothing to do with him. Later,George Croft talks to Vivie alone, using his skills of gab, he tries to gain her favor and fails. So, he tells Vivie of all of her mother s business practices, and she is owns many brothels. Vivie becomes overwhelmed with tears and tries to cope with the situation the best she can. This was a very tense moment in the play, this is climax of the play. Vivie is a strong character with morals that can t be swayed, declines the marriage proposal, and leaves abruptly. WILLIAM BURGER BURGER 4 ENGLISH 102:ENGLISH COMP & LITINSTRUCTOR: JEAN SALVATORApril 24, 1999Later Mrs. Warren finds Vivie at work, here Vivie and hercomes to a painful understanding of what she must do. Vivie tells her mother that her business practice conflict with her ideals, then informs her mother that she no longer needs her money or wishes to see her again.Vivie seals her fate as a working woman with few rewards,
long hours and without the comforts provided by Mrs. Warren.The setting and stage design surely set the mood of the play. The naked photo over shadowing the entire play focus on the meaning of the play. Using woman servants, plainly dressed, throughout the play makes the point of awoman s destiny in life. The scene were plain, lacked color but was fitting because it allowed George Bernard Shaw s message to be heard. The lighting set the tempo ofthe play. The language shows the differences between the mother and her friends and Vivie. Vivie is a refined woman with class, well dressed and her mother, a nice woman, but lack the class and skills of Vivie world.The characters, stage, and themes make this an enjoyable play. The play is very successful getting the message across about women being exploited as prostitutes. It wasunfortunate that the good intentions and hard work of Mrs. Warren ultimately causes her to loose her daughter. It is ironic that her mother s profession, a madam, whichprovides the life for Vivie with a fine education and allthe perks of being rich, causes them to have different values and perceptions on life issues. Mrs. Warren did the best she could to provide for her daughter but lost her because of greed and refusing to stop exploiting women.
Overall ScopeI consider all six of the characters “main characters.” Mrs Warren, Vivie, Frank and Crofts are the four most involved in the plot and movement of the story. Praed and the Reverend are not as directly involved, but their roles as witnesses are crucial to understanding Shaw’s message. They serve as extensions of the audience, representations of the Victorian society that attempted to ignore thetaboo issues Shaw explored in his work.Vivie is the play’s protagonist. While she is not necessarily a likable character, her moral and emotional struggle is the play’s central story. She must choose between recognizing Mrs Warren as her mother and condemning her for her socially reprehensible profession.As far as characters are concerned, Crofts is the play’s antagonist; he wants to conquer Vivie, and when faced with rejection, he
retaliates by undermining her perception of Mrs Warren. Although he is the most villainous character of the six, on a larger scale, Shaw says in hispreface to the play that “Society, not any individual, isthe villain of the piece” (pg 170). Mrs Warren and Crofts are directly involved in her unspeakable profession, but the other four characters are just as responsible for its existence. They claim to be morally upstanding, but by avoiding the truth, keeping secrets and remaining actively ignorant, they are as guilty as Crofts.Aside from the first, each act has a major turning point. Act I is primarily a set-up, an opportunity for the characters to interact andestablish their relationships. In Act II, Vivie’s confrontation with her mother and Mrs Warren’s subsequent confession constitutes the first major emotional turning point in the play. Mrs Warren is the most honest she has ever been with her daughter, and in turn, Vivie reveals a sensitive, gentle side to her that she has actively hidden until now. Act III’s high point begins with Crofts’ marriage proposal to Vivie. When she rejects him, he unveils two of the biggest secrets in the play, destroying Vivie’s established relationships with both Frank and her mother. Faced with these truths, Vivie’s facade of emotional impenetrability crumbles, and sheruns away. In Act IV, the final turning point in the play is between Vivie and Mrs Warren. Vivie coldly disowns her mother, despite Mrs Warren’s entreaties and protests. Their interaction marks Vivie’s final decision: She chooses to reject the truth and any further relationship with her mother.
Bernard Shaw, Mrs. Warren's Profession (1894)
Preface:
What reasons does Shaw give for presenting in his dramas topics such as the roots of prostitution? (should deal with problems which exist)
Why has Mrs. Warren’s Profession been trashed? From what directions have such criticisms come?
Who, by contrast, have defended the morality and importance of his plays? (women, those who attempt to reclaim the unfortunate)
What evidence does he give of the hypocrisy of his critics? What forms of sexual experience seem readily tolerated on the stage? (representations ofrape, titillating scenes)
On what grounds does Shaw object to the fact that plays must be licensed by the censor? Even if the censor understood literature, what deleterious effect would censorship have? (would repress originality)
What kind of plays does he attempt? (appeals to intellect, not senses or sentimentality)
What are Shaw’s views on the causes of prostitution? What evidence does he give? (aristocratic women don’t become prostitutes)
Why have his critics objected to the fact that a brothel owner is presented as a somewhat interesting and intelligent woman? What is Shaw’s defense? (evil is masked throughout society)
What example does Shaw give of a male with a reprehensible occupation who could be represented favorably on the stage? (a bookmaker) What accountsfor the difference in response?
If Mrs. Warren herself is not the villain of the piece, who or what is? (society)
What account does Shaw give of his play’s receptionin the United States? Did some of these examples surprise you?
Act I
What are some traits which identify Vivien as a “new woman”? Which of these attributes are intendedto seem favorable? Rather mixed?
What humor is derived from the reactions of others to her?
Why has Shaw chosen the mathematical tripos as her realm of achievement?
What effect is created by postponing the arrival ofVivien’s mother? What do we learn about her before her appearance?
How are stage descriptions used to further the reading experience? (resemble an authorial intrusion in fiction)
What forms of humor are evoked by the topic of unknown paternity? What hint are we given at the end?
Act II:
What are we to make of Frank’s flirtatious behaviortoward Mrs. Warren? Is he sincere?
On what grounds are their elders firmly opposed to any marriage between Vivien and Frank?
How are Mr. Praed, Mr. Crofts and the Rev. Samuel characterized? What has been/is the relation of each to Mrs. Warren?
How does the play represent generational differences? With which generation does the audience usually side?
How do Frank and Vivien characterize their elders when in private? (238)
What fancy on Mr. Crofts’ part is contemned by Mrs.Warren? How does Vivien characterize him?
What answer does Mrs. Warren give to Vivien’s desire to learn who her father was?
What does Mrs. Warren tell her daughter about her own past? Are there aspects of her justification that she omits? (her exploitation of other women)
How does Vivien respond to her mother’s tale? Is this the reaction you expected?
What has enabled Vivien to live a life much different from that of her mother?
Act III
What is the effect of calling Mr. Praed, Mr. Crofts, etc. by their last names?
What account does Frank give his father of the latter’s behavior the preceding night?
What embarrassing invitation has been given, and bywhom? What has happened to Mrs. Gardner?
How does Frank characterize his father to Mr. Praed? Mrs. Warren? (“ever so rowdy”) Crofts ("wicked old devil")?
What role does Praed play in this comedy? Would it seem likely that he has been a friend of Mrs. Warren? What is Frank's own role?
What is added to this comedy by the use of now-dated slang? (e. g., good sort and bad lot)
What sarcasms are directed at the current practicesof “restoration” of churches? Were these controversial at the time?
How do Frank and Vivie now differ in their opinionsof her mother? On what grounds does Frank claim greater knowledge? (a freemasonry among immoral people)
What form of affection do the two show for each other? Does this have implications for their future? (babes in wood, not eroticized adults)
What form of proposal does Crofts offer Vivie? Whatdoes he explain about the economics of her mother’ssource of income?
Who else does he claim has been implicated in the “business” of prostitution? Will “society” reject Mrs. Warren or others on moral grounds?
On what basis does Vivie reject Crofts’ proposal? (comically unsuitable match; she calls him a “capitalist bully”)
What threat does Frank make on his reappearance? (will shoot Crofts “by accident”) How would the play have been changed had he done so?
From what motives does Crofts reveal Vivie’s parentage? Does the viewer assume he has spoken thetruth?
How do Vivie and Frank respond to this undesired news? (he threatens to shoot Crofts; she points rifle at her breast)
To where does Vivie flee? What resolve do we learn she has taken?
Act IV
How has Frank gained the money he offers to spend on an outing with Vivie? What does this indicate about their chances for a successful relationship?
What future does Vivie propose for herself? Does this seem a bit bleak?
What difference has the knowledge that they may be brother and sister made in their relationship, according to them? Would the audience agree? What light has the Rev. Samuel shed on the matter? (claims there must be some mistake)
What does Frank suspect may have changed Vivie’s mind about her proposed future? (alternate lover)
Who enters next? What emotions regarding his planned trip to Brussels and elsewhere on the continent evoke in Vivien?
What reaction does Frank express toward the “gospelof getting on”? How does Vivie respond to the suggestion that the gospels of art and of “getting on” are the sole options for life?
What revelation has Vivie found so shocking that she can only write it on a piece of paper? How doeseach man react? (Praed shocked at Crofts’ occupation; Fred realizes he can’t marry Vivie because he would be a drag on her support)
What future relationship does Frank expect he and Vivie will have? Does this seem satisfying?
When Mrs. Warren appears, what advice do Frank and Praed give her? (she should leave)
On Vivie’s entrance, after the men have left, what change does Mrs. Warren ask her daughter to explain? (has returned check at bank)
What appeal does Mrs. Warren make to her daughter? What does she offer her? In return, how does Vivie characterize the lives of Crofts and others of his class? (“the usual shooting, hunting, dining-out, tailoring, loafing life of his set”) What are Vivien’s goals? (“I don’t want to be worthless”)
What justification does Mrs. Warren give for continuing as a brothel manager? (enjoys making money)
What future relationship with the other does each desire? Are Mrs. Warren’s objections presented sympathetically? (says if granted the choice she would behave worse!)
Of what additional flaw does Vivien accuse her mother? (hypocrisy—living one life and believing inanother) Does this seem in fact to have been Mrs. Warren’s flaw?
On what terms do they part?
What characterizes the final scene? (Vivie returns to work, discards Frank’s note) What points are made by this ending? Was this the best possible outcome, granted her situation?
What future life do we envision for Frank? Why do you think he isn't granted the opportunity to
graduate out of the role of purposeless dilettante?Is there hope for a "new man" in the future society?
What roles have been served throughout by Frank, the Rev. Garner, Praed and Crofts respectively?
What standard features of comedy recur throughout the play, and to what extent are these used to further the play’s ends? (e. g., reversal and recognition, upended expectations; an unconventional ending)
Motherless Nature: The Implications of Landscapein Mrs. Warren’s Professionby Molly O'Donnell
The overt presence of nature in any piece offiction can hardly be discounted as irrelevant giventhe West’s complex history of defining and redefiningwhat nature means in relationship to humanity. From aBaconian perspective of observing nature for thepurposes of control to a contemporary understandingthat “nature pervades everything,” humankind’sfascination with the concept of nature is ceaseless(Tarnas 434). Given the significance of theseconceptions of nature and their influence onliterature past and present, explicit metaphorconcerning nature cannot be disregarded. Fiction thathas an overwhelming fixation on social problems canlead critics to overlook metaphor concerningthe natural world. Examining these allusions andredefinitions of nature can ultimately shed light onthe social issues dealt with in the work and thecharacters and action therein.
Bernard Shaw is a prime candidate for such anexamination because he came to prominence whenVictorian concern over the natural in reaction tothreatening progressiveness in areas such
as science , art , and culture was at its apex . One ofthe most prolific writers of his time, Shaw exertedgreat energy on issues directly related to theseanxieties concerning nature1, often fanning theflames of controversy along the way. A Fabian andfeminist (perhaps, as Peters points out, in spite ofhimself), Shaw’s unique progressiveness canoccasionally obscure his proclamation that his“business is to incarnate the Zeitgeist” (Letters 222).Nature and the natural were intrinsically intertwinedwith all facets of the fin de siècle Zeitgeist. Shaw’spersonal interest in the natural is reflected in hisfixation on matters of health: his vegetarianism, histeetotaling, his quirky attire (i.e., the Jaegersuit). The exception to this predisposition can befound in his disinclination toward sexual intercourseand resulting portrayal of women as sexuallyvoracious. Because Shaw wished to escape thedominance of the body over the mind, his drama can beseen as often undermining what he sets up as thenatural world, thematizing nature and denigrating theunmonitored natural as what Shaw characterized as aforce of “Death and Degeneration” (Plays 661).
Literalizing the theme he exploits moreexplicitly in plays like The Simpleton of the UnexpectedIsles, Shaw’s social-issue play Mrs. Warren’sProfession reveals a complex use of metaphor as regardslandscape and nature, imbuing them with somethingtelling beyond the New Woman’s perceived predicament.Shaw’s overt presentation of both the hypocrisy ofmen’s sexual freedom and the economic roadblocks towomen’s emancipation in Mrs. Warren’s Profession are so explicit as to warrant little further discussion.However, looking at the ways in which Shaw portraysnature in earlier plays like Mrs. Warren’s Profession,more subtle, still-burgeoning ideas related to themodern human world become apparent. Here thenatural physical world is presented as the setting for the most unnatural matchmaking (prostitution,potential incest, general immorality), hinting at thedegeneration of the species because of a lack of
biological development and resulting intellectualdevelopment. What is also predicted by these bucolicaberrations is the natural world as a construct thatextends into human behavior, something to be eschewedand substituted with manipulation in the moreconducive, urban world.
This association between the natural world, asmanifested in landscape and rural setting, with allthat will bring humankind to its end reflects theShavian sentiment that “If Man will not serve, Naturewill try another experiment” (qtd. in Peereboom 206).Although this is a doomsday scenario late Victorianswould have been familiar with, Shaw’s disparagementof what had been considered transcendentalinspiration in rural setting is unique. Even laterplays in which Shaw seems to present a naturalsetting in some pseudo-utopian scenario aremisleading. In Back to Methuselah, a sunlit glade of thefuture leads us back to the unfinished improvement ofman where human intellectual intervention and work(intellectual and presumably urban) seem the onlysolutions.
Shaw’s eugenic ideology was the next logicalmanifestation of attempts to improve on nature andmake calculated decisions for the betterment ofhumanity. Far from believing that the emancipation ofwomen was its own end, Shaw wished to harnesssociety’s previously unguided natural predispositionstoward intercourse to facilitate the evolution of theindividual socially and intellectually throughbiological means. Shaw’s interest in eugenics andposition on the future of idealized humanreproduction can be discerned from his later playsand other writings on the matter (e.g., Man andSuperman).2 His desire to adopt Creative Evolution toharness the Life Force and create an improved race ofmen was developed out of his sincere socialistconvictions as well as occasionally misguidedinspiration from the likes of Schopenhauer,Nietzsche, Wagner, Lamarck, and Ibsen, the
understanding being, “…biological progress mustprecede intellectual development” (Holroyd 78).3 Themanifestation of this futurist vision results in themuch-criticized dichotomy between men and women,where women are circumscribed to the heavy liftingfor the species in bearing and rearing children,while men retire to intellectual pursuits. AlthoughShaw may have ultimately seen this process as theindividual being used for a higher purpose, thefissures in egalitarianism seem obvious to acontemporary audience.
Many critics when faced with these laterconceptions concerning eugenics are left to explainaway Vivie Warren’s apparent satisfaction withpermanent singlehood at the close of Mrs. Warren’sProfession as ambiguous (especially given Shaw’s laterconviction that celibacy would be ruinous for thespecies). Carpenter concludes that Vivie’s finalactions, “convey an almost palpable sense of wastedvitality,” while Valency suggests she “remainsmysterious throughout the play” (qtd. in Conolly 47).On the surface, it would appear that Vivie is a primecandidate for breeding. The text obsessively refersto her strength, vitality, intelligence, andmorality, beginning with her introduction as “anattractive specimen of the sensible, able, highly-educated young middle-class Englishwoman…prompt,strong, confident, self-possessed” (emphasis added,88). Despite her fitness, she seems to have no match.Frank is a self-confessed lout, toying with the ideaof marrying her for money. The other male charactersare so depraved or unfit for various reasons, theyare hardly worth mentioning. So the explanation ofher decision to avoid matrimony and motherhood seemslogical given these sad options; however, allusionsto nature throughout the play complicate this easilyarrived at assumption.
At the play’s start Vivie’s mind is seeminglymade up about rejecting her mother and becoming anactuary in Chancery. Soon, because of her connection
with Frank and revelations about her mother, we seethat Vivie is not entirely to be believed. Herdecisions have not been inexorably made, despite whatshe tells Praed and believes herself. The subtext ofa woman on the verge of adulthood who is making majordecisions concerning career, marriage, and motherhoodare part of what make the play compelling onsomething other than a socio-economic level. Mrs. Warren’s Profession’s use of nature as a metaphorfor sexuality, romance (or sentimentality aboutculture), and conventional femininity underscoresVivie’s ultimate decision to reject all three.Vivie’s retreat from nature, however, superficiallybelies a deep-seated conflict with Shaw’sunderstanding of her role in the progressive future.This seemingly makes Vivie’s life-like personalityand actions contrast with her potential as a mother,leading to the contradiction that allows for aheretofore perceived ambiguous ending. Interestinglythis conundrum foreshadows the Modernist concerns tocome. However, this cannot simply be written off as adeferred ideal due to the unjust conventionality ofthe time, nor can it be seen merely in terms ofpragmatism on the part of Vivie as a New Womanavoiding the fate of natural maternity.
This was, however, the most persuasiveargument against the New Woman’s (or her “creators”)position: Liberation of the any New Woman could beabruptly halted by Lady Jeune’s “inevitable Baby.”Jeune was not the only one to claim that the NewWoman was in an “impossible and ridiculous position”in the face of inevitable motherhood (604).Allen’s The Woman Who Did and Chopin’s The Awakening areliterary examples of the same phenomenon: Liberationsquelched by maternity. This claim is somewhatunsurprising given the scarce availability of birthcontrol and cultural emphasis on the importance offamily. Given Shaw’s understanding of this argumentof nature tripping up the New Woman and his laterclaims about the importance of eugenics, examiningthe places inMrs. Warren’s Profession where references to
nature occur becomes important to understanding themeaning of the play’s final scene.
The first reference to nature occurs early inthe first act at the arrival of Mrs. Warren’s friendPraed to Vivie’s country cottage. Vivie lies on ahammock engrossed in reading and notably shaded fromthe sun by a large umbrella. Vivie asks Praed, “Willyou come indoors; or would you rather sit out hereand talk?” Interestingly, her question privileges theindoors. When he replies, “It will be nicer out here,don’t you think?” Vivie does not directly answer.Instead she offers to get him a chair (89). She thenlaunches into a shocking (to Praed) discussion abouther position as an “ignorant barbarian,” culturelessdue to her schooling (92). Her lack of remorse aboutthis state of cultural depravity could not be moreobvious. This blissful ignorance extends from Praed’sideas of beauty and culture forward to romance andart in general. Throughout the play, nature isconsistently used to represent and introduce elementsof a female construct perpetuated in and expounded onduring the Victorian era. Culture in the aestheticsense introduced by Praed is the first. The notion ofculture as a false construct that is inherentlyfeminine is reinforced when Praed comments on Vivie’sschooling: “I felt at once that it meant destroyingall that makes womanhood beautiful.” While this linemay be a dig directed at Cambridge because “it deniedwomen the educational opportunities offered to men,”the direct reference is to womanliness and aconnection with culture, introduced with ametaphorical allusion to nature (Conolly 49).
Later in the play the natural metaphors becomemore heavy-handed. At the start of Act II, Mrs.Warren enters the cottage after a long walk withFrank and exclaims, “O Lord! I don’t know which isthe worst of the country, the walking or the sittingat home with nothing to do” (106). Mrs. Warren’saversion to nature is introduced here and repeatedlyemphasized in her later warnings to Vivie and
comments from Frank. After she expresses thisexasperation with the outdoors, Mrs. Warrendemonstrates her perversion of what she sees asnatural femininity by kissing Frank, both the son ofher former lover and her daughter’s current lover.That she immediately admonishes herself is evidenceof her belief in a conventional understanding ofnatural femininity that she has never practiced (asVivie points out later).
In the next place that Mrs. Warren reveals heraversion to the natural, she also betrays her fearsof its newly planted hold on Vivie. After Vivie hasheard her mother’s heroic tale, she is swayed toforgive and praise her for fortitude in the face ofpoverty. Vivie then goes to the window to “let insome fresh air.” When she sees “the landscape is…bathed in moonlight in the radiance of the harvestmoon rising over Blackdown,” she exclaims, “What abeautiful night!” Mrs. Warren’s reaction is to warn,“take care you don’t catch your death of cold fromthe night air” (127). There is more to Kitty’sreaction than a personal aversion to conventionalnature or overprotective mothering. Mrs. Warren hasemployed an inordinate amount of pathos to winVivie’s heart, emphasizing the unfairness of herimpoverished situation and the lack of an alternativeto prostitution. When Vivie is seemingly won, herheart becomes open to nature both as it exists in thecountry setting and as the previously definedconstruct of the time (romance, sexuality, andconventional femininity). Mrs. Warren, realizing thatperhaps her arguments may have been too persuasiveand being no practitioner of the natural herself,attempts to warn her daughter of the unreality anddanger of being a victim of this social construct.Kitty advises Vivie against her natural proclivities,or what Kitty thinks are her natural proclivities, asa woman, specifically emotion and weakness. A womanfrom this perspective is easy prey for a corrupt manto take advantage of sexually or financially.
The fact that the moon in this scene is fullemphasizes the allusion to nature as inherentlyfeminine in the conventional sense. Full moons havebeen widely associated with menstrual cycles. Thefact that a harvest moon usually appears to be red inhue (often mistakenly referred to as the blood moon)can only reinforce this connection with the constructof naturally frail femininity. This connection isalso reinforced by associations of the bountifulharvest as emblematic of breeding, as well as thefecundity to which conventional thinking and Shaw’slater eugenics reduce women. Mrs. Warren’s concernthat Vivie will get carried away with her newfoundfeminine empathy is evidence of how little she knowsabout her daughter. Shortly thereafter in the play wesee Vivie’s affection for her mother (as well as anumber of other “naturally” feminine traits) vanishas a result of revelations by Crofts and the waningeffects of the full moon. Vivie’s femininetransformation is only temporary, relying on folklorethat the full moon causes momentary insanity. Theplay uses this moon to draw attention to Vivie’sslippage into constructed nature as an aberration ofpersonality. This is reinforced later in the playwhen Frank sarcastically criticizes Vivie’s “strongnatural propensity” toward sentimentality and sheresponds that she was “sentimental for one moment…bymoonlight…” (149-150). Had Crofts and Frank notinterceded, perhaps Vivie would have been damned to alife of conventionality unfitting her very being.Thus the play sets up these constructions of naturalwomanliness as reflected in landscape as a wholesalepackage.
Act III is introduced by yet anotheracknowledgement of Mrs. Warren’s unnaturalness. AsVivie enters arm in arm with her mother, Frankobserves that the “quiet old rectory garden becomes[Kitty] perfectly” (132). No one, either in anyaudience or onstage, is naïve enough to assume thisstatement is sincere. Certainly the allusion to therectory is meant to humorously contrast with what
Frank explicitly states later about Kitty’s“thoroughly immoral” character (133). However, on ametaphorical level, the choice of a natural gardensetting to contrast with Mrs. Warren’s character isfurther proof that her perception of herself asunnatural is valid from the perspectives of others aswell. If the contrast between the morality of thechurch and Kitty was the sole motivation for thestatement, it likely would have been better to setthe scene inside the church, where Mrs. Warrenventures next.
Vivie then argues with Frank about hermother’s role in her life. She is temporarily swayedto make peace with him by their “babes in the wood”game. This childish playfulness between Frank andVivie takes on the affectation of naiveté, indicatingVivie’s interest in guilt- and consequence-freesexuality, which we only see after her conventionalawakening. Vivie only exercises sexual proclivitythrough this nature game. This innocent foreplay alsosets up a binary that is particularly interestinglater considering Vivie’s unknown parentage and theimplication that she and Frank share a father. Thatthe game is inherently sexual is evidenced in Vivie’sreaction to Frank’s advances after hearing fromCrofts that Frank might be her half-brother: “Youmake all my flesh creep” (142).
At this point, Vivie rejects not onlyconventional femininity and her mother’s hypocrisy,but sexuality and romantic sensibilities asrepresented by Frank and Praed, respectively, fleeingto the urban indoors from whence she came. It turnsout the only thing needed to propel Vivie toward (andthen away from) her constructed feminine nature (aspassive, emotional, and romantically sentimental) andher physically constructed nature as a woman (thatmight manifest itself in sexuality and motherhood) isher mother’s continued lifestyle of prostitution.Despite the fact that Vivie and Kitty are similar indisposition (women of the world concerned with
commerce and work), Vivie’s problem with Kitty isthat she “lived one life and believed in another…aconventional woman at heart” (160). Vivie cannot livewith this sort of “do as I say, not as I do”hypocrisy. Although she has been financiallysupported by her mother’s dishonest industry, herknowledge of the business makes it impossible for herto continue to benefit from it without becoming thehypocrite her mother is. In the end, her motherbegrudgingly agrees that it is “the right thing”(161).
Vivie’s rejection of Frank is not just areaction to possible incest, but a rejection of theconventional view of what is natural for a woman todo: marry, breed, and do little else. Vivie sees thatif she takes on a life of child rearing and shopping,she would become as “worthless and vicious as thesilliest woman could possibly want to be” (158).Vivie sees this idle life as even more reprehensiblethan her mother’s corruption of young women.
This is a partial reflection of Shaw’s utopianvision as described by J. J. Peereboom. Although many(including Shaw) have pointed out, “Shaw was noUtopian,” his futurist tendencies both in drama andnonfiction betray something of a pseudo-utopian(Peters 9). Peereboom points out that Shaw:
proposed images of a better world, not just to providestandards for his denunciations in the Swiftian manner but asprojects to be realized in the continuation of history…hejust recommended increasingly drastic means to bring aboutthe necessary improvements, and allowed longer and longerterms for them to take effect. (202)
In the interim what Shaw believed in was work. Thisethos of work is where Shaw’s ideas seem to ring truefor him personally as well as for Vivie. According toPeters, “He longed, like his Don Juan, to escape thetyranny of the flesh” and possessed “deep antipathies
toward sex” (10-4). This ascetic, asexual bent in theauthor combined with his utopia as “being used for apurpose recognized by yourself as a mighty one…beinga force of Nature” seem to shed light on Vivie’srejection of a constructed femininity represented byher contemporaries’ idea of her nature (qtd. inPeereboom 205).
Before Shaw was driven to unjust conclusions,Vivie was invented as a celibate, urban person,content in her own world, much like Shaw. Peereboominitially sees Shaw’s utopia in “the beach in…Too GoodTo Be True…the garden…in Man and Superman…the south bankof the silver Loire in Saint Joan,” whereas in Mrs.Warren’s Profession the country is a thing best avoidedwhile the diligence of life progresses for bothmother and daughter in the city (208). The utopiafound here is not as Peereboom initially observes inlandscape, but as he later sees in Shaw’s characters.Characters like Vivie choose to live life “with theoppressive hazards of life removed” (209). As a womanat the turn of the century, Vivie would have neededthis utopia of ascetic celibacy uncomplicated by thecorporal more than Shaw. However, that does not meanthat either he or she felt something missing in thislifestyle, especially given that nature ismetaphorically presented as an artificial constructin the play, hypocrisy at best and an unproductiveendeavor at worst.
Shaw’s later eugenic obligations are presentedas perfunctory and unsatisfying, fittingly reflectinghis own aversion toward sex (Peters 14). This isevidenced in the deferred larger conclusion forsociety in many of Shaw’s later plays. As is pointedout by Peereboom, Shaw’s vision of when a utopianfuture might arise seems to point to an incessantdeferral in favor of endless joyful work with fewmessy human elements to complicate matters. In thisway, Vivie has fulfilled his vision of the idealpresent and foreseeable future. The fact that shewill never reproduce is one sticking point in his
later understanding of eugenic necessity. This futureworld is painted as an unpleasant obligation. Ifpeople like Shaw are forced under these latercircumstances to engage in sex they find troublesomeand Vivie forced to abandon her work in favor ofmotherhood, it is no wonder the deferral of theseobligations seems optimal. In true Ibsenian fashion,Shaw believed woman should abandon “her womanliness,her duty to her husband, to her children, to society,to the law, and to everyone but herself” (qtd. inPeters 14). It is difficult to see how thisperspective fits into the near [The] Handmaid’sTale dystopia projected in Shaw’s later plays andwriting. It is, however, easy to see how thisperspective reflects on Vivie. She has abandonedevery socially constructed role of her nature(reinforced in the metaphor to nature in dialogue andsetting). She is a goddess in Shaw’s world of self-fulfillment and diligence.
This understanding of Vivie as an idealizedwoman again rains disapproval on Shaw’s oft-criticized later propensity toward eugenics. GivenVivie’s questionable mother and unknown (thoughsurely immoral) father, how are readers supposed tounderstand how a woman of the best breeding stockdropped out of a brothel? Further, how is her wasted,yet content, breeding potential supposed to affect anaudience? Shavian perspective on the whole might makethis an excellent didactic moment: Society shouldfeel remorseful that Vivie’s motherhood will be“wasted.” However, her tendency toward work outsidethe home and propensity to be more content in theemotionally uncomplicated and unfeminine world ofcommerce reflects her mother’s, with the lacklusterbenefit of an unconventional lack of hypocrisy. Thisseems to defeat both Shaw’s ideas about a eugenicallyperfect future and Vivie’s contribution to thatsociety. Certainly she feels as if she’s doing whatshe should. She is not embittered about the loss ofany piece of romance, nature, sexual love, orconventionality. Her good nature and self-contained
future seems to again contradict Shaw’s laterphilosophies.
The New Woman literature and her presence inthe popular press makes the looming prospect ofmaternity its primary focus. If Vivie does not refuseromance, she will have to come to terms with Jeune’s“inevitable Baby.” This would make Herminia Barton’sfate (Allen) seem almost merciful in comparison to afuture of, say, five unwanted children. The materialconditions of raising children were the conservativeopposition’s last and most persuasive argumentagainst New Womanism. They were also the stumblingblock of the progressive. With material concern anonissue for Vivie (her mother is rich and she hasthe potential to earn her own income, partnering witha likeminded man), her ultimate aversion to nature’senticements contradicts the critical assumption thatshe is being “wasted” by anything other than her ownfree will. In rejecting the nature constructed forher in “womanliness,” reflected in her ruralsurroundings and represented by a triumvirate ofcharacters (Praed, Mrs. Warren, Frank), she comescloser to both her idea of herself at the play’sopening (her self-made nature) and resembling a realand complete person.
Vivie Warren’s existence challenges bothShaw’s later-espoused eugenic philosophies and hispresentation of her as an element of subversion. ACultural Materialist might view her satisfaction insolitude as subverting the call to constructed naturelargely accepted by a Victorian audience. However,spinsterhood (whatever the reason) was also agenerally accepted, though pitiable, practice. Thechoice and agency exerted by the practitioner aresomewhat irrelevant from an outside perspective.Conversely, Vivie’s role can hardly be seen from aNew Historicist’s perspective as containment becauseshe does not kill herself and is content by play’send. This seeming contradiction points to the lesscomplex conclusion that Vivie is herself and not
simply a mouthpiece of Shaw. Giving her the agency ofan actual person, Shaw lends her his own idea of realhappiness, free from the complications of duty andromance and steeped in self-fulfilling work.
Interestingly Shaw uses nature to representVivie’s conventional alternative, a thoroughlyRomantic idea, inspired by ancient and medievalthought and not a Modern perspective, where nature isdivorced from and indifferent toward humanity (Tarnas288). This Romantic fallacy allows the play toreflect the artificiality of femininity as connectedto the natural world back on its perpetrators: thetraditionally gendered landscape of Mother Nature, anidea of nature as feminized in beauty, untamedemotion, and unrefined intellect. Transferring thisgendered nature back on to woman was a much-discussedtopic at the time. As with Ibsen’s Nora and other NewWoman archetypes, Mrs. Warren’s Profession’s aim is atfirst to make the New Woman into a real woman, withvirtue and values above both her obviously corruptmother and frivolous and conventional society. Hence,the question of Mother Nature drawing Vivie back intoher fold through pregnancy, marriage, or familialfeelings for her own mother is unthinkable.
As critics often point out, Mrs. Warren’sProfession foreshadows the Modern Shaw, with its “open,muted ending” (Marker 121). Perhaps this conceptionhas less to do with an ambiguous ending and more todo with that fact that it is not ambiguous. If Vivieis content in solitude, the Modernist message can beseen as uncomplicated by abandoned elements ofconstructed nature. Perhaps Vivie embodies “theinherent goodness of the individual…distorted [only]by excessive contact with others in groups andinstitutions” (Berlin 484). In this way it is herindividualism and self-aware exploration that are theharbingers of Modernism, not her discomfiture withisolation. Vivie retires to industry as virtuous asshe was at the play’s start. However, she is nolonger rife with untested virtue. She can now
withdraw as comfortably into celibacy as theVictorian idealized Elizabeth, a stone woman who doesnot bleed, an ascetic (aside from her smoking, towhich interpretations from Freudians likely have muchto say).
If both Vivie and Shaw are content to say thatwork and utility are occupations of the satisfyingindividual life, then his pseudo-utopian ideals arerealized in Vivie. This makes his assertions aboutbreeding no more than tacked-on propositions based onthe irrational fear that without intervention thespecies will be left in the hands of the less thansupermen. If ambiguities about Vivie’s character arepresent at the play’s end, then perhaps their roothas little to do with wasted genetic potential ofsham womanliness. Vivie’s “delving into the greatsheafs of paper on her desk in order to lose herselfin her work” does not seem to signal despair anddisillusionment to either the character herself orthe author personally (Marker 121). Theseinterpretations have more to do with scholarship thatapplies Shaw’s later theories retroactively to Vivieinstead of vice versa. To say that Vivie isdiscontent and working to “lose herself” borders onpaternalistic and sexist. Perhaps the end of the playis viewed as ambiguous merely because audiences areunaccustomed to a person rewarded for following thedictates of her own nature rather than thoseconventionally or eugenically prescribed at the time,prizing individual productivity and peace overromance or duty.http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/fac/cross_fac/iatl/reinvention/issues/volume1issue1/joyce/
GLOSSARYA note on language: Among his many interests, Shaw was an advocate for reforms of English language usage, spelling and punctuation. In our quotations in this guide we use Shaw’s
original punctuation, some of which is decidedly non-standard. Terms appear in the order in which they appear in the text.
Purgatory:
In the Roman Catholic belief system a space or condition in which the
soul is housed while it is cleansed of venial sins prior to entrance
into heaven.
Praed
When I was your age, young men and women were afraid of each other: there was no good
fellowship. Nothing real. Only gallantry copied out of novels, and as vulgar and affected as it
could be. Maidenly reserve! gentlemanly chivalry! always saying no when you meant yes!
simple purgatory for shy and sincere souls.
Third Wrangler:
Wrangler is the designation bestowed upon those mathematics
students at Cambridge who achieved a first-class honours degree (the
highest distinction upon graduation). By tying for third wrangler,
Vivie earned the distinction of being the third highest ranked
student in her graduating class.
Praed
Do you know, I have been in a positive state of excitement about meeting you ever since your
magnificent achievements at Cambridge: a thing unheard of in my day. It was perfectly
splendid, your tieing with the third wrangler. Just the right place, you know. The first wrangler
is always a dreamy, morbid fellow, in whom the thing is pushed to the length of a disease.
₤50, ₤200:
Using the value of the British pound in 1900, ₤50 equals
approximately $5,600 USD in 2008. Using the same conversion factors,
200 pounds translates to over $22,000.
Vivie
I said flatly it was not worth my while to face the grind since I was not going in for teaching;
but I offered to try for fourth wrangler or thereabouts for ₤50. She closed with me at that,
after a little grumbling; and I was better than my bargain. But I wouldnt do it again for that.
₤200 would have been nearer the mark.
Newnham:
Founded in 1871, one of two colleges for women at Cambridge
University. The other, Girton, was founded in 1869.
Mathematical Tripos:
So named because of the medieval tradition in which academic
examiners would sit on a three-legged stool, “Tripos” is the name of
the honours course at Cambridge University.
Phillipa Summers:
An allusion to Phillipa Fawcett, the first woman to score the
highest mark on the mathematical tripos, which she did in 1890.
Vivie
Perhaps you dont know how it was. Mrs. Latham, my tutor at Newnham, told my mother that
I could distinguish myself in the mathematic tripos if I went for it in earnest. The papers were
full just then of Phillipa Summers beating the senior wrangler. You remember about it, of
course.
Chambers:
Law offices.
Actuarial calculations and conveyancing
Vivie will work as an actuary, a mathematical analyst who calculates insurance risks and premiums, and as a conveyancer, who
oversees the transfer of ownership of property.
Vivie
I shall set up chambers in the City, and work at actuarial calculations and conveyancing.
Chancery Lane:
A street in West London that houses an abundance of legal offices,
featured prominently in literary works concerning the English legal
system, including Dickens’ Bleak House.
Greenhorn:
A novice, one who is inexperienced.
Vivie
Last May I spent six weeks in London with Honoria Fraser. Mamma thought we were doing a
round of sightseeing together; but I was really at Honoria’s chambers in Chancery Lane every
day, working away at actuarial calculations for her, and helping as well as a greenhorn
could.
Fitzjohn’s Avenue:
A street in Hampstead, a wealthy neighborhood in northwest London.
Praed
But bless my heart and soul, Miss Warren, do you call that discovering art?
Vivie
Wait a bit. That wasnt the beginning. I went up to town on an invitation from some artistic
people in Fitzjohn’s Avenue: one of the girls was a Newnham chum. They took me to the
National Gallery.
Devilling:
Serving as a lawyer’s assistant.
Vivie
I want nothing but my fare to London to start there to-morrow earning my own living by
devilling for Honoria.
Countenance:
Composure.
Mrs. Warren
Just look at him, Praddy: he looks cheerful, dont he? He’s been worrying my life out these
three years to have that little girl of mine shewn to him; and now that Ive done it, he’s quite
out of countenance.
Roman father:
Reverend Samuel Gardner is part of the Church of England, not the
Roman Catholic Church that this reference might insinuate. By
referring to Samuel as a “Roman father,” Praed may be joking about
the Roman virtues (either the integrity and strictness of Ancient
Rome or the celibacy/chastity of Roman catholicism) which Reverend
Samuel noticeably lacks.
Praed
What on earth are you doing here?
Frank
Staying with my father.
Praed
The Roman father?
Frank
He’s rector here.
Gov’nor:
Abreviation for governor. Here, used colloquially to refer to an
employer, father, or other male in authority.
Flippancy:
Lack of seriousness.
Frank
Do you remember the advice you gave me last July, gov’nor?
Rev. Samuel
Yes, I advised you to conquer your idleness and flippancy, and to work your way into an
honorable profession and to live on it and not upon me.
What amounts to a high Cambridge degree
Although Vivie attended Cambridge and received the honor of Third
Wrangler, the university did not grant full degrees to women until
1948.
Frank
Well, nobody wants you to marry her. Anyhow, she has what amounts to a high Cambridge
degree; and she seems to have as much money as she wants.
Follies:
Foolish acts.
Rev. Samuel
You are taking an ungentlemanly advantage of what I confided to you for your own good, to
save you from an error you would have repented all your life long. Take warning by your
father’s follies, sir; and dont make them an excuse for your own.
Incorrigible:
Beyond reform.
Frank
Did you ever preach at her the way you preach at me every day?
Rev. Samuel
I leave you, sir. You are incorrigible.
Mrs. Warren
Why, I have a whole album of your letters still: I came across them only the other day.
Rev. Samuel
(Miserably confused). Miss Vavasour, I believe.
Mrs. Warren
(Correcting him quickly in a loud whisper). Tch! Nonsense! Mrs. Warren: dont you see my
daughter here?
Make love to:
To flirt with or praise.
(At last [Mrs. Warren] kisses [Freddie], and immediately turns away,
out of patience with herself.)
Mrs. Warren
There! I shouldnt have done that. I am wicked. Never mind, my dear: it’s only a motherly kiss.
Go and make love to Vivie.
Broomsquires:
Individuals who make and sell brooms from twigs and heather.
Perjury:
The making of false allegations under oath.
Assizes:
A trial session, a judicial inquiry.
Crofts
The gypsies, I suppose?
Rev. Samuel
The broomsquires are far worse.
(Crofts and the Reverend Samuel come in from the garden, the
clergyman continuing his conversation as he enters).
Rev. Samuel
The perjury at the Winchester assizes is deplorable.
Tintern Abbey:
12th century Cistertian Abbey immortalized by William Wordsworth in
his poem “Lines Written a Few Miles Above Tintern Abbey.”
Mrs. Warren
Oh, he’s all right: he’s an architect. What an old stick-in-the-mud you are, Sam!
Frank
Yes, it’s all right, gov’nor. He built that place down in Monmouthshire--Tintern Abbey they call
it. You must not have heard of it. (He winks with lightning smartness at Mrs Warren and
regards his father blandly).
“He either fears his fate too much”…:
Frank misquotes this 17th-century poem by Scottish solder/writer
James Graham. The third line actually reads, “That puts it not unto
the touch.”
Frank
And as you no doubt intend to hold out other prospects to her, I shall lose no time in placing
my case before her. (They stare at him, and he begins to declaim
gracefully).
He either fears his fate too much,
Or his deserts are small,
That dares not put it to the touch
To gain or lose it all.
Baronet:
Established in 1611, this rank is the lowest of Britain’s inherited
titles.
Crofts (continuing)
And a baronet isn’t to be picked up every day.
Pater:
Father (informal), from latin.
Frank
My mother will be delighted to see you. She’s a genuinely intellectual artistic woman; and she
sees nobody here from one year’s end to another except the gov’nor; so you can imagine how
jolly dull it pans out for her. (To his father). You’re not intellectual or artistic: are you pater?
Mint:
Prior to 1968, the Royal Mint, the official manufacturer of British
coinage, was located in London’s East End, a working class area.
Mrs. Warren
D’you know what your gran’mother was?
Vivie
No.
Mrs Warren
No, you dont. I do. She called herself a widow and had a fried-fish shop down by the Mint,
and kept herself and four daughters out of it.
Waterloo Bridge:
Originally constructed in 1817, the Waterloo Bridge connects Waterloo
(on the south bank of the Thames) with Victoria Embankment. The
original was torn down in 1836 and replaced with the existing
structure.
Scullery:
A dishwashing room connected to a kitchen.
Temperance restaurant:
A restaurant that does not serve alcohol.
Sovereign:
A gold British coin valued at approximately one pound.
Mrs. Warren
The clergyman got me a situation as scullery maid in a temperance restaurant where they
sent out for anything you liked. Then I was waitress; and then I went to the bar at Waterloo
station: fourteen hours a day serving drinks and washing glasses for four shillings a week
and my board. That was considered a great promotion for me. Well, one cold, wretched
night, when I was so tired I could hardly keep myself awake, who should come up for a half of
scotch but Lizzie, in a long fur cloak, elegant and comfortable with a lot of sovereigns in her
purse.
Winchester:
At the turn of the century, this town, approximately sixty-five miles
southwest of London, had a population of nearly 21,000. Winchester is
home to a famous cathedral built in the late 1600s.
Mrs. Warren
A very good aunt to have, too. She’s living down at Winchester now, close to the cathedral,
one of the most respectable ladies there.
Workhouse:
Beginning in the early 1600s, England established workhouses for the
ill and impoverished who were unable to support themselves
financially. In 1834, Parliament passed the Poor Law Amendment Act
which limited access to the workhouses and caused an emphatic
decrease in their quality.
Mrs. Warren
Why am I independent and able to give my daughter a first-rate education, when other
women that had just as good opportunities are in the gutter? Because I always knew how to
respect myself and control myself. Why is Liz looked up to in a cathedral town? The same
reason. Where would we be now if we’d minded the clergyman’s foolishness? Scrubbing floors
for one and sixpence a day and nothing to look forward to but the workhouse infirmary.
Impetuous:
Impulsive, rash.
Rev. Samuel
But how are we to get rid of them afterwards?
Frank
There’s no time to think of that now. Here! (He bounds into the house.)
Rev. Samuel
He’s so impetuous. I dont know what to do with him, Mr Praed.
Attitudinizing:
Posing for effect.
Prig:
A fussy person; one who exaggerates propriety.
Frank
This morning I find you attitudinizing sentimentally with your arm round your parent’s waist.
Vivie
(Flushing). Attitudinizing!
Frank
That was how it struck me. First time I ever saw you do a second-rate thing.
Vivie
(Controlling herself). Yes, Frank: there has been a change; but I dont think it a
change for the worse. Yesterday I was a little prig.
Frank
And today?
Freemasonry:
A secret brotherhood.
Frank
Viv: theres a freemasonry among thoroughly immoral people that you know nothing of.
Youve too much character. Thats the bond between your mother and me: thats why I know
her better than youll ever know her.
Imbecility:
Stupidity, absurdity.
Frank
The wise little girl with her silly little boy
Vivie
The dear little boy with his dowdy little girl.
Frank
Ever so peaceful, and relieved from the imbecility of the little boy’s father and the
questionableness of the little girl’s—
Matthew Arnold Quotation:
Vivie quotes chapter 8 of Matthew Arnold’s 1873 text, Literature and
Dogma.
Vivie
(With biting irony). “A power, not ourselves, that makes for righteousness, eh?”
Belgravia:
Belgravia is a wealthy and fashionable district in London, and
although the title of Duke of Belgravia is fictitious, it is possible
that Shaw was indirectly referring to the Duke of Westminster, who
made much of his fortune through the ownership of slum properties.
Archbishop of Canterbury:
The chief bishop of the Church of England and the worldwide
figurehead of the Anglican Church.
Ecclesiastical Commissioners:
A group of politicians, judges, and Anglican ministers who managed
property and business affairs for the Church of England.
M.P. :
Member of Parliament.
Crofts
Come! you wouldnt refuse the acquaintance of my mother’s cousin the Duke of Belgravia
because some of the rents he gets are earned in queer ways. You wouldnt cut the Archbishop
of Canterbury, I suppose, because the Ecclesiastical Commissioners have a few publicans and
sinners among their tenants. Do you remember your Crofts scholarship at Newnham? Well,
that was founded by my brother the M.P. He gets his 22 per cent out of a factory with 600
girls in it, and not one of them getting wages enough to live on.
Magnanimous:
Generous.
Crofts
Oh you neednt be afraid. I’m not going to touch you.
Frank
Ever so magnanimous of you under the circumstances! Thank you!
Primrose Hill:
A hill and surrounding neighborhood in Regent’s Park. Located just
northwest of central London.
Richmond:
In 1901, this town, located just a few miles southwest of central
London, had a population of over 31,000.
Music Hall:
A popular entertainment in 19th and early 20th century England, these
houses featured a variety of performance forms, including songs,
comedy, and dances.
Frank
The staff had not left when I arrived. He’s gone to play cricket on Primrose Hill. Why dont you
employ a woman and give your sex a chance?
Vivie
What have you come for?
Frank
(Springing off the stool and coming close to her). Viv: lets go and enjoy
the Saturday half-holiday somewhere, like the staff. What do you say to Richmond, and then
a music hall, and a jolly supper?
Farthing:
Withdrawn from circulation in 1961, this was the smallest unit of
British currency and was valued at ¼ a penny.
Vivie
Everything was settled twenty minutes after I arrived here. Honoria has found the business
too much for her this year; and she was on the point of sending for me and proposing
partnership when I walked in and told her I hadnt a farthing in the world.
Tantamount:
Equivalent.
Frank
(So revolted that he slips off the table for a moment). I very strongly
object, Viv, to have my feelings compared to any which the Reverend Samuel is capable of
harboring; and I object still more to a comparison of you to your mother. (Resuming his
perch). Besides, I dont believe the story. I have taxed my father with it, and obtained from
him what I consider tantamount to a denial.
Philistine:
One who expresses ambivalence or hostility to the value of arts and
culture.
Frank
Viv is a little Philistine. She is indifferent to my romantic, and insensible to my beauty.
Facer:
An unexpected dilemma.
Praed
What an amazing revelation! I’m extremely disappointed in Crofts: I am indeed.
Frank
I’m not in the least. I feel he’s perfectly accounted for at last. But what a facer for me, Praddy!
I cant marry her now.
WOMEN IN ENGLAND, 1895
The late Victorian era was a time of tremendous change in England,
and this change was particularly marked for Victorian women. The
tension between the idealized model of Victorian domesticity collided
with the reality of the industrial revolution, an increase in the
number of women going into the workforce, and, on the upper end of
the class spectrum, opportunities for women in education and political activism.
The ideal of Victorian womanhood, the “angel in the house,” was a
virtuous wife and mother in need of male protection provided by a
husband or father. Her entire purpose was to devote herself to and
sacrifice herself for her family within the domestic sphere. The political and economic reality reflected this model: married
women could not own property in their own names or keep their
earnings (instead it belonged to their husbands). Also, women could
not vote.
In the later part of the nineteenth century, women acquired more
rights, and agitated for increased opportunity. Among the reforms of
the late-nineteenth century, the Married Women’s Property Act of 1882
allowed women to keep all their earnings and hold property in their own names. Just after the turn of the century the women’s suffrage
movement began to gain momentum, though women would not be granted
the vote in the UK until 1918.
In keeping with these political changes, the late-nineteenth century
also marked the rise of the “new woman”: a young, well-educated
lively force, who relished independence, and rejected the personal
restrictions on dress, behavior, and decorum placed on women by
Victorian society. The "new woman" appears frequently in literature
and art, and was the source of considerable discussion in the press.
Young Vivie Warren is one of its prime literary examples.
While some “new women” were more political than others, all wished
for increased freedom for their sex. They wished to support
themselves, live independently, and manage their own money. They
sought out meaningful work and education (available mainly to those of higher social class). Women began to attend universities: in 1869
they were first admitted to Cambridge to study, though they were not
allowed to take degrees. By 1902 there were over 200 woman doctors inEngland, and in 1895 the first woman qualified as a dentist. Dress
reform, including a movement away from tight lacing corsets and the
introduction of bloomers to allow for increased activity, gained adherents. The new women also embraced increased physical
activity (cycling was very popular, as well as tennis and other
games), and could even chose to smoke or drink—something unthinkable
to proper early Victorians. These “new women” rejected traditional
behavior and blurred the line between the sexes, confounding society,
but blazing a path for future gains by women.
SHAW AND ECONOMICSBY PATRICK MCKELVEY
“The gambling spirit urges man to allow no rival to come between his private individual powers and step-mother Earth, but rather to
secure some acres of her and take his chance of getting diamonds instead of cabbages. This is Private Property or Unsocialism.”
—George Bernard Shaw, The Economic Basis of Socialism
Born to a working-class family in 1856 (his father was a grain
merchant, his mother a singer), George Bernard Shaw came of age
within an intellectual landscape grappling with the devastating
effects of capitalism, which emerged simultaneously with the
Industrial Revolution. This series of technological innovations (steam power, machine tools, railways, etc.) between the late 1700s
and mid-nineteenth century facilitated England’s transition from an
agrarian economy to an urban, industrial, manufacturing one.
England’s class system, previously characterized by the landed gentry
and the servant class, witnessed the rise of a middle class.
Meanwhile, working-class laborers toiled for unconscionably long
shifts in dangerous environments (such as the whitelead factory Mrs.
Warren mentions), only to go home to the inadequate housing their
meager incomes could provide. Labor unions were outlawed in England
from 1799-1824, but by the late nineteenth century, they accumulated
enough clout to make workers’ rights a priority in the national
political agenda.
This rapid change also inspired some classics in socialist economic theory whose ideas resonate in Mrs. Warren’s Profession, including Karl
Marx’s Das Kapital (1867) and August Bebel’s Women and Socialism (1883).
Marx subscribed to the labor theory of value, which insists that the
value of a product should equal the amount of labor required to
produce it. Capitalism poses a challenge to this theory because
employers sold their goods for greater than their labor value; thus
the end result of one’s labor was not just a product, but also excess
capital. The very success of capitalism, Marx insisted, requires the
middle and upper classes who control the means of production (ie,
owned a factory), to exploit their employees’ labor for the
accumulation of their own personal wealth. Therefore, Marx called for
the proletariat to seize the means of production as a means of
redistributing wealth. Bebel, a leader of the South German Worker’s
Union, was instrumental in both popularizing Marxist theory in
Germany and emphasizing gender. In order to successfully thwart the
strength of capitalism and reimagine a more equitable social
structure, Bebel argued women’s labor and concerns needed to be
foregrounded.
Shaw, an avowed socialist, was particularly sensitive to the plight
of women in a capitalist society, as is evident not only inMrs. Warren’s
Profession, but also in a later work, the book The Intelligent Woman’s Guide to
Socialism, and various political essays and lectures. He was a member
of the Fabian Society (founded 1884), a group of political writers
and lecturers dedicated to the gradual permeation of socialist practices into democratic society in England and abroad. They
rallied for such socialist measures as the establishment of a minimum
wage and universal access to healthcare, social reforms that remain
political headlines today. The Fabians were influential in the
creation of the Labour Party, which remains the primary leftist
political party in the United Kingdom, and the London School of
Economics, an institution originally dedicated to researching and
combating economic inequality.
“It’s much my best play; but it makes my blood run cold: I can hardly bear the most appalling
bits of it. Ah, when I wrote that, I had some nerve”
–George Bernard Shaw, in a letter to actress Ellen Terry, May 28,
1897.
The scandal surrounding Mrs. Warren’s Profession was not the fact that
Shaw wrote about prostitution, but how he did it. While other plays
of the era dealt with prostitutes, they inevitably regretted their
behavior and made a bad end. The morally impugnable part of Shaw’s play to his society, is that Mrs.Warren lives, unrepentant. In his
preface to the published version ofMrs. Warren’s Profession, Shaw
addresses a concern expressed by Independent Theatre manager J.J. Greins, and no doubt shared by much of the audience, that as a
fallen woman, Mrs. Warren “is not wicked enough.” These critics, Shaw
insists, have entirely missed the point. Rather than place the guilt
of Mrs. Warren’s Profession on Mrs. Warren herself, Shaw explains, “The
whole aim of my play is to throw that guilt on the British public
itself.” The tumultuous production history and heated public
reception of Mrs. Warren’s Profession demonstrates that whether or not he
succeed in throwing guilt, he certainly managed to make a significant
portion of the public uncomfortable.
THE OLDEST PROFESSION
Prostitution was rampant in late Victorian England, and a source of
considerable attention for reformers. Prostitutes were generally working class girls drawn to the work for economic
reasons. The “respectable” work available to women at the time—in factories, domestic service, and restaurants—was extremely poorly
paid, physically exhausting, sometimes dangerous, and generally
unpleasant. Sex work, while far from ideal, was relatively lucrative,
and often more comfortable.
The range of work varied considerably, from women who picked up the
occasional client to make ends meet and supplement their meager
earnings, to expensive high end courtesans. Most prostitutes
“retired” by age twenty-five, and it was entirely possible for them
to later marry (sometimes to men they had met through their work who were above them in social class).
While prostitution was not illegal in Victorian times, England was
far less comfortable with the practice than its continental neighbors. The chief of police in Brussels, where Mrs. Warren has
one of her houses, was so blasé about prostitution as to recommend
that licensed brothels be located in convenient places for the
benefit of the customers, while England was the last country in
Europe to adopt licensing regulations for prostitutes. The Contagious
Diseases Act of 1864 required prostitutes to submit to medical exams,
and compulsory treatment in locked wards if they were found to be
infected (the same rule did not extend to their customers). Twenty
years later, in keeping with its general discomfort with
prostitution, England was the first European country to repeal its
licensing regulations with the Criminal Law Amendment Act of 1885,
which also criminalized brothels and the procurement of women to workin prostitution. By 1895 when our production of Mrs. Warren’s
Professiontakes place, this law was in full force, and while the act of
prostitution remained legal most of the activities surrounding it
were not and it was seen a serious problem by society.
