Major Barbara debate

[jwilson122]

In my lit class today we were talking about what Shaw was saying about the role of power throughout the book. For those who have read it, do you think he was saying that power is bad or good? Obviously it's the role of power to make changes in the world and things like that, but no one really came to a consensus on it

[Jackson Richardson]

I've subscribed to this thread so I can see any answers. I saw Major Barbara at the National Theatre in London a few years ago, and this year I saw The Doctor's Dilemma.

Shaw makes all his characters talk so brilliantly and hold up their positions, that I get the impression he just likes a good argument for dramatic value. I don't think he did unsympathetic characters, even when they are holding a position he was criticizing.

And I get the impression he just liked paradox for the sake of it, so the arms manufacturer is argued to be more humane than the Salvationists running their shelter.

Maybe, but the National Theatre production ended with Simon Russell Beale alone on stage as Undershaft with the sound of World War One bombardment heard as the curtain fell (or rather the lights dimmed, as it is an open stage). Presumably to remind us that arms manufacture depends on violence.

[Jackson Richardson]

Bump. I'd be very interested to hear what others think. In particular, I'd love to hear what jwilson122's class make of the work.

[mona amon]

Bump. I'd be very interested to hear what others think. In particular, I'd love to hear what jwilson122's class make of the work.

Ooh, I love Shaw, and this play, though not my favourite, is one of his really good ones. I do not feel Shaw enjoys paradox just for the sake of it (unlike Wilde). He just likes to draw attention to his main point by making the conventional bad guy, the armaments manufacturer, his hero and spokesman.


In my lit class today we were talking about what Shaw was saying about the role of power throughout the book. For those who have read it, do you think he was saying that power is bad or good? Obviously it's the role of power to make changes in the world and things like that, but no one really came to a consensus on it

As far as I remember, in this play Shaw is not talking about power so much as money. His main theme is "poverty is the worst crime against humanity". From his preface -


In the millionaire Undershaft I have represented a man who has become intellectually and spiritually as well as practically conscious of the irresistible natural truth which we all abhor and repudiate: to wit, that the greatest of evils and the worst of crimes is poverty, and that our first duty—a duty to which every other consideration should be sacrificed—is not to be poor.

...[cut]..

Now to deplore this preference as sordid, and teach children that it is sinful to desire money, is to strain towards the extreme possible limit of impudence in lying, and corruption in hypocrisy. The universal regard for money is the one hopeful fact in our civilization, the one sound spot in our social conscience. Money is the most important thing in the world. It represents health, strength, honor, generosity and beauty as conspicuously and undeniably as the want of it represents illness, weakness, disgrace, meanness and ugliness. Not the least of its virtues is that it destroys base people as certainly as it fortifies and dignifies noble people. It is only when it is cheapened to worthlessness for some, and made impossibly dear to others, that it becomes a curse. In short, it is a curse only in such foolish social conditions that life itself is a curse. For the two things are inseparable: money is the counter that enables life to be distributed socially: it is life as truly as sovereigns and bank notes are money. The first duty of every citizen is to insist on having money on reasonable terms; and this demand is not complied with by giving four men three shillings each for ten or twelve hours' drudgery and one man a thousand pounds for nothing. The crying need of the nation is not for better morals, cheaper bread, temperance, liberty, culture, redemption of fallen sisters and erring brothers, nor the grace, love and fellowship of the Trinity, but simply for enough money. And the evil to be attacked is not sin, suffering, greed, priestcraft, kingcraft, demagogy, monopoly, ignorance, drink, war, pestilence, nor any other of the scapegoats which reformers sacrifice, but simply poverty.

And from the play -


CUSINS. Do you call poverty a crime?
UNDERSHAFT. The worst of crimes. All the other crimes are virtues beside it: all the other dishonors are chivalry itself by comparison. Poverty blights whole cities; spreads horrible pestilences; strikes dead the very souls of all who come within sight, sound or smell of it. What y o u call crime is nothing: a murder here and a theft there, a blow now and a curse then: what do they matter? they are only the accidents and illnesses of life: there are not fifty genuine professional criminals in London. But there are millions of poor people, abject people, dirty people, ill fed, ill clothed people. They poison us morally and physically: they kill the happiness of society: they force us to do away with our own liberties and to organize unnatural cruelties for fear they should rise against us and drag us down into their abyss. Only fools fear crime: we all fear poverty. Pah! (turning on Barbara) you talk of your half-saved ruffian in West Ham: you accuse me of dragging his soul back to perdition. Well, bring him to me here; and I will drag his soul back again to salvation for you. Not by words and dreams; but by thirtyeight shillings a week, a sound house in a handsome street, and a permanent job. In three weeks he will have a fancy waistcoat; in there months a tall hat and a chapel sitting; before the end of the year he will shake hands with a duchess at a Primrose League meeting. and join the Conservative Party.

There's never any choice between the armaments manufacturer and the Savation Army. Undershaft wins hands down, because he's the one who has the money to live up to his principles. Barbara and Cusins are too young and romantic to be a match for him. But Bernard Shaw the socialist, is no Ayn Rand, singing the praises of the capitalist. Just as in life, the play offers no simple answers, and in the end Barbara is to continue her work of saving people's souls, this time Undershaft's well fed, comfortably housed workers, who do not have to be bribed into salvation with a slice of bread and treacle.