Men in Petticoats: Women Characters in Bernard Shaw's Late Victorian and Edwardian Plays (1895-1910) 9789758628360

Citation preview

İü""

Atalay Gündüz Atalay Gündüz is an assistant professor at the department of English Language and Literatune at Celal Bayar University. He is the vice chair of ühe same depantment and the directon of Centre for the Reasearch and Application of Foneign Languages IYADAMI. He worked as an instructor of English as a foneign language for thirteen years at Ege University where he received his BA, MA and PhD degnees in English Language and Literatune. He also taught at the department of American Culture and 'Literature at lzmir Univensity [2O1G2O11). ln 2OO5 he received a Fulbright seholanship to do nesearch on his PhD dissertation entitled "Turkey and Turks in Bnitish and Ameriean Travel Wniting from 185O to the Present" at The University of Pennsylvania (2OO5-2006]. He neceived another gnant from Turkish Highen Education Council [YOK] for the summer of 2O1 2 and completed his reseanch fon the cunrent book at The Universiğ of Pennsylvania. Dr. Gündüz is interested in companative literature, tnavelwriting' modenn drama and lrish literaüure.

ü

CELAL BAYAR UNTVERSITY

3

o

J

ı

!o

al al

6' o o at

I

ş

o

m3

Men in Peüticoats: Women Ghanacters Bernaı.d shawls Late Vİctonİan and Edwandİan Plays t1 a93.1 91 oı

gs

,

90

ğil o? fo

Ff;

6:. aJ

The central concern of Bernard Shaw's approach to the Woman Ouestion in the late nineüeenth and early twentieth Century is the assumption that any human being needs to fulfill itself in order to lead a self-satisfied and happy life. Shaw was acutely awane of the fact that

women were denied that very basic right upon the presumptions that women had a totally different "naüure'' than men and that they were created to stay at home and mind domestic affairs. Shaw cneates a counten-hegemonic discounse against the patriarchal and misogynist discourse of the late Victorian and Edwardian England. At the heant of Shaw's objection to the dominant discourse of his ena is the generally held belief that women and men are in thein "natıJne" totally diffenent creatures. Shaw defies this artificial and most arbitrary distinction and declanes that he sees women as "men in petticoats" and men as "women without petticoats." He does not assume that thene is any "mystery about woman" instead, he just "observes the world around him." Yet, as a dramatist, Shaw gives voice to various discourses in his plays. Hence, he has been quoted against hirnself on many different and opposing points.

ml[

ö9 tJı , .o J.t

io sil

ı0 o.

to ro al

o o

Ct

0

t. o

J

o

J

o.

D .t o

Atalay Gündüz

o

o cı J

978-975-8628-36-0

0. N

cela! Elayar lJnİversİty Pness Noı oo1 1

İn

U

CELAL BAYAR UNIVERSITY

Men in Petticoats: lUomen Characters in Bernard Shauı's Late Uictorian and Edıuardİan Plags (t 895-t 9t 0) Htalag Gündüz

celal Bayar Universİty Press No:0011 2013

1

Gelal Bayar Unİversİty (28.06.2013, 2o13t13

)

Men İn Petticoats: Women characters in Bernard Shaw's Late Victorian and

CONTENTS Acknowledgements

Edwardian Plays (1893-1910)

Introductİon ................

1

Atatav GÜNDüZ

Part 1: Critical Heritage...

13

Intelligent Women or Shaw's Daughters

1

"!ı^. Mr ın futı6ıtıı Wm Ghıretın B.mddahilb ı.rt vbtslmsd Eö.r!ıdüı Flryı a,ı B6s.l alo

ln

t4

2 Shaw's Place in Modern British Drama..............

24

3 Shaw as a Writer in the Global Perspective........

30

Part2ı Shaw

and the Woman Question Contextualized .......................33 4 Women in the Nineteenth Cenfury England: A Very Brief Glanc e....... 34

WollstonecraftA Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792).......36 Florence Nightingale (1820-1910)......... ...... .......................41

5 Mary 6

(1869) Ibsen(1828-1906).........

7 John Stuart 8

At.ırv af{rd&

c&&pU.ürdğfu k@tl

Henrik

Mill

The Subjection of Women

...............49 ....... 56

Part 3: Shaw and Women................ 9 His Mother's Son 10

69 70

Lover and Husband...........

.............7 5

I Shaw's Support for Woman's Political Representation.... 12 Shaw and The Suffragettes I

CoverDesign: SeTatKOTAN [email protected]

Celal Bayar University Press -MANiSA 2013 ISBN : 978-975-8628-36-0

copyright @2013. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or distributed in any form or by any means without the prior written authorization of

the author.

Part 4z Shaw's Women Characters 13 Mrs. Warren's Profession (1893)..... 14

Vivie

.............81 .............84 ................... g9

Warren......

................ 90

........97

15 Creative Evolution and Superwoman in Man and Sı'ıperman

(1903)

.....

Misalliance

..... 140

(1910) Conclusion Works Cited......... INDEX..... 16

r24

...160 ..........164 ....180

Acknowledgements This book would not have come to life.without the Turkish Higher Education

Council (YÖK) scholarship that was awarded to me for the summer of 2012. I would also like to acknowledge my debt to university of Pennsylvania English department for their hospitality, especially to David Espey who read and gave me sound advice on the first and second drafts of this book. Though I have not always been able to perform to their standaxds, I had four readers in my mind while I was writing my book: Giinseli Sönmez İşçi, Şebnem Toplu, Dilek Direnç and Nilsen Gökçe. They all have had great influence on my scholarship. without their support and guidance I would not be able to pursue my post-graduate and then post-doc studies. I would also

like to take this opporhınity to express my gratitude to all my great teachers who have widened my horizon and helped me understand subjects that I would never be able to comprehend on my own: Sedat İşçi, Rezzan Silkü, Atilla Silkü, Nevin Koyuncu, Lütfiye oktar and Ayşen Cem Değer. I owe a lot to zafer Parlak, who with his encouragement and good sense, has always been a wonderful guide and mentor to me. I cannot express my gratitude to

my colleagues at Ege university school of Foreign Languages for their support and understanding. I am also grateful to my colleagues at celal Bayar University whose support and enthusiasm have always inspired and encouraged me. I particularly thank Sibel Güzel, the head of our departrnent

for her patience, dedication, understanding and also for reading

and

suggesting corrections in the manuscript. I would like to thank my parents

Şerafettin and Fethiye Giindüz for everything they have done for me. I would like to extend my gratifude to my loving wife Gülten Tiryaki Gündüz for her unfailing support, understanding, patience and encouragement. My daughter Alara Gündüz has also her share from my gratifudes for being such a clever and

joy inspiring wonder.

This is the true joy in life, the being used for a purpose recognized by yourself as a mighty one; the being thoroughly worn out before you are thrown on the scrap heap; the being a force of nature instead of a

feverish selfish tittle clod of ailments and grievances complaining that the world will not devote itself to making you happy . (Man and Superman,xxxi)

Introduction

rn a t992 symposium entitled "what May Lay Ahead for shaw After the First Hundred Years?" where eminent George Bemard shaw (1856-1950) scholars expressed their pğections on the fufure of Shaw scholarship, Rhoda B. Nathan declared his wishes to see more scholarship on one aspect of shaw studies especially, which he believed had been highly neglected: "There has been little done on shaw and woman. There have been a few new feminist studies which either misuse material or use only fragments of it, rather than

providing a solid historical and biographical background. I'd like to see more responsible work done on shaw and woman- (272-73). Neither pharand's (2004) nor carpenter's (2012) bibliographies list any book-length titles on the topic since then. Starting from 1890s and into the first decade of the twentieth centur5r, shaw was considered to be one of the male champions of women's rights movements. In a cartoon from the early twentieth cenhrrJı, Ibsen, Wells and

shaw are drawn as the guardian angels of the o'new woman,"l "clutching their 'Bibles'-,ly!7s. waruen's Profession, A Doll House and, Ann veronica,, (Gardner 7). Along with Barbara Bellow watson, Sonja Lorichs, Rodelle weintraub and many other women critics, Margot peters believes that "...of

the two major social issues confronting Shaw as a young man-the ' "New womaıı," as a phrase, was fırst coined by the English novelist Sarah Grand at an article published in the North American Revİew in March 1894. The new woman is an emancipated woman who oohas solved the problem and proclaimed for herself what was wıong with Home-is-t1ie-Woman's-sphere, and prescribed the remedy" (Grand qtd. in Beckson, xi). For more information, debates and samples of the "New woman,'iiterature, see Carolyn Christensen Nelson's New Woman Reader: Fictİon, Articles, and Drama

(200ı).

l

Introduction

2

emancipation of working classes and the emancipation of women-Shaw the

artist identified with the latter" (403). Peters also adds that "strong or emancipated women are central to Shaw's plays, carrying the burden of Shaw's plays" (403). The eminent Shaw scholar Eric Bentley pronounces that Shaw's socialist ideas may have become dated but Shaw as a feminist is still fresh and relevant (Theater Talk). In spite of the centrality of women characters in Shaw's plays, there has been comparatively little work done on the question. Relying on political, cultural, historical and biographical background, this book aims to fill a gap and stimulate discussion on the question of women characters in Shaw's early and middle plays.

Shaw creates a counter-hegemonic discourse against the patriarchal and

misogynist discourse of late Victorian and Edwardian England. At the heart of Shaw's objection to the dominant discourse of his era is the generally held belief that women and men are in their "nature" totally different creatures.2 Shaw defies this artificial and most arbitrary distinction and declares that he oomen in petticoats" and men as "women without petticoats" sees women as

("Woman-Man in Petticoats" I74). He does not assume that there is any "mystery about woman"; instead, he just 'oobserves the world around him" (Watson, "The New Woman" 144). Yet, as a dramatist, Shaw gives voice to

in Petticoats" Shaw comments on the idealization of women in the nineteenth century and its consequences stating that during the century men "adored" women lifting them to "angels" status thus denying them natural humanity: "...that sort of feeling that you must have something to worship. . .curious notion that if they took the women and denied that they were human beings; if they dressesd them up in an extraordinary manner which entirely concealed the fact that they were human beings; if they set up a morality and convention that women were angels..." Though this was exciting for men, and at times pleasant for women, being an angel women should not expect anything as they are angels and can do withorıt. (1]2-73) When Shaw calls "woman-man in petticoats" he attacks this idealization which deprives women from any kind of fair treatment. He does not mean to say that all women are acfually men and they cannot have their own special needs. Waltonen discusses Shaw's notion of seeing women as men in petticoats, drawing our attention to Gainor's attack on Shaw through this point. Gainor claims that Shaw nullifies woman's difference through calling them "men in petticoats". Nevertheless, Waltonen argues that this does not necessarily mean that Shaw puts men to a superior status to women. Waltonen observes that, in fact the reverse is true for Shaw as he believes that women are superior to men physically and mentally. (Waltonen 198)

'In "Woman-Man

Men in Petticoats

3

various discourses in his plays. Hence, he can easily be quoted against himself on many different and opposing points.

shaw also avoided idealization in his characters; despite being a socialist, he did not glamorize working-class characters, and in spite of his feminist sympathies, he did not present emancipated women as paragons of virtue. For all these reasons, Shaw has been criticized harshly for being a misogynist rather than being an advocate of women's rights movements.

This study begins with a brief survey of scholarship on Shaw's women characters. There are basically two opposing views: scholars like Rodelle weintraub, Barbara Bellow watson, Sally Peters and Margot peters try to analyze different aspects of shaw's support for women's cause through his plays, letters, essays and early novels. Yet on the other camp, starting from

1980s, scholars like J. Ellen Gainor, vivien Gardner and Kerry powell criticize Shaw severely for undermining women's rights movements, the image of the new woman, for failing to support woman dramatists, for creating androgynous characters rather than new women characters, and for trying to maintain the status quo rather than helping women's emancipation.

In dealing with the woman issue, Shaw took part in a very highly charged discussion. Helsinger et al. emphasize the contextuality of the woman Question thus: "Almost any public statement bearing on the woman Question-whether an essay, a review, a novel, a lecture, a cartoon, or a painting-was likely to generate a chain of responses, and to be read as a response to prior statements in an ongoing public discussion" (xi). Taking that statement as a starting point, this study takes a brief look at how the

it was argued. The woman question was one of the hottest topics among Victorian critics. Despite being a man, shaw still had a stake in the argument. If he was not a woman, he was the brother, son, lover, husband and friend of many women. As a socialist discussion developed and on what grounds

and a man of moral passion also, he could not ignore the just demands women.

of

The central concern of Shaw's approach to the woman euestion in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century is the assumption that any human

4

Men in Petticoats

Introduction

subjection of women (1869) states that women had to endure more than slaves did, as they were also expected to be content with their status as slaves and love their masters. when Nora of A Dolt House (1s79) left home and

being needs to fuIfilI itself in order to lead a self-satisfied and happy life. Shaw was acutely aware of the façt that women were denied that very basic right upon the presumptions that they had a totally different 'onature" than men and that they were created to stay at home and mind domestic affairs. This "hindrance" recalls the analogy John Locke draws between Chinese

ğected her role as a married woman, her gesfure touched chords in

remarks on the subject: 'oHow much greater Inconveniences [sic] may we expect, wherein is placed the Heart and Seat of Life, is unnaturally compressed, and

is hindered from its due Expansion?" (198)

Charlotte

Perkins Gilman's "Yellow Wallpaper" (1891), regarded as one of the canonical texts of feminist literature, records a similar "hindrance." It depicts

in a nutshell how middle-class Victorian women were expected to stay at home and spend all their energies on domestic affairs such as bringing up children, running the house and socializing with other women. They were discouraged to deal with any other kind of intellectual, economical, political or productive activity. Working was considered to be a male occupation. That

is why Florence Nightingale, the founder of modern nursing as it is today, had to spend ten years trying to convince her upper class family to let her work as a nurse. Her story shows us the confinement and the resistance that the Victorian women had to endure in the hands of their parents, especially their mothers. Her example is relevant to Shaw's women characters in that both Vivie Warren and Hypatia Tarleton try to break free from the pressure of their parents.

During the Victorian era, women were idealized as the "angel in the oounwomanly." house" and any activity outside of that circle was considered Yet, as early as the last decade of the eighteenth century, Mary Wollstonecraft believed that women had been degraded to the status of slaves. And in their status as dependent creatures they could not be expected to be virtuous or wise. It would be only through education, professional work

Conventions were questioned and shattered by the "rıe'w" women who were not satisfied with the "kirche, küche, kinder"3 formula any longer. They wanted education that would lead to a professional career, legal and political rights and freedom; a life that did not start and end at home. They did not want to depend on their husbands or fathers, but earn their own bread. They did not want to wear clothes that restricted their freedom physically and psychologically. They changed their hairstyles to dissociate themselves from the ideal "womanly woman" and "affected emancipated habits, like smoking,

riding a bicycle, using bold language and taking the omnibus or train

unescorted.... prepared to overrum all convention and all accepted notions of femininity" (Gardner 6). Shaw gives vivid and convincing portraits of this new type of woman in his plays.

To give an overview of the crucial aspects of the woman question this study has resorted to the help of four significant figures: Mary wollstonecraft (1759-1797), Florence Nightingale (1820-1910), John sruart Mill (1s061873) and Henrik Ibsen (1828-1906). At the very core of what they argue is the objection they raised to the dominant notion of the"nature of woman.,, They all put forward the idea that this idea of "difference" is used to legitimize the subservient position of women and that the difference is (rather than 'onatural") a constructed one to maintain the current power relations which were extremely unfair to women and a constant hindrance in their search of self-fulfillment. Thus without the emancipation of women, neither men nor women could be huppy in the existing hierarchical situation.

and emancipation that women could become really fit companions for men.

Thus emancipating women would be to emancipate men and women's happiness would ensure the happiness of men. John Stuart Mlll in The

the

hearts of the late nineteenth century women all around Western Europe and especially in England.

shoes and English bodices. Both "unnatural" devices have been applied to reshape what is naturally bestowed on people by nature. Locke concludes his

5

3

Church, kitchen, children.

iğ

---=..t_>--.

l

Men in Petticoats

Introduction

6

7

Drawing on their arguments, this study tries to give a picture of the wrongs

Superman (1903) thus defeating the cause of the ..New Woman.,, Using

that women suffer.a

these three plays written within a time range of seventeen years, I argue that

What makes John Stuart

Mill's

shaw's approach to the woman Question remained essentially consistent,

The Subiection of Women (1869) relevant

supportive of women's rights, though he shifted focus at times.

to Shaw's plays is the questions it raises. Okin observes that Mill basically focuses on the analysis of the following questions: What do we know and what can we know about the differences between the sexes? What is the nature of the oppression of women? Do

woman protagonist created by Shaw in his plays" (126).

men and women think differently about moral and political issues? If so, what is the significance of this difference, and how is it to be

Powell asserts that this play is an exception in the sense that it is Shaw's only "New woman" play and in all other plays Shaw promotes domestic women

affected by the achievement of greater equality between the sexes? Is

rather than the emancipated woman.

the abolition of the division of labor in the family necessary for women'S freedom aıd equality? (okin vi) Even though I do not directly try to find answers to these thought provoking questions, I believe that they are still related to this study as departure points. Some very related and enlightening questions will be: What are Shaw's general assumptions about women? What are the political attitudes of his women characters? How do they differ from men? What does

any such difference signisı in the general Structures of the plays or in the whole corpus of Shaw's work? Are there any pattems arising from these differences? Do the plays promote or search for equality between the sexes?

But most importantly, do Shaw's plays attribute any "nattLral" traits to men and women which supposedly distinguish sexes from each other and thus justify the inequality and the subjection of women?

To examine some of these aspects of the woman question, I ana|yzed three plays:

have

Mrs Warren's Profession (1893), Man and Sııperman

(1903) and Misalliance (1910). There are many reasons why I have focused particularly on these three plays. Shaw is basically criticized for his ambivalent support of the "New Woman" of the 1890s and for shifting his focus from professional women to the domestic "mother" woman in Man and a

Shaw's third plays, Mrs warren's Profession marks a significant shift in Shaw's career as a playwright. As Rao observes "vivie warren is the first

For a detailed picture of woman's social, economical and cultural situation in the nineteenth century England, see Crow; Gardner and Rutherford; Griffin; Helsinger et al.; Hill; Montgomery; Nelson; Okin; Rubinstein; and Twells.

on

the other hand,

As a concept "New'Woman" was first used by Sarah Grand, a prominent feminist author of the 1890s. Carolyn christensen Nelson's A New woman Reader: Fiction, Articles, Drama of the 1890s (2001) demonstrates how the concept played a key role and became the battle-ground for both sides of the debate in 1890s. while women's rights advocates used this concept to glorify and promote the emancipation of women, more conservative skeptical parties

used it to ridicule and undermine the cause. Sidney Grundy's 1894 play The New Woman is only one of many attempts to defile the term.

Powell maintains that with its radical handling of the burning issues at the turn of the century England, no other Shaw play has created such a reaction as Mrs warren's Profession did. As Shaw hit the sorest spot in victorian morality, the play could be publicly staged in England only in 1925, thirtytwo years after its completion. rn Mrs warcen's professiorz, Shaw deals with

two crucial issues related to women: the New woman and prostitution. Although these two different issues sound unrelated to each other, shaw

manages to argue the two side-by-side exquisitely. This is the first and the most effective of all his plays on the woman Question. shaw puts forward two very important ideas regarding this issue: first, the idea that prostitution,

the most important social problem for women of the victorian era, is basically created by capitalism which keeps the working classes in starvation 5

The first one is Widovvers' Hoııses

( l

892) and the second one is The Phitanderer (1893)

ffi i Introduction

8

Men in Petticoats

wages and makes them lead miserable lives; secondly, the idea that women can emancipate themselves only through education which helps them acquire

professional skills. Only such a new woman can face reality even when it is the fact that her mother has been a prostitute and that she has been brought up

with "tainted money." Still, that same education gives Vivie the power to turn her back on that money. Thus skilled work is the only way for women to make an honourable living.

Although Mrs Warren's Profession deals with the professions of two women and what they meant to them, Shaw's Man and Superman (1903) presents a central chatacter, a heroine Ann Whitefıeld or Dona Ana as she is

called in the third act, generally known as Don Juan in Hell, a "mother huntress" who is instinctually motivated by the "Life Force" to pursue the best mate to make her able to give biıth to the "Superman." This is the first play where Shaw reached a complete articulation of the creative evolution, a theory which suggests that human beings are just incomplete and imperfect

"will power" to perfect themselves and society. To be able to do that, they have to face their faults and leave their self-

beings but with a potential

9

Because of these two purposes, life enters into and animates matter, with the result that it produces a variety of living organisms. Regardless of what forms

these organisms take, "the Mammoth and the man, the mouse and the megatherium, the flies and the fleas and the Fathers of the church, are all more or less successful attempts to build up that raw force into higher and higher individuals, the ideal individual being omnipotent, omniscient, infallible, and withal completely, unilludibly [sic.] self-conscious" (127).

using this notion of creative evolution, we can offer quite an original reading of Shaw's women characters. In the light of this theory we can observe the strict distinction between Kiğ Warren andEliza Doolittle, both of whom come from almost the same socio-economic backgrounds. All the same, they have totally different attitudes towards their future and destiny. while Kitty warren blames circumstances for her fall justifying her choice condemning the capitalist regime of wages for labor, Eliza wills to change her destiny through avery different path. She chooses education as a way of improving her circumstances. But exerting her will she changes her destiny and improves her future prospects in such a way and to such an extent that an

contented idleness.

audience would consider it to be quite implausible. The very title of his play,

From its first complete expression in the third act of Man and Superman (1903) to the end of his life, Shaw held a firm belief in creative evolution.

Pygmalion, also marks shaw's total belief and conviction in the process of creative evolution. In the Pygmalion myth, the inanimate sculpture (matter) gains life through artist's will to serve Life Force.

Henderson tells us that Shaw wrote one of his last letters to The New York Times

in

1950, a few days before his death, to insist that regarding religion,

he was a creative evolutionist. In her "Shaw's Life:

A Feminist In Spite of

Himself' Sally Peters ends her article with a quote from Shaw: "This is the true joy in life, the being used for a purpose recognized by oneself as a mighty one" (23). This statement can be taken as the very essence of creative

evolution, or life force. According to Shaw as long as human beings have

will and direct all the power in the universe to its realization. Carl Henry Mills such a mighty purpose, they can subdue the material world to this mighty

Unlike his countryman and contemporary Oscar Wilde, who believes that "all art is useless," Shaw adapts a practical function for literature and drama. Shaw argues for social change, using his writing directly for propaganda and moral lecturing. He started to apply this idea to drama in 1892 with his first p|ay Widowers' Hoııses, and 36 years later in 1928 he wrote a new preface6 to Mrs. warren's Profession (1s94) expressing his opinion that the function of art remained consistently moral and activist. In his "Author's Apology'' (1902) to Mrs. Warren's Professio,ıe he wrote:

gives us a very useful exposition of this aspect of creative evolution: That is one of the paramount purposes of Shaw's life force: to subdue and dominate

its enemy, matter. It has an equally important purpose: to express itself.

uDietrich

wams us about Shaw's prefaces stating that "they were less explanations of plays

than tangential afterthoughts and occasional polemics that really stood independently from the plays" (93).

Men in Petticoats

Introduction

10

1T

...I am convinced that fine art is the subtlest, the most seductive, the most effective instrument of moral propaganda in the world, excepting only the example of personal conduct; and I waive even this exception in favor of the art of the stage, because it works by exhibiting examples of personal conduct made intelligible and moving to crowds of unobservant, unreflecting people to whom life means nothing. I have pointed out again and again that the influence of the theatre in England is growing so great that private conduct, religion, law, science, politics,

shaw's stance was to turn everything-even the most sacred beliefs and taboos topsy-turvy, dismissing sacred and widely held ideas and beliefs such as marriage, love, family, incest taboo, God, church, religion, democracy, the right to live and the like. He questioned received ideas, opinions and habits as well as the laws and institutions that upheld conventional thinking. For Shaw, Philistines are people who accept taken-for-granted institutions and habits without any inquiry. As an intellectual, he freed himself from widely-held political and moral views. He was uncommonly brave: his 1915 article on

and morals are becoming more and more theatrical whilst the theatre

the real causes of war (written at the start of World War I) earned him public

itself remains impervious to common sense, religion, science, politics, and morals. That is why I fight the theatre, not with pamphlets and

scorn, ostracism, and the label of "traitor." Even his fellow writers and intellectuals tumed on him. Although he was one of the founders, he was

sermons and treatises, but with plays; and so effective do

I find

the

dramatic method that I have no doubt I shall at last persuade even London to take its conscience and its brains with it when it goes to the theatre, instead of leaving them at home with its prayer book as it does

atpresent. (185) Here Shaw criticizes the playgoers of the time who seek only easy pleasure in drama, rather than a challenge to their thinking. He mounts an attack on the

understanding that theatre is merely an entertainment without any social or moral responsibility. For that reason he supported Ibsen's plays because they challenged playgoers to question their values, required them to think outside their narrow perspectives and free themselves from their conventional moral

expelled from the writers' club. But nothing discouraged him from expressing what he believed was true (Holroyd, pursuit 346-57).

In the same manner, he questions the male-female relationship in which men are usually represented as the hunter and the women prey. He subverts this assumption and asserts that it is the woman who initiates any kind of relation between sexes. In his Don Juan play, Man and superman (1903), he makes Don Juan, Dona Ana's prey. As Brown observes ,,the male is visualized as the instrument employed by the female in her instinctive compliance with the Life Force, its demand for fertility, and its selfcontinuing process. The woman selects her mate: and he, though he may attempt to decide his own destiny, is ovemıled- (72).'Many critics claim that

and eccentricity at first. Yet, considering how much of what Shaw fought for

with Man and Sııperman Shaw shifted his focus from the "new woman" to 'omother womarı". Ann Whitefield is the object of the protagonist Jack Tanner's attacks on women, and also his most intimate affections. within that context, this study discusses the possible causes of such a seemingly significant diversion and the question whether Man and Sııperman marks a

has taken root and become institutionalized, the merit of his struggle may be

crucial fracture as far as Shaw's representation of women is concerned.

restraints. Shaw challenged his audience to take nothing for granted, to start to doubt that what they see as natural could be regarded as unnatural in different circumstances, that different cultures and moral codes are as valid as their own. That was of course regarded as immorality, blasphemy, profanity

recognized. He was the champion of many different causes such as the equality of women, minimum wage laws, state subsidized theatres, paying women to have babies, vegetarianism, and antivivisectionism besides many others.

7

According to Brown, this is not a very original idea indeed. Brown finds its traces in most of Shakespeare's comedies excepting maybe The Taming of the shrew (1590-91).

t2

Introduction

The third play discussed in this study, Misalliance has a quite special place in the Shavian canon if for nothing but Lina Szczepanowska, who, as Rodelle Weintraub points out is regarded by some critics "to be Shaw's most perfect New Woman" (173). Although Shaw wants us to read the play in terms of parent-child relations as the central theme and concem of the play, the most amazing presence of Lina and Hypatia makes the play more than that. We come across a much more diverse and interconnected set of women

in Misalliance (1910) than any other of Shaw's plays. There are four women

in the play who represent different types of women in the Shavian canon: Hypatia Tarleton, Mrs. Tarleton, Lina Szczepanowska and Lucinda Tifinus. Lucinda Tiffnus whose extra-marital relation with Tarleton mentioned in the play reminds us another "fallen womarı," Mrs. Warren. Mrs. Tarleton stands for the Philistine restriiting middle-class mother; yet she is depicted as a "practical" woman who may turn a blind eye on her husband's affairs. Miss Hypatia Tarleton with her rebellious nature is depicted in the play in such a

climax of her discontedness that she rejects to oblige any conventions or decency.

Misalliance (1910) clearly shows thatfar from neglecting or ignoring the emancipation of women after Man and Superman, Shaw still creates women characters as strong and determined as Vivie Warren and Mrs Warren. Within a wide range of most interesting women from Lina Szcepanowska the acrobat to Hypatia the "young glorious beast", Misalliance is another Shavian play where women rather than men are the central figures. The play reveals that Shaw has a consistent point of view in terms of his women characters.

I

CRITICAL HERITAGE

ü-

t4

Critical Heritage

Men in Petticoats

15

be condescending towards women. Describing shaw's piatonic relation with Ellen Terry, the most actresses in whom shaw was highly interested, Margot Peters writes "Ellen had expressed the fear that if he knew her he would be sick of her in a week. shaw dismissed this boast: was she implying that she

could actually entertain him for a week? with what! Art? politics? Philosophy?'- (l7g).e on the other hand, this point can be contradicted with

I Intelligent Women or

hundreds and thousands of counter examples from Shaw's work and public statements. If we think of all the shavian canon in terms of the genders of the

Shaw's Daughters

strong characters, we see that most of shaw's central characters are women:

Vivie Warren, Candida, Lady Cicely, Elizabeth Doolittle,

A

survey on the topic proves that Shaw's women characters have been basically analyzed from two opposing perspectives. Barbara Bellow Watson's A Shavian Guide to the Intelligent Woman (1964) represents the view which essentially holds the idea that Shaw created emancipated new women characters. On the other camp J. Ellen Gainor's Shaw's Daughters: Dramatic and Narrative Constructions of Gender (1991) is a representative of how Shaw's plays can also be read as expressions of the misogynistic and

Barbara

Undershaft, Ann whitefield, Lina Szczepanowska and Epifania ognisanti di Parerga are only some of these most memorable and strong characters.

During the 1960s, 70s and early 80s female critics of George Bernard Shaw's women characters rarely questioned Shaw's feminism. In her A Shavian Guide to the Intelligent woman (1964) Barbara Bellow watson observes how Shaw's women characters like vivie warren, Barbara Undershaft and Joan, just to name a few, are much more brilliant than his

anti-femini st di scourse of the turn-of-the- century England.

male characters. Sonja Lorichs' The [Jnwomanly woman in Bernard shaw's

While Eric Bentley, Barbara Bellow Watson, Margot and Sally Peters depict Shaw as a champion of the women's rights movements; J. Ellen Gainor, Vivien Gardner 8 and Katherine E. Kelly claim that far from supporting the new women, Shaw with The Philanderer (7893) and Mrs. Warren's Professioız reinforced the caricatures of the new woman, such as

Drama and her social and Political Background (1973) gives a rarge panorama of Shaw's unwomanly, new women. In her Fabian Feminist; Bernard shaw and woman (1977), Rodelle weintraub collects essays from different scholars on shaw's relation to the woman question, also featuring six essays by shaw which reveals his direct involvement and support for women's cause. Margot Peters, in Shaw and the Actresses (1980), suggests

those in Sydney Grundy's The New Woman (i894), which aims to undermine

and weaken the demands for women's rights. These critics have a rather strong point too. Although Shaw supports the women's rights movement with

that, Shaw, through celebrating acting as a profession much more honorable

and respectful than of a housewife's role in society, struck another blow against the "angel in the house" myth and helped the emancipation of women (xiii). Yet, as Pagliaro strongly argues, there is a "shift in shaw's feminist

his works such as The Qııintessence of lbsenism (|89|)' Mrs. Warren's Profession (1894), Press Cuttings (1909), Fanny's First Play (1911) and his articles on the suffragette and many other public announcements, he can also

perspective as he turns from prose argument on behalf of women as a whole,

the male writers of the period dealt adequately with the New Woman figure, condemning her either to a metaphorical suicide, as with Agnes Ebbsmith, or to an actual suicide...Some like Shaw and Barker, created idealized, independent, self-determining women-Vivie Waıren in Mrs. Warren's Profession and Marion Yates in The Madras Hoııse-but denied them any sort of three diı-ııensional reality'' (Gardner 9).

' "...none of

' we come across

a similar attitude in one of Shaw's early comedies Yoıı Never Can Tell (1897). The typical Shavian mouthpiece character Valentine does not respect Gloria's intellect either and voices his attitude in this manner: "I have a better one myself. . . it,s

masculine specialty" (28

.i-.

1).

il i

t6

Men in Petticoats

Critical Heritage

!7

in their relations with men as a whole, to playwriting where he presents relationships between highly individualized men and women" (1). These complex relationships require very complicated, thus ambivalent

before the marriage and confesses all his "wild life", debauchery of his bachelor days, Mr. Frayling sees nothing wrong with that. And when Evadne

representations which are far from the clear statements of his prose essays.

past, her father simply says that she has nothing to worry about since he takes

Wiley detects such ambivalence in Mrs. Warren's Profession. In spite of

it for granted that bachelor young men cannot be expected to remain chaste just like girls. on the other hand, Evadne, who has secretly studied anatomy, physiology, pathology, prophylactics and therapeutics, has developed a very

asks her father

Shaw's efforts to mount his play as an attack on Victorian double standards, Wiley interprets this ambiguity to suggest that Shaw had changed his opinion

if

there

is anything she needs to know about colquhoun's

sensitive caution against sexually transmitted diseases such as syphilis. As a result, as much as its moral aspect is concerned, she expects her would be husband to be as pure and chaste as herselfon the grounds ofphysical health

on the woman question with this play (I21).

Critics such as Kerry Powel, Katherine E. Kelly and J. Ellen Gainor have criticized Shaw for undermining the women's movements of the 1890s and the early twentieth century. According to Powell, Shaw shows a grave concem on the woman question as a conscientious intellectual. On the other hand, he willy-nilly enjoyed the freedom and advantages of belonging to the ooNew Women, New Plays and Shaw in the dominant sex as a man. In his 1890s", Powell asserts that more than defending and advocating the "New Woman", Shaw caricatured and mocked her in 1890s. Powell also argues that Shaw !'repeatedly discredited the efforts of women as playwrights" (86).

for herself and the children she would bear. Her attitude reminds us Ibsen's Ghosts where the son of the family dies because of syphilis that his father's debauchery brought into the family. Powell reports that shaw still wants to retain the experience of premarital sex for men only and suggests that one of them needs to know at least something about sex and better this be the man

than woman. Powell reads this as shaw's affirmation of victorian double standards regarding relations between the genders: 'oShaw, despite his own hesitancy over sex, is nostalgic for a double standard which provides for two

Furthermore, he attacks him: "Shaw, belittling women's attempts to become

types of women....the one polyandrous and disreputable and the other monogamous and disreputable" (qtd. in Powell 89). Powell also reports that Shaw admits that he would be shocked if a woman were to ask for the liberty of pre-marital sexual experience. A counter example to powell's claim is

playwrights, denying they had written 'real' plays at all, contributed to the subjection of women in the theatre even while he proclaimed himself their

ally in the 'battle between the sexes for control of the London stage"' (87). Powell implies that Shaw ought to have supported woman playwrights notwithstanding the quality of their works. Shaw "ignores" women

Lesbia in Shaw's Getting Married (190s) who wants to have children

without necessarily having to be married to a man. Lesbia's demand does not sound shocking or radical at all.

playıvrights who often earned a reputation despite his unsupportive attitude. He overlooks the fact that it took Shaw almost thirty years of struggle against

Although Shaw expresses sympathy for the "new woman', in the character of Vivie Warren in Mrs. Warren's Professioız, Powell argues that he criticizes her "coldness and calculation". All her obsession with the practical side of life estranges her from "the Life Force":

refusal and discouragement before he ever was recognized as a talented writer. Moreover, to support his thesis Powell cites Shaw's review of The Heavenly Twins (1897) by Sarah Grand, a very popular "new woman" novel. In this novel, on the day of her wedding just after the ceremony, the new

Vivie Warren is a strong woman, to be sure, but for Shaw a woman,s strength is misdirected and grotesque unless fundamentally sexual, seeking out and compelling a superior man to mate with her and

woman Evadne leams that her husband is not the man she believed him to be and that she has been deceived into the marriage under a "misapprehension."

Although her husband Major Coquhon keeps no secrets from Evadne's father

ir-

ffi Men in Petticoats

Critical Heritage

t8

19

produce "supermen." Like many men of the 1890s, therefore, Shaw could be enthusiastic about the New Woman when he could imagine her disruptions being confined to the realm of the domestic and sexual.

Lady Rhondda's concern is quite genuine in one sense. Rhondda adds .,The world might very well accept, in fact it has to some extent accepted, Shaw,s

(78)

why Shaw's generalizations on these matters want watching" (11). The problem stems not from the way Shaw represents women in his plays, but how literally the world takes their metaphorical and mostly counterhegemonic representations. No matter what shaw's intentions in depicting

Powell here seems to attribute Nietzsche's views on women to Shaw. Although Shaw gives voice to this discourse in Man and Superman, especially in Tanner-Ann relation, we see that this is just a rare moment in Shaw's works.

A

more seemingly systematic but misleading criticism comes with J. Ellen Gainor's Shaw's Daughters (1991).ı0 Gainor at the very beginning of her book states that Shaw criticism on woman had basically depicted Shaw's

approach to woman as positive. On the other hand, she draws our attention to

another strain which has been much neglected and overlooked. Gainor suggests that as early as 1930s there were feminists who were critical about Shaw's representation of women in his plays. Lady Rhondda's lengthy study on Shaw's women characters published in Time and Tide in 1930, warns women to beware of male writers like Shaw, Wells and Bennett who aspire to

talk for women. What lies in the heart of Lady Rhondda's criticism, as Gainor reports it, is that though Shaw, Wells or Bennett are not women, they are seen as the representatives or the spokesmen of the "new woman":

It is dangerous enough that these people should have the power

to

suggest to us what we should be and how we should behave when they

are prescribing also for themselves, but that they should

undoubtedly

are-in

be-as

they

a position to dictate to us the type of person we

should be, when they are prescribing for a group to which they never have belonged, and to which they never can belong, is not merely terrifying, it is really ludicrous. (Lady Rhondda qtd. in Gainor 11)

'0 For a very detailed criticism of Gainor's Shaw's Daı.ıghters see Sally Peters's "The New Woman versus the old Adam" (l993). With solid and persı.ıasive examples, Peters exposes Gainor's distortions blaming her for significant omissions, disregarding chronology, ignoring contravening evidence and misrepresenting Shaw's work.

theories about the women and about the relations of men and women. That is

such characters are, this borrowed authority on the nature of women creates another illusion. Shaw's starting point was to destroy the idealistic notions

and challenge conventions about the womanly women through creating unwomanly women like Vivie warren or Joan. Gainor questions the common-sensicalness of these representations and investigates their antifeminist aspects. she basically argues that although Shaw is known as a playwright who has supported women's rights through his plays, when his plays are scrutinized, there are very strong clues that his plays do not deserve the reputation of being pro-feminist. Gainor concludes that domestic women

rather than professional women are in the forefront of Shaw's plays. According to her, Mrs. Warren's Profession is the only play where Shaw favors the professional woman rather than the domestic woman. Besides, Shaw's'onew women" such as Vivie Warren and Saint Joan are androgynous characters that women find very hard to identify with. Gainor claims that

Shaw's representation

of

these women characters

as

grotesque and

unwomanly undermines the cause of women's emancipation.

Katherine E. Kelly, in her "Shaw and Woman Suffrage: A Minor player on the Petticoat Platform" (1994), argues that although shaw's name is often associated with suffrage because of his Press cuttings (1909) and Fanny's First Play (1911) and six other pieces republished in Rodelle weintraub's

Fabian Feminist (1977), once these works are analyzed closely, one sees that his approach to woman suffrage is ambivalent and negative rather than positive. According to Kelly, Shaw was reluctant to support the suffragette cause basically for the following three reasons: firstly, he had little faith in democracy (68; 77); secondly, the Fabian Society did not see the woman

ffi Men in Petticoats

Critical Heritage

20

...she is physically a weak fragile creature, meek, soft spoken with lady-like deportment and manners. She has a delicate sensitiveness and amateurish interests in music and fine arts. She is submissive and dutiful and delighting in obeying her parents before marriage and her

question as a seriously pressing issue (68; 70); finally, he was afraid of becoming feminized through direct support to the suffrage (71). Shaw's contemporary GK Chesterton (1874-1936), renowned author of Father Brown series and the master of paradox as Shaw marks him in Misalliance, brings a different perspective in Shaw's approach to woman

husband after marriage. Chastity, fidelity and devotion to home and

family are her characteristic virtues. Temperamentally, she

is affectionate, sentimental and self-sacrificing and kitchen and cradle constitute her whole world. Emotionally she is a child, like jearous, possessive, unpredictable and liable to bursts of temper, tantrums, tears and hysterics. Economically she is completely dependent and relies

question. According to Chesterton, Shaw wants to do away with all the inequality between sexes not because he believes in the equality between the

sexes but because he wants to be able to criticize women characters as severely as he criticizes the male ones. We can actually observe such an attitude

in the

character

21

of Professor Higgins of Pygmalion. When Eliza

upon male chivalry for protection and maintenance. She is contented with her self-abnegation and has no urge, inclination or aptitude for

complains of being treated harshly, Prof. Higgins answers: o'I care for life, for humanity; and you are apart of it that has come my way and been built into

career, business, politics or profession. (254)

my house. What more can you or anyone ask?" (749) Higgins' nonsexist discourse suggests that Eliza should not ask for any privileges from him just

Khanna suggests that as "an iconoclast in nature" and ,'a socialist in conviction," Shaw was critical of that Victorian idea of women and

because she is a \Moman.

demanded equal economic, legal and political rights for them. Khanna argues

But the most interesting and eccentric criticism of Shaw's women

that there is nothing wrong with such a view, but when shaw claims that women are similar to men "in all respects, that their emotional urges are

characters comes from a different direction. In a 1973 article entitled "Shaw's

Image of Woman" published at The Shaviana, Savitri Khanna, criticizes Shaw for his lack of knowledge on women's "nahJre." Khanna claims that

identical, that their reactions to stimuli are alike, that their hopes and aspirations are indistinguishable, that is, that their imagination, thought process and behaviour move on a uniform pattem" (254), Khanna believes that shaw goes too far. He draws an analogy from horse breeding, stating that anyone who has any knowledge on horses would tell shaw that male and

Shaw did not have a first hand, direct information on the oonature" of women.

He asserts that men can have a clear insight into women's "real character" only through their relations with their mothers, sisters, wives or daughters. As Shaw never had a close relation with his mother or sisters, and never had a daughter, he thus lacks an understanding of women. On top of that, since his marriage with Mrs. Shaw was never consummated, he never saw women with their 'omasks down." He only had mistresses, insists Khanna; however, as these mistresses would not "take Shaw for granted" they would never

female horses are treated and approached differently. For instance, a horse is castrated before set to work. Accordingly, as

well as biological differences

between men and women there are also behavioral differences: o'her monthly

periods, interludes of pregnancy, labors of childbirth and irritations of child

tending constantly strain her body and mind and cause mental strains and emotional stresses and make her temperamentally capricious" (255). Starting

show Shaw their real "nature." Therefore, Khanna concludes, we cannot trust

Shaw's authority on the woman question because he lacks real-life

from indisputably observable physical data, Khanna reaches quite subjective and unconnected, biased conclusions. He makes a logical mistake assuming that his solid start will lead his argument to a strong result. For one thing "child tending" is not biological like the menstruation, birth or breast-

experience with them. Then Khanna approvingly describes women's image in the Victorian Age:

oL-

İ-İ

Men in Petticoats

Critical Heritage

22

23

feeding. Men can tend children as successfully as women can. Instead of praising women for their fortitude, Khanna attributes their supposed

is made a remunerative occupation, the ideal of woman's economic independence will remain an idle dream...To sum up, a woman,s

capriciousness and other defects to their biological nature. On the other hand,

behaviour pattem is not the result of her economic dependence, but is

as men are

biologically excused from all these hard labors they can afford to

be "calm, collected and unperfurbed" (255). Hence, since

oonature"

chooses to

make men superior to women as a more balanced and more reliable agent, it

primarily natural and inherent to her sex. It is not society, but her instinctive urge for motherhood that has compelled her to play second fiddle to man. (259)

is quite "natlüral'' that men will have the goveming power over a capricious and unreliable creafure in Khanna's reasoning.

Politically speaking whenever one calls something 'oflatlüra]l", one expresses her affirmation of the situation and create a resistance against change.

As Shaw turns a blind eye to all these differences and starts with an assumption that "a woman is a man in petticoats" he with his "initial

"Natural" phenomena are inevitable thus any effort to alter the nature is to run against the grain, making it redundant and against its "nature" thus

misunderstanding about woman's character" in the end comes to "more and more serious mistakes about the working of her mind" (255). Khanna shows

Vivie as an example of that mistaken conception. This reminds a very similar criticism that Shaw relates in "The Womanly 'Woman" section of his Quintessence (1891). The publication of Marie Bashkirtseffls diary was quite a sensation in England in 1890. Bashkirtseff (1860-1884) was a Russian artist

who lived in Paris. She was a young woman who had devoted all her time and energies for intellectual and artistic pursuits like music, philosophy, literature and arts. Criticizing her trespass, William Stead, the editor of The

Review of Reviews calls her an "unnatural woman": "Marie was artist, musician, wit, philosopher, student, anything you like but a natural woman with a heart to love, and a soul to find its supreme satisfaction in sacrifice for lover or for child" (qtd. in Quintessence 124). Khanna's assessment of 1970s in terms of women's professional attitudes is also worth quoting as its patriarchal discourse has not even evolved into a modern version:

Today in most civilized countries there is no discrimination against career women and yet the percentage of career women is relatively small. The instinctive urge for motherhood compels a woman to prefer economic dependence to sterility and independence. Shaw's accusation that society by denying opportunities to woman has made her a dependent and a slave is therefore untenable. Woman's economic dependence is the result of her mother instinct and unless motherhood

artifıcial and capricious. Khanna's argument exhibits what kind of a discourse Mary wollstonecraft with her vindication of the Rights of women (1792) and John Stuart Mill in his on the subjection of women (1g69) contest. As this study discusses Mill's and wolstonecraft's works further below, at this point it is suffice to state that their essential objection stems from questioning the validity of the expression "nature of woman,,.

24

Men in Petticoats

Critical Heritage

25

"Quintessence," by putting Ibsen's theatre into perspective, called for radical changes in the essence and function of the dramatic experience. As Innes puts it, The Quintessence of Ibsenism is "the watershed between traditionalist and modern perspectives, with its call for a revolution in the nature and function of the dramatic experience" (Modern British Drama 5). within that context,

2

Bernard Shaw and Modern British Drama

Innes observes that Shaw set the course of British Drama in the twentieth

century. Even before he completed his first play, Shaw the drama critic, recognized the immense role of women in Ibsen's plays (Quintessence).

Shaw's central position, the length of his artistic career spanning over half of the whole period, and his continuing influence, mean that any study of modern English dramatists,

What made Shaw such an influential figure was first of all the long span of his life and active career (1856-1950). when oscar wilde died in 1902 at

still considered to be a failed dramatist since most of his plays had not been staged yet and those staged only enjoyed a limited success. If shaw had died as young as oscar wilde, he would not have left behind most of his major plays like Man and Superman (1903), John Bull's Other Island (1904), Major Barbara (1906), Pygmalion (1913), Heartbreak House (1919), Back to Methuselah (1920), Saint Joan (1923), Too True to be Good (1931) or The Millionairess (1935). age 46, shaw was

has to begin with his work. (Innes 5)

Ibsen's never fading influence on Shaw decided the course modem theatre would follow in England. Under Shaw's leadership, English theatre "reflects the realistic treatment of social questions" (Innes

MBD l5). On the

other

hand, European theatre which was predominated with psychological and symbolic themes took a quite different route (15). In that sense, we can safely

As

Innes also notes, Shaw made his success in theatre through his criticism which he openly declares "a siege laid to the theatre of the nineteenth century by an author who had to cut his own way into it at the

say that Shaw can be considered as the second most important figure in the

British drama after Shakespeare only. Shaw is the single most influential figure in the beginning of the modem British drama.

point of a pen, and throw some of its defenders to the moat" (qtd. in Berst 58). Shaw was not the man to sit idly by and wait for things to happen or

In his comprehensive work Modern British Drama (1992), Christopher Innes marks the beginning of the modem English theatre as the last decade of

people to understand his artistic approach. He was the foremost and best

the nineteenth century when the rigid Victorian values were attacked fiercely

by writers such as Butler, Wilde, Pinero and Shaw. Modern issues like

the Modern Perİod (1973), Allardyce Nicoll gives a list of playwrights who marked the beginning of modern British theatre. The first name on the list is Beınard Shaw and then follows Sir Jaınes Barrie, Somerset Maugham and John Galswoı1hy. Gareth Lloyd Evans starts his analysis of The Language of Modern Drama ( 1977) with Shaw and then proceeds with Galsworthy, Wesker, osboııe, Yeats, TS Eliot and Pinter. Sanford Sternlicht suggests that, as also Innnes notes, Bernard Shaw led modern British drama to a political direction. Pater Saccio also marks the beginning of modem British drama as Shaw's Qııintessence.ln Sternlicht's A Reader's Gııide to Modern British Drama (2004), Shaw is the first playwright dealt in "The First Moderns" chapter. Shaw is given twenty seven pages and the second most largely analysed playwright Stoppard gets only eight pages. ln origins of English Dramatic Modernism I 870- I914 (20 l0) which is edited by Dinkgrafe and Tague, Shaw gets more references than Wilde, Ibsen, Pinero, Eliot or any other eminent playwright.

women's rights and class struggle had already found their way to the stage through Ibsen's plays at the Independent Theatre. According to Innes, Shaw's lecture "The Quintessence of Ibsenism" in 1890 can be considered as the beginninglr of modern drama in England (Modern British Drama 4). The " Innes is not the only critic to place Shaw as the central figure in modern British drama. Emil Roy in British Draıııa since Shaw (l972) writes "Bernard Shaw's dominance of modem high comedy is undispııted even though he consistently sought political and intellectual eminence rather than artistic fame'' (1). In his English Dranıa 1900-1930: The Beginnings

of

:

I

ffi ifi I

Critical Heritage

26

Men in Petticoats

27

l l

advocate of what he wanted to achieve. He taught his contemporaries about modem theatre through his lectures, pamphlets and the long prefaces that he

private; and that he has been so sentimental, romantic, in his youth that an inversion has taken place in his feelings...fancy him secretly weeping over

published with his plaYs.

Jane Eyre, or holding a baby in his lap...eating sausage and drinking beer" (Huneker 9).

Innes also attributes a significant role to the public image that Shaw created in his popularity as a playwright. One of the early critics, Kronenberger draws our attention to a very important point trying to explain Shaw's popularity: Despite the fact that not many people agreed with Shaw in his ideas, he still enjoyed a tremendous success and publicity: "...Shaw is

above

all a showman of ideas-equally in terms of classification as of

rnhis Bernard shaw: A Reconsideration (1947), Eric Bentley notes that GBS, the public character shaw created had harmed shaw's reputation most of the time. Although GBS made shaw one of the most popular topics of his time, it also became almost impossible to see shaw the artist (xii). Bentley remarks that though everyone from Lenin to churchill, from TS Eliot to

achievement-is that his is so very much more a triumph of method than of meaning-that again and again we can admire the approach while resisting, while rejecting the arguments" (xi). Kronenberger claims that Shaw contradicts himself quite often in his plays and would not resist the temptation of destroying "the scruples of lifetime for the gratification of the moment" (*i)." He paints Shaw in such tones: o'...his chief function is rather to exhilarate than enlighten the audience, it matters much less how often he contradicts himself, how glaringly his demonstrations nullify each other" (xi). As Shaw the dramatist is capable of giving a convincing voice to many different and often clashing opinions in his plays, some critics use Shaw's plays to attack him on the woman question.

Henry James to wB Yeats had something to say on shaw, all these comments firstly and foremost focused on his political views and that the political aspect of his works blurred the way Shaw the artist to be recognized (xiii-xv). His fame as a controversial jester goes as far back as 1914. Even at times of war or at the brink of war shaw would always fire out the least expected comments playing the devil's advocate, thus infuriating the nationalist fervor. on the fourth month of war with Germany in 1914, Shaw criticized England harshly inhis The common sense About The warl3,thus he became severely ostracized during world war I. In an anonymous satirical poem in Punch (November 25,I9I4) Shaw is attacked thus:

Kronenberger's representation of Shaw actually reflects a tendency to see Shaw as "a natural-bom mountebank with a cart and a trumpet" (Huneker

l3

8), an image which Shaw himself is solely responsible in its formation. In o'The Quintessence of Shaw," Huneker remarks that Shaw's different identities contradict each other so often that it is impossible to take him

seriously. Huneker suspects Shaw's sincerity because he so often plays the role of a jester: "What if this declaration of charlatanism were but a mask!" He questions whether Shaw really takes seriously his business as a playwright: "Joke of all jokes, really imagine that Shaw is a sentimentalist in 12

McDonald also makes a similar point stating that Shaw was very much influenced by Hegelian dialectics and that his own work often includes contoversial points that can be used against itself: "His comment that 'Wagner can be quoted against himself almost without limit' is at least as applicable to Shaw" (63).

In the beginning of the essay Shaw reveals that he was aware of the fact that he would be "lynched" because ofwhat he would argue, but he declares that he cannot help expressing his opinions on the subject. shaw believes that the war "frenzy" had blinded the British public and that the public looked at the event only from the British perspective and they never tried to understand the Geıman perspective because of their "intellectual laziness." He wants to "take the conceit" out of the British public by trying to take a "many-sided view,, (l). Instead of putting the whole blame on Germany as all the British did. Kipling, wells, christabel Pankhurst, Doyle all seemed to be united at that time of war despite their ideological differences. Shaw seemed to be the only one who had a quite different opinion on the causes of war. He did not participate in the Zeiigeist, the shared feeling towards the war. Shaw directs his attacks on the Militarists of both nations and calls the English to recognize that they cannot be totally innocent and the Germans completely guilty at such a moment. According to Shaw, the real enemies of both German and British public are the ones who caused the war (2). He does not save the Geımans from his criticism at all (15). He just invites the British public to common sense, to be aware of the media manipulation on the subject. According to Shaw, the British Foreign office distorts facts, sometimes exaggerating and sometimes hiding them. For Shaw, the only way to avoid wars is for people to become aware of their illusions created by the manipulation of the governments and media. He asks people to question how they come to know what they know (i5).

Critical Heritage

28

TO MR. BERNARD JAW. Illustrious Jester, who in happier days Amused us with your Prefaces and Plays,

Acquiring

a

precarious renown

By turning laws and morals upside down, Sticking perpetual pins in Mrs. Grundyra, Railing atmaniage or the British Sunday, And lavishing your acid ridicule On the foundations of imperial

rule;-

'Twas well enough in normal times to sit And watch the workings of your wayward wit,

But in these bitter days of storm and stress, When souls are shown in all their nakedness,

Your devastating egotism stands out Denuded of the last remaining clout. You own our cause is just, yet can't refrain

Men in Petticoats

29

Vain to the core, thus in the nation's need You carp and cavil while your brothers bleed, And while on England vitriol you bestow You offer balsam to her deadliest foe. In this bitter satire, I think, the really significant point made about shaw is his

insistence of feeling "undone/ Unless in a minority of one." The writer does not recognize how much courage it takes to express these views at the time of war, rather he thinks that shaw's anti-nationalist views cannot be sincere or serious and they can only be explained by Shaw's o'conceit," yet

Shaw is himself aware of the fact that he would be ostracized and punished for his criticism at such a time. Huneker's account of Shaw also reveals what Innes

calls Shaw's "talent for controversy" which he excelled himself to such a degree that even very common practices like drinking beer, eating sausages, being touched by a novel like Jane Eyre were points of debate for Shaw. Nevertheless, he conducts these debates in such an entertaining fashion that playgoers would enjoy every minute of his discussion-plays (Huneker 9).

Thus, bent on getting back at any cost

In his approach to woman question, Shaw assumes the same "inbom dramatic faculty and professional habit as a playwright... of taking a many sided" view of issues. Thus as much as the feminist, we also come across the anti-feminist arguments in his plays and in GBS, the public figure Shaw used

Into the limelight you have lately lost,

to advertise his work through provocation and sensation.

From libelling those who made its justice plain;

You chide the Prussian Junkers, yet proclaim Our statesmen beat them at their own vile game.

And, high above war's trumpets loudly blown On land and sea, eager to sound your own, We find you faithful to your ancient plan

Of disagreeing with the average man, And all because you think yourself undone Unless in a minority of one. 'o "Mrs. Grundy, fictional English character who typifies the censorship enacted in everyday life by conventional opinion. She first appears (but never onstage) in Thomas Morton's play Speed the Ploııgh (produced 1798), in which one character, Dame Ashfield, continually worries about what her neighbour Mrs. Grundy will say of each development. Since then the term Mrs. Grundy has passed into everyday speech as a criterion of rigid respectability, especially in contexts in which free expression is impeded by excessive purity" (Encyclopedia Britannica).

Men in Petticoat'ş

Critical Heritage

30

3

Shaw as a Wrİter in the Global Perspective In the global perspective, what Shaw meant for the world literature and his influence abroad can be deduced from the Nobel Prize speech the chairman

of the Nobel Committee of the Swedish Academy, Per Hallström, gave for Shaw in 1925. Although we assume that didacticism does a lot of damage to artistic expression, Hallström insists that Shaw with: ...both idealism and humanity, [his] stimulating satire often being infused with a singular poetic beauty....criticism of society and his perspective of its course of development may have appeared too nakedly logical, too hastily thought out, too unorganically simplified... His struggle against traditional conceptions that rest on no solid basis and against traditional feelings that are either spurious or only half genuine has bome witness to the loftiness of his aims. (qtd. in S.Weintraub 139)

This speech was the recognition of Shaw's artistic manifesto that he declared with The Quintessence of lbsenism in 1891. Another world-wide renowned and one of the most influential writers of the twentieth century, Borges' appreciation of Shaw also tells us a lot about Shaw's impact on world literature. Reflecting on the infinite creativity of art, music and literature, Borges defines the function of literature as establishing a dialogue

with the reader through the "intonation it imposes upon his voice and the changing and durable images it leaves in his freader's] memory" (213).

3t

political treatises and prefaces can be found in Schopenhauer or Samuel Butler, "but Lavinia, Blanco Posnet, Keegan, Shotover, Richard Dudgeon and, above all, Julius Caesar, surpass any character imagined by the art of our

time" (275). All these Shavian characters recall Borges Cervantes' Don Quixote in their immortality. Thus listing his personal favorite Shavian characters and their significance in terms of literature, he reflects on this greatness quoting a letter by Shaw: "I understand everything and everyone and I am nothing and no one" (qtd. in Borges 215). Borges adds "from this nothingness (so comparable to that of God before creating the world...) Bernard Shaw educed almost innumerable persons or dramatis personae: the most ephemeral of these is, GBS who represented him in public and who lavished in the newspaper columns so many facile witticisms" (215). Thus Borges observes Shaw's multi-layered artistic personality. As akeady mentioned in Innes' statements on Shaw's lasting influence, Shaw used publicity to draw attention to his plays and in this publicity he made seemingly shallow and controversial statements. GBS, Shaw's public personaiity, was just another Shavian character that Shaw used to promote his work and ideas.

Borges states that "Shaw's fundamental themes are philosophy and ethics. .." (215). He also observes that modern poetry, novel and philosophy,

though "admirable" o'in the formal sense" are invalidated by "the illusions of the ego which the Vedantal5 censures as a capital error." They seem to deal

with "desperation and anguish, but at bottom they flatter our vanity; they are in this sense, immoral." What distinguishes Shaw is that his work "leaves one

with a flavor of liberation" which connects his philosophy to "the stoic

According to Borges, the personality of the writer has a significant role

doctrines" and "the sagas" (216). Borges' appreciation of Shaw is significant in two ways. First of all, the fact that an Argentinean writer like Borges who

in this dialogue between the writer and the reader. Hence, the characters that

has a worldwide reputation and influence, celebrates Bernard Shaw indicates

a writer creates are an extension of his own personality both morally and intellectually. The most important aspect of Shaw's eminence stems from his unique and "noble" personality (215). In that, Borges establishes a direct relationship between Shaw as a human-being, philosopher, man of wisdom and his work. He notes that Shaw's humor can be outdated; his arguments,

that Shaw has a huge impact on world literature, not only in the English speaking world. Secondly, the liberation Borges underlines has a most prominent role in understanding Shaw. The liberation Borges feels is related r5

The knowledge portion of the Vedas.

32

Critical Heritage

to Shaw's absolute defiance and questioning of the social, cultural, political and philosophical conventions of his age. He never takes anything for granted. His intellectual aura is a void without any gravity. Thus he helps us see gender relations and the role of women

in society and family, in her

relations with men from a different perspective and under a new light.

II

SHAW AND THE WOMAN QUESTTON

CONTEXTUALIZED

Men in Petticoats

Shaw and the Woman Question Contextualized

34

35

would have asked you to give the form to fill in. Now we let you answer questions on his behalf. That's progress'. I like the tale I heard recently about the widow who received the same Inland Revenue form. 4

She replied: "I am dead. (32)

In

Women in the Nineteenth Century England:

7753, 230 years before the article above, wrote Sir William Blackstone on the legal position of married women: "...the very being, or legal existence of the woman is suspended during the marriage....a man cannot grant anything to his wife or enter into covenant with her, for the

A Very Brief Glance

In her 2007 European history lectures at UC Berkeley, Margaret Anderson states that one of the most important benefits of studying history is that we

can see, measure, realize the extent of change as the past gives us

grant would be to suppose her separate existence." Sir Blackstone also adds:

"A

woman's personal property, by marriage becomes absolutely her husband's which at his death he may leave entirely away from her...." (in

a

touchstone to measure the present. We usually tend to take everything to do

Montgomery 13). The amount of power attested to men in marriage did not end at that. Montgomery notes that until the 1774 Mad Houses Act, a

with the present for granted. In this respect, studying the legal, social and political position of women in the nineteenth century will help us historically

husband could confine his wife to an asylum merely with his say-so. Adding

contextualize Shaw's position on the woman question.

to husbands' dominating power over wives, upon marriage women lost all their legal entity and even the property they inherited from her parents. In the

Women in the nineteenth century England deserves hundreds of pages

case that women feel themselves entrapped in a cage with the most cruel and

to be dealt with adequately and to reach any working analysis. Nonetheless,

as

heartless spouse they had no way of divorcing themselves and their children from such an unfortunate match.

I try to

depict their general circumstances through Wollstonecraft, Nightingale, Mill and partly Ibsen, I will just give a few striking examples here. The first chapter of Fiona A. Montgomery's Women's Rights Struggles and Feminism in Britain c. 1770-1970 is dedicated to Women and Law. She

Even when the husband committed adultery and acted brutally against his wife, the wife had almost no right to sue him for a divorce. Montgomery reports that before 1857 there had been only four petitions for divorce by

provides a timeline at the beginning listing laws that had been passed by the British Parliament regarding women. Next, she summarizes what those acts

women. She notes that divorce was almost impossible for women and even

mean, and thirdly she quotes excerpts from daily papers, court records, personal letters and the like to give us an idea about what the issues of the

for men it was costly and ruinous (8). In fact, if anything like a separation took place, the father had the power to prohibit the wife seeing her children.

time were and how people felt about them. The last excerpt is from The Times entitled "Taxing Times for Married Woman" (1983):

I recently received a missive from the taxman. If you are a married woman, it said, please reply as if you were your husband. I asked the Inland Revenue for enlightenment. 'Well', explained an embarrassed official, anticipating feminist wrath, 'husbands are still legally responsible for their wives' tax affairs. Two or three years ago we

It was only

in

Child Custody Act, the woman could take the custody of children under seven if they managed to prove that they had a good character (9). The father even had the right to give the i i İ

f

i

t

i I

I .İ

d-

1839 that with the Infant and

children away to strangers as apprentices or for adoption without having to consult his wife. Legally, women did not have a say even in such an important decision. one of the early reactions to this inequality came from Wollstonecraft in the last decade of the eighteenth century.

36

Men in Petticoats

Shaw and the Woman Question Contextualized

37

Daughters (1761) was standard reading for middle and upper-class parents; Gregory considered his daughters' 'ofondness for dress" as a "natural" taste for them (32). Wollstonecraft asks with great ardor: "When

will

a great man

5

arise with sufficient strength of mind to puff away the fumes which pride and

Mary Wollstonecraft

sensuality have thus spread over the subject?" (29). Wollstonecraft's points

A Yindicatİon

of criticism about the situation of women in her society seem to echo in Ibsen's A Doll House and Shaw's The Quintessence of lbsenism (1S91).

of ıhe Rights of Woman (1792)

At

the dawn of the French Revolution, Mary Wollstonecraft wrote A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792) believing strongly that women

Wollstonecraft's Vindication is relevant to the discussion of Shaw, who had read her work and saw her as a very important figure, one he classified with Luther, Cromwell and Shelley (Quintessence 8). Shaw acknowledges that

should gain more control over their own lives. Wollstonecraft does not ğ to contradict or refute criticism directed against her sex, such as assertions that

wollstonecraft had recognized injustices a century before his own generation

women are coquettish, vicious, jealous, weak, prejudiced, ignorant and dependent (44-49). But she convincingly argues that these are not their natural traits but they are brought up to be so and imposed by the patriarchal society they are made to believe that these traits are apart of their "flafrIre."

According to Wollstonecraft, what human beings' "need for the

She asks: "Why do men halt between two opinions and

expect

impossibilities? Why do they expect virtue from a slave, from a being whom the constitution of civil society has rendered weak, if not vicious?" (51) So, if men want to have really dignified women as their companions, they should start by emancipating women.

Three golden principles of the 1789 French Revolution: "equality, fraternity and liberty" did not seem to include women. "Fraternity", in other words "brotherhood" was taken in its literal meaning, thus ruling the women

out of the system. Although eighteenth century French thinker Rousseau promoted the equality of men, he still saw women in an inferior position. In spite of this democratization between classes of men, the fact that women

did (Quintessence 20).

perfection ofnature and capability ofhappiness" can be found in these three assets: reason, virtue and experience (14). As Wollstonecraft sees it men deny that women also possess reason, virtue, and experience. Because they

have very little education compared to what men have, men claim that women are deprived of reason. As she explains: "in order to preserve their innocence, as ignorance is courteously termed, truth is hidden from them..." (48). As a result of this natural ignorance, Wollstonecraft argues, they become prey to follies, caprice and prejudice which 'ocloud their reason" (ı4). Ignorance is not the only vice resulting from lack of education; without proper education women develop o'spurious qualities" instead of virtues.

Women are made to believe from infancy that their well-being and prestige depend on obtaining the protection of a man, a pursuit in which they need beauty more than anything else and the rest is needless if appearances and good looks can be perfected. They are taught to be soft and docile in blind

and serious protest for Wollstonecraft, and she condemned the "injustice and

obedience, whereas such a timid and dependent mind cannot develop a natural virtue. Building on Rousseau, who advocates the equality of men but

inconsistency" of that tradition (5).

ignores women, Wollstonecraft demands the same equality for women.

Wollstonecrafl criticizes Rousseau for promoting "obedience" in woman as a virtue and for praising Dr. Gregory whose Father's Legacy to his

According to Wollstonecraft, critical thinking is a prerequisite of virtue: "It is a farce to call any being virfuous whose virtues do not result from the

were excluded from such a liberating move was a source of bitter resentment

Men in Petticoats

Shaw and the Woman Question Contextualized

38

39

exercise of its own reason" (24). Consequently, virtue can only be attained by

their husbands?" (38) Thus, she shows that men, by keeping women ignorant

a perfect operation of reasoning, and reason can be achieved

and submissive, do not benefit from such an unfair and unjust situation. Instead, they destroy their own happiness through mistreating their fellow human beings, thus deepening the inequality. Blaming men for increasing

through

education, which Wollstonecraft defines as "an exercise of the understanding

as is best calculated to strengthen the body and form the heart" (24). She insists that if men really want to have virtuous daughters, wives and sisters, instead of keeping women in the dark, they should help women "unfold their

own faculties and acquire the dignity of conscious Virtııe" (29). As for experience, which is imperative in attaining reason and virtue, women have very little chance of getting it as they are ooconfined to domestic concerns" (8), while men have "various employments and pursuits which engage their attention, and give a character to the opening mind" (48).

Consequently, women are "duped by their lovers" and sacrifice their freedom for love. Instead of being treated as rational creatures, they are flattered for their "fascinating graces" and viewed by men "as if they were in a state of perpetual childhood, unable to stand alone" (12). This attitude was

taken seriously as a key issue in woman's struggle for their rights and emancipation. Interestingly enough, in Ibsen's A Doll House Nora is also

"that inferiority till women are almost sunk below the standard of rational creatures," Wollstonecraft suggests that men should help women fulfill themselves creating the necessary atmosphere for their development: "Let the

faculties have room to unfold, and their virtues to gain strength, and then determine where the whole sex must stand in the intellectual scale" (39).

The artificially constructed man-woman distinction which supposedly separates the genders from each other so distinctly lies at the heart of Wollstonecraft's protest. She believes that these supposed distinctions are not natural but acquired and if the attitudes change, women will gain a much more virtuous, reasonable and noble character. Yet almost a century after wollstonecraft's vindication, even the most distinguished and educated gentleman, found it difficult to come to terms with women's education and their taking professional jobs as men do. In a discussion with professor

that

Alfred Marshall of Cambridge University in March 1889 Beatrice potter

echoes Wollstonecraft's critique. Nora, the 'onew woman," just rebels against

that patriarchal dominating attitude which would not let woman stand on

(later Beatrice Webb of the Fabian Society, Sidney Webb's wife, one of the three driving forces of the Fabian Society) was to hear "If you compete with

their own feet.

us we shan't maffy

treated

like an immature child by her husband Helmer in a manner

Wollstonecraft wants women to "acquire strength, both of mind and body" if they are ever to have a healthy relation with men. She warns them against "the soft phrases, susceptibility of heart, delicacy of sentiment, and refinement of taste" for they mean "epithets of weakness" (12). She also tries to open the eyes of women to the very human fact that "those beings who are

only the objects of pity and that kind of love, which has been termed its sister, will soon become objects of contempt" (12). Therefore, the efforts to please men by being submissive and blindly obedient are dead ends. Addressing men on the same issue, she asks a very sensible question: "Do the women, who, by the attainment of a few superficial accomplishments, strengthen the prevailing prejudice, or merely contribute to the happiness of

you."

In his The Victorian Woman

(lg7I), Crow reports

the way Professor Marshall sees it:

Marshall's line was that woman was a subordinate being, 'and that, if she ceased to be subordinate, there would be no object for a man to marry. That marriage was a sacrifice of masculine freedom and would only be tolerated by the male creatures so long as it meant the devotion,

body and soul, of the female to the male. Hence the woman must not develop her faculties in a way unpleasant to the man: that strength, courage, independence were not attractive in women; that rivalry in men's pursuits was positively unpleasant. (339)

Marshall was not alone on his views on women's education. In his Broadview critical Edition of Mrs. waruen's Profession (2005), Connolly

40

Men in Pettİcoats

Shaw and the Woman Question Contextualized

47

documents how during 1880s and 1890s Cambridge University professors and male students resisted giving female students degrees, equal rights, representation and many other privileges enjoyed by the male students (215-

6

28).

A1l in all, Wollstonecraft demands equal opportıınities for women in terms of education and admission into professional world. Only thus can women become the virtuous and right companions for men. As long as women stay in their uneducated and idle station of life, they cannot be expected to observe moral values.

Florence Nightingale (1820-19 10)

The life story of Florence Nightingale provides a wonderful opportunity to see Shaw's middle and upper class women characters in their struggle to set themselves free and create a productive and useful life for themselves rather than leading a life of idleness. Though Nightingale may not be considered a feminist leader in her own time, Elaine Showalter marks her place in terms

of

feminisml6 stating that "she [Nightingale] has much to say to our time, especially about the development of women who bum themselves out in the struggle against mothers and sisters and who demand freedom from women's culture as much as from women's sphere" (412). According to Showalter, Florence Nightingale's life is not only "an example of the psychic cost of matrophobia" but "also an example of courage and power" which 'ocame from a female experience as authentic and profoundly felt as that of any of our cherished heroines" (4I2).

As Showalter expresses, despite Nightingale's lack of interest to women movements, the very story and example of her life contributed to the emancipation of the late nineteenth century women. Of course, Florence Nightingale was not the only victorian woman who suffered from the social conventions which would not let women go out and work and do something that really counts. Across the Atlantic, American Charlotte Perkins Gilman's 1892 short story "The Yellow Wallpaper" was another powerful expression of the general depression that the upper and middle class women had to go through. Hence, it reached an immensely wide audience and became one of '6In her Victorian Feminİsts (l993) Barbara Caine states that as in the case of nineteenth cenfury women such as Caroline Norton, Florence Nightingale and Beatrice Webb "certain kinds of personal suffering often led away from rather than towards feminist involvement"

(ı0).

Shaw and the Woman Question Contextualized

42

Basically, Gilman touched chords in these women's hearts. Florence Nightingale was one of these women who had to suffer the consequences of an unproductive youth. She needed work and the self-satisfaction of having been useful to people, to the world and the the best known texts of feminist literature.

universe.

Men in Petticoats

43

This is the true joy in life, the being used for a purpose recognized by yourself as a mighty one; the being thoroughly wom out before you are thrown on the scrap heap; the being a force of nature instead of a feverish selfish little clod of ailments and grievances complaining that the world will not devote itself to making you happy. (xxxi)

and Zinsser describe how middle and upper-class women of the Victorian era

Shaw denies any artificially constructed difference between man and woman. Therefore, it is unnatural to ask woman to stay at home and be content with

were secluded from the outer world and confined to a strictly domestic sphere (143-66). These women were not supposed to do any practical work of any

the domestic affairs only. According to Shaw, people need to work hard to earn their happiness. In his view, happiness can only be possible through self-

In their A History of Their Own: Women in Europe (1988), Andersson

kind. Florence Nightingale's struggle to convince her family to break free to become a nurse is a telling example of how women found it difficult to cope with this confinement. If we recall the fact that almost all of Shaw's women characters (apart from a few exceptions like Eliza Doolittle) such as Barbara,

respect which can be procured through devoting yourself to a cause which really helps the total happiness and good of the whole universe. Florence

Nightingale was such a woman who felt the need of "being used for a cause" in her so strongly that neither her family's forİune nor a glittering social life

Epifania, Hypatia, Lesbia and Vivie come from middle and upper-class families, the example of Florence Nightingale helps us understand the

was enough to make her feel self-satisfied.

worries and concems of the women belonging to her class and world. Though

good education. she was a woman who had developed her mental faculties

there is a period of at least 50-60 years difference between Sarah Grand's, GB Shaw's, Virginia Woolfls women characters and Florence Nightingale, their works show that the progress was very slow in the woman question.

Recalling her popular image as the lady with the lamp of Scutari, and the founder of modern nursing, in Eminent Victorians (1918) Lytton Strachey draws our attention to a different aspect of Florence Nightingale's life story.

Many people would assume that money, power, luxury and a vibrant social life would be more than enough to make one happy. Strachey observes that even in her childhood, Florence's "vision of heaven itself was filled with suffering patients to whom she was being useful" (Loc. 1473). To Shaw, there is nothing extraordinary about "her vision of heaven" where she is being useful as he attempts to give a rather unusual definition of happiness. Even though I have used the quotation below at the very beginning of the book as an epigraph, I cannot resist the temptation of using it here again in this context.Tn Man and Superman Shaw observes:

As Florence was born into a rich upper-class family,

she had a really

leaming Latin, Greek, French, Italian, Mathematics, Natural Sciences and doing the Grand Tour before she was even twenty. She saw Greece, Italy, France, Germany and later in her late twenties Egypt. Although she was full

of energy and will to do good for the others, there was only one way of existence for the upper middle class woman of the period: getting maried to become "the angel in the House."l7 Rejecting that beaten path, as Helsinger

't "The Angel in the House" was a poem written by Coventry Patmore in 1854 and revised in 1862.\t idealizes womanly duty and sacrifice. It is woman's dufy to make their husbands happy. Even when the hrısbands are cruel or ı.ınjust froın time to time they are as patient as angels submissively waiting the husbands to realize their mistakes and love the "angel" more and more for their meek nature. The poem did not become successful as soon as it was published but the fact that Queen Victoria devoted herself to her family and kept a submissive attitude before her husband Prince Albert made the poem a symbol and ideal womanhood in the Victorian Age. Even in the early twentieth century the idea was so prevalent that in 193 I virginia woolf wrote "'Killing the Angel in the House' was part of the occupation of a woman writer." http://academic.brooklyn.cuny.edu/english/melani/novel_ lgclthackeray/angel.html To realize how strong the image was as late as 1970s see Elaine Showalter's "Killing the Angel in the House: The Autonomy of Women Writers" (1972).

Men in Petticoats

Shaw and the Woman Question Contextualized

44

et al. rightly observe, Florence Nightingale became the "freed

angel"

incarnate (xv).

The riches of her family, all the country houses, high society life, the glamour did not blind her to the sufferings of the people of her age. She

in

"My mind is

45

Bostridge notes that in 1847 Charlotte Bronte's Jane Eyre was an immense success as she is a woman with independent action in spite of all her disadvantages in life.

In her posthumously published Suggestions for Thought,

Florence

sufferings of man....I can hardly see anything else and all that poets sing of

Nightingale complains about, regardless of their intelligence or talent, how social conventions would not let a woman lead an independent life:

the glories of this world seems to me untrue" (qtd. in Bostridge 74). That was

Daughters come to the world without their own consent. The law gives

wrote in her diary

1842:

absorbed with the idea

of

the

obviously her calling and in the following ten years of her life, she felt the same urge but did not know how to do it. There were no models, no former

them nothing. God gives them their time and faculties. May they not have these? And if the life, which their parents and the other members

examples that she might have followed. Despite all her social advantages, she felt so "dejected" that she could not see any reason to live: "Forgive me, O

of their family lead, does not interest them, does not exercise those faculties and employ satisfactorily that time, may they not use them elsewhere than at home, or would they be wrong if they sought to eam

God, and let me die, this day let me die. It is not for myself that I say this ... I know that by living I shall only heap anxieties on other hearts, which will but

their own livelihood by them?... And is it not, because the customs of the conventional society forbid their eaming their bread with their own

increase with time" (qtd. in Bostridge 92). She was restless as she saw the life

she led "a life of wasted energies and of frivolous activity without an end"

faculties and time, without losing caste, and because they may not see anybody whom they may like well enough to induce them to earn their

(Bostridge 93).

The "misery and pointlessness of her life" gave her an unendurable distress, but she could not find the sympathy she expected. Her family and friends found it difficult to see her point and offer her a cure or comfort: "Oh if one has but a toothache, what remedies are invented! What carriages, horses, ponies, journeys, doctors, chaperons, are urged upon one; but if it is something to do with the mind...it is neither believed nor understood" (102). According to Bostridge, "rejecting her call" was the root cause of Nightingale's great agitation. In their feeling of confinement and imprisonment, education must have had a great impact on Florence and other women from the middle and upper

bread by maniage, that therefore they should have nothing, no kind

of

independence till their parents' death? (476)

Her eye was on nursing but her family would not hear of it. She was restlessly obsessed with the dream of becoming a nurse to be able to help the sick. What kept Florence Nightingale from following her call was the social

conventions which expected her to get married, run her husband's house, bear children and bring them up. Although she was courted by some of the most distinguished bachelors of the time,18 she remained decisively single. She knew that marriage, even the most liberal one, would make her plans for her life impossible. In order to realize herself, she had to stay single and act

class families. They had access, if not to universities, at least to their family

independently (McDonald 25). Her family, especially her mother and sister,

libraries where they read about fictional characters and people who had made

reacted fiercely to that choice. Her mother tried to convince her that marripge

their names unforgettable leading meaningful lives in the service of people.

would not deter her from doing the philanthropic work she projected, little

For a survey of "the angel in the house" in the Victorian novel, see: Elizabeth Langland's "Nobody's Angels: Domestic Ideology and Middle Class Women in the Victorian Novel"

(teez).

r8

One of them was Richard Monckton Milnes, poet, politician and one of the most liberal minded gentlemen of the times sought her hand for nine years. Florence was also reported to be very fond of Milnes, bııt she could not yield herself to accept his hand.

Men in Petticoats

Shaw and the Woman Question Contextualized

46

knowing the extent of her devotion to her calling. She was like a "bird in a cage" in Elspeth Huxley's words. Even worse than that, the vicious circle she found herself in would literally make her sick (Female Malady, Showalter 63). Bostridge describes her situation in these circumstances within these terms: "The social round seemed more and more pointless, and the effort

of

subduing her feelings and acting as a dutiful daughter sickened her quite literally; she had attacks of migraine, bronchitis and chronic coughs, and feared that she was going out of her mind" (34). Though she knew the remedy she did not know how to act on that.

The intensity of the psychological strain caused physical reactions that deteriorated her health. Bostridge also narrates what Florence Nightingale went through trying to persuade her family to become a nurse and how that "bitter" experience traumatized her all through her life: "Her bittemess against the institution of the family became in time a festering wound" (186). In an age when family as an institution and motherhood were glorified and idealized (Queen Victoria and Leopold had nine children and they were presented as a model family), Nightingale was much disillusioned about both: "...not a family, but'thumb-screw', a Procrustes'bed, an instrument either of torture or deterioration, a disabilities office'. It was also, to use a phrase of Aeschylus's that Florence favored, an 'unloving love"' (Bostridge l 86).

All

these restrictions mentioned above should not lead us to think that

she was secluded at home doing nothing. It is actually amazing how active

Nightingale was between 1850-53 after her return from her last European travel when she visited Kaiserswerth for two weeks and published an anonymous report on German nursing institution which was much more respectable, professional and established than its English counterparts.

Gillian Gill tries to give an idea about how intellectually, socially

and

philanthropically energetic Nightingale was. She was in contact with literary figures like George Eliot, Elizabeth Barrett Browning and Charles Kingsley; she had a very close friendship with eminent medical practitioner of the times

Anglo-American doctor Elizabeth Blackwell; she was in correspondence with

47

the new Roman Catholic priest Henry Manning; she also kept very close relationships with top politicians of the 1850s such as Sidney Herbert, who would secure her the position as the superintendent in Scutari where she made her reputation as the lady with the lamp. On top of that, she taught at schools for the poor,'e volunteered in hospitals, tried to save poor women from prostitution. Furthermore, she was writing a book entitled suggestions for Thought to the Searchers After Truth Among the Artisans of England2q, arguing against Robert owen's claim that religion has a rather negative effect on the life of the working classes and they actually do not need it (Gill 261). Showalter suggests that what dissociates Nightingale from the feminists of her time is the problematic relation she experienced with her mother and sister, who were more repressive on her way to independence than her father.

For that reason, Nightingale was more drawn to male friends than to female sisterhood. For instance, showalter observes that instead of showing her

writings to woman writers such as Harriett Martineau, George Eliot or Elizabeth Gaskell, all of whom she knew personally and who would respond more positively, she demanded the approval of male writers and intellectuals like John Stuart Mill and Benjamin Jowett, an eminent oxford professor of Greek ("Florence Nightingale's" 406). Yet, with her struggle to break free from the family circle defying the gender roles and her confinement, her example stands as a significant model for all women who wanted to emancipate themselves. In that, Nightingale is like a Shavian heroine just like Vivie Warren, Mrs Clandon, Saint Joan or Major Barbara who would not be satisfied with the luxuries of a leisured lifestyle but would devote all their energies to a cause they find meaningful.

Nightingale's biography reveals that Victorian women were extremely uncomfoılable with the confinement society expected from them. Women 19

on this teaching experience she writes "oh happy happy six weeks at Lea Hrırst where I had found my business in this world. My heart was filled. My soul was at home. I wanted no other heaven. May God be thanked as He never yet has been thanked for that glimpse of what it is to live." (qtd. in Small. I I ) " Gill notes that the book was not published during her life time. See McDonald, Lynn. Ed. Florence Nightingale's Sııggestionsfor Thoııght. Voluıne |1 of Collected Works of Florence N i gh t i ngal e. Wilfrid Laurier UP : Waterloo, Canada, 2008.

r

48

Shaw and the Woman Question Contextualized

wanted to fulfıll themselves and eam their own self-respect with hard work. Obviously, Florence wanted to lead an active life which would make her feel 7

satisfied with herself. In that sense, she reminds Shavian women characters such as Vivie, Kitty, Barbara,Hypatia and Saint Joan to mention just a few of

John Stuart Mill The Subjectİon of Women (1869)

them.

"I always assumed that a woman was a person, exactly like myself, and that is how the trick is done." (Shaw qtd. in Watson, A Shavian Guide2l)

Miıı2l Q773-I836), John Stuart Mill (1s06_1873) was brought up from very early ages to be an intellectual and political The youngest son of James

His books had such a wide circulation and popularity that even the Dublin boy George Bemard shaw was familiar with his work. Shaw read Mill at very early ages and as Henderson states, Mill was one of the earliest political influences on shaw (His Life and works r02). Henderson particularly emphasizes the point that shaw must have acquired and internalized Mill's political writings quite deeply,23 quoting this passage from Mill: "Since the general or prevailing opinion in any subject is rarely or never thinker.22

the whole truth, it is rarely or never the whole truth, it is only by the

collision of adverse opinion that the remainder of the truth has any chance of being supplied" (qtd. in Henderson, Playboy and Prophet 686). What could have better explained Shaw's dramatic perspective? "The collision of adverse opinion" is the central concern and keystone of Shaw's discussion drama, drama of ideas.

2r

The founding father of utilitarianism along with Jeremy Bentham (1748-1832). '" In a very well-known saİire, Hard Times, Charles Dickens severely critiçizes James Mill's pedagogic approach, leaving no room for play or imagination but treating children as ifthey are grown-ups, stuffing them with facts. Although John Stuart Mill had to suffer a quite traumatic crisis in his twenties due to that strict upbringing, he was strong enough to overcome that and become, as Robson and Robson call "the most prestigious radical writer of the nineteenth century in England" (viii). '5 The Subiection of Women is in Yoıı Never Can Tell, G|oria's matriarchal "Bible,'' and "prescribed reading" for Clandon (Gainor 42).

50

Men in Petticoats

Shaw and the Woman Question Contextualized

As also Greiner states, Mill was among Shaw's first readings in terms of radical politics. In a letter where he recalled his first experiences of political gatherings at the Zetetical Society in 1880 when he was 24, he wrote: 'oI was really horribly ignorant of the society's subjects, though I had read, in my boyhood, Mill On Liberty, On Representative Government, and on The lrish Land Question..." (Collected Letters 1898-1910 486). Greiner notes that Shaw read Mill's The Subjection of Women while he was attending the meetings atthe Zetetical Society, which put the discussion of

Mill's works

to

the centre of their mission. Greiner aptly observes that even before his Fabian

Society period, by reading The Subjection Shaw found his "major thesis" that oowould

propagate-that 'woman's nature,' a principle on which Capitalist society based its prevailing morality and corresponding modes of behavior, was merely an aıtificial construction" (10). In that Sense, Shaw's Quintessence echoes Mill's views on the woman question in many ways. Mill was the man Wollstonecraft had invoked some 77 years earlier with her imploration of a conscientious man who would feel responsible for the injustice and oppression perpetrated on women and stand up for it. Elizabeth Cady Stanton (1815-1902), one of the leading figures of the early women's movement in the United States, reading The Subjection of Women, stated that Mill was the first man to comprehend the extent of women's degradation: "I lay the book down with a peace and joy I never felt before" (qtd. in Okin v).

On the other hand, Freud, though he translated the book into German,

ooNature strongly objected to the egalitarianism of Mill's essay stating that: has determined woman's destiny through beauty, charm and sweetness..." (qtd. in Okin v). Mark the word o'nature" and its derivative "natural" for

further use as we

will

see that the word lies at the very core of the whole

ideological struggle on the woman question.

suffragette movement's militant struggle in the preceding years of the First

world war. The subjection of women was reprinted and reached a great number of people. Also in the second half of the twentieth century the feminist movement credited him as "a leading advocate of the cause" (Robson and Robson viii).

According to Okin, four factors account for the essay's significance in the feminist literature. First of all, it is the sole feminist work penned by a major political theorist in the western world. Secondly, as much as the essay, Mill himself as public and political figure played an active role in the struggle for women's rights. Mill was involved in the woman question as early as 1822. As a sixteen year old boy he was arrested for disseminating birth-control literature in the working-class district of London (okin xvii). His real and more serious interest started after he met Mrs. Harriett Taylor in 1831. Although she was a married woman they formed a very close friendship sometimes leading to gossip. Nonetheless, Mr. Taylor's tolerance helped them continue their close friendship which led to maı:-iage after Mr.

Taylor's death in

Mill

1851.24

As a member of parliament, between 1865

'o Robson and Robson express the significance of this union within these words:

April

"Inhis"Class,Gendcr,andLiberalismandParliament, women's Property Acts" Ben Griffin brings

his other views after his death until

the

"on2r

Harriett Taylor, widow married John Stuart Mill, bachelor. They leased a house in Blackheath Park; with them was Taylor's nineteen-year-old daughter Helen...From this secluded house emanated some of the most powerful and influential writings ever penned to promote women's equality, and it was to this household that the Victorian women,s movement in England came to look for leadership, guidance and money,,(vii). -' Although the suffrage amendment was defeated 196 to i3, it still had positive consequences. It forced the government to give concessions to women. In a letter he wrote to Alexander Bain, Scottish inventor, philosopher and educationalist, Mill writes: "One effect which the suffragette agitation is producing is to make all soı1s of people declare in favor of improving the education of women. That point is conceded by almost eveıybody & we shall find the education movement for women favored & promoted by nıany who have no wish at ?jl that things should go any further." (Letİers Vot. 2'209) 185 I

translated into French, German and Polish. Okin observes that it created more

atffact as much attention as

and

had the honor to propose to the parliament the woman suffiage2s and married women's property legislation26. Thirdly, as the book came after 1868,

Although Mill wrote his book in 1861, he waited for the right political moment to publish it until 1869. It was received with great interest and soon reaction than his earlier books like System of Logic (1843), Principles of Political Economy (1848), or On Liberty (1859). Mill's feminism did not

51

1868-1882: TheCaseoftheMarried

insight to the women's rights struggle and its opponents in terms of parliamentary reform: "The most striking feature of the debates on the Married Woman's Property Bills is how little time was spent discussing the principle of sexual equality, and how much time was spent discussing the idea that giving married wolnen property rights would cause discord in the home. Philip Muntz, for example, was clear that the proposed reform'would certaiııly cause great difficulties in all the domestic a deep

52

Men in Petticoats

Shaw and the Woman Question Contextualized

53

his other major works, Mill was at the peak of his powers as a political

their well-being to men, whether this be economic, social, intellectual or of

writer. For this reason, we see his "finest piece of argument" as the book is a product of o'consummate expression of decades of thought and discussion"

any other nafure:

(Okin v-vi). Lastly, its significance for feminist movements all around the world has been immense. Although some of the wrongs addressed in the essay have been redressed in the more than a century period, Okin believes that "the broader issues...remain pertinent" (V). Mill unfolds the main argument of his essay at the very opening paragraph of the book stating: "That the principle which regulates the existing social relations between the two sexes-the legal subordination of one sex to the

other-is wrong in itself,

and now one of the chief hindrances

to human improvement" (133). He advocates that any kind of subordination or inequality ought to be abolished and people must establish a social system that recognizes the equality of both sexes without subverting one to the other.

He directly draws parallels between slavery and women's position in the Victorian Age and strongly argues that though slavery was not legal in England or in Europe, the Englishman could still keep their women in the status of slaves. In some cases women's disguised slavery is even worse than

actual slavery as it was not enough for the masters of women to subdue the women through force and suppression, but women were led to believe that it was their "duty" and "nature" to submit to the

will of

the men all that belong

to an independent entity. That is how women had to rely on every aspect of

All

women are brought up from the very earliest years in the belief that

their ideal of character is the opposite to that of men; not self-will, and government by self-control, but submission and yielding to the control

of others. All the moralities tell them that it is the duty of women, and all the current sentimentalities that it is their nature, to live for others; to make complete abnegation of themselves, and to have no life but in

their affections. And by their affections are meant only the ones they are allowed to have-those to the men with whom they are connected,

or to the children who constitute an additional and indefeasible tie between them and a man. When we put together three things-first, the natural attraction between opposite sexes, secondly, the wife's entire dependence on the husband, every privilege or pleasure has being either

his gift, or depending entirely on his will; and lastly, that the principal object of human pursuit, consideration, and all objects of social ambition, can in general be sought or obtained by her only through him,

it would be a miracle if the object of being attractive to men had not become the polar star of feminine education and formation of character....as a means of holding women in subjection, by representing to them meekness, submissiveness, and resignation of all

individual will into the hands of a man, as an essential part of sexual attractiveness. ... (144-45)

arrangements of life. It would carıse antagonism between those who were taught to believe were one.'This issue was central to parliamentary discussion of a wide range of proposals affecting women's rights, including child custody legislation, bills to reform the family maintenance laws in the 1870s andl880s, and the women's suffrage bills of the period. But why did the men think that giving some rights would cause discord in families? The problem for the politicians was that there was no way of conceptualizing marital conflict within separate spheres ideology. Consider a typical extract from a marriage advice manual of the period, a book entitled How to be Happy Thoııgh Married, published in 1886: 'If the wife cannot make the her home bright and happy, so that it should be the cleanest, sweetest, cheerfullest [sic] place that her husband can find refuge in- a retreat from the toils and troubles of the other world- then God help the poor man, for his virtually homelessl'... Within the terms of separate spheres ideology, this household harmony could only be achieved by the total subordination of women to their husbands." (63)

When we read Shaw's The Quintessence of lbsenism ınder the light of this passage, we see that Shaw is in a rather intensive and heated conversation with this passage and he takes up from where Mill leaves it. All the points

Mill touch

on here are also interrelated with the arguments of Wollstonecraft,

Nightingale and Ibsen. Just like Wollstonecraft, Mill diagnoses the root of the injustice to the constructed, unnatural difference between sexes. Mill questions how such a seemingly solid and unchallenged assumption as the "nafure of women" has been reached. He starts with deconstructing this assumption, which according to him lies at the heart of all the rest of the injustice. This assumption is used to justify and legitimize women's

54

Men in Petticoats

Shaw and the Woman Question Contextualized

subservient position. In the same line again, he emphasizes how education is put to work to make women believe that they are inferior to men and that their interests and ideals lie in different walks of life from those of men. They are taught to believe that their sole aim in life must be to sacrifice all their time and energy and ambition to their husbands and children. Thus as in the case of Florence Nightingale, they have to choose between celibacy (which

would mean in most of the cases a life without protection, loss of prestige and an outcast position) or marriage and the forfeiture of all other ambitions in life. When her mother Fanny Nightingale offered her that choice, that's doing her philanthropic work as a married woman, using her would be husband's influence, Florence Nightingale flatly rejected such a scheme intuitively guessing the dependent situation of such a scenario. The reason why Ibsen's A Doll House is considered to be such a colossal

(199). Finally,

Mill points out the misery women felt for being

55

prevented

from using their faculties, talents and energy to create positive results. Mill defines this as "loss of the most inspiriting and elevating kind of personal

enjoyment" which would lead to 'othe weariness, disappointment and profound dissatisfaction with life" which sounds quite familiar to the distress Nightingale experience, distress 28 caused by her family before she broke free and took her orders (200).

Mill

had an immense impact on the intellectual thought of late Victorian

Age. His writings show us that men were also concerned with the woman question and they offered serious and much useful help to women's rights movements. Through his writing we can clearly see on what grounds the struggle was fought and where Shaw's women characters stand in this struggle.

and groundbreaking text also lies in the fact that all the moralities had taught

woman to sacrifice herself unselfishly. Nora's action of leaving home meant sheer iconoclasm, which Shaw takes up in the Quintessence as the focus loci of his understanding of Ibsen and his work (79-82). Departing from these

distorted illusions of ideals, women must break free through repudiating their duty. According to Shaw, all progress in human history could be possible

only through such a repudiation of duty: Milton, Luther, Shelley and Berkeley were such people (Quintessence 8). Florence Nightingale also followed a similar path to be able to realize her ambition. Within that context Mill's words gaina substantial prominence as they carry almost all the strains of the woman question argument in such a compact text. Through the end of the essay

Mill offers

some practical advantages that

would be gained by society if the sexual inequalities are abolished. First of all, morally, there would be justice instead of injustice, which would generate a much more self-respecting and honest society who can face facts and stand up for their rights. Secondly, as women will be emancipated this

will double

the "mass of mental faculties available for the higher service of humanity"2T Considering the percentage ofwoııan doctors, scientists, scholars, writers, artists and intellectuals in our preseı-ıt day, one is really amazed how Mill could foresee the woman's

27

real potential although he did not have many examples in his time which would make it easy for him to predict this. 's One very well-known case is Charlotte Perkins Gilman. Introducing Gilman's "The Yellow Wallpaper", Freedman comments thus: "Gilman drew on her own experience of the disease then known as neuresthenia and her ğection of the "rest cure" prescribed by a prominent physician S. Weir Mitchell...the story details the morbid effects of the infantilization of women patients and, more generally, the societal constraints on women's creativity" (128). Freedman also adds that, just like Florence Nightingale, Gilman could overcome this mental stattıs only through rejecting her familial duties and repudiating the role pressed on her by the society.

56

Men in Petticoats

Shaw and the Woman Question Contextualized

57

Ibsen's radical work. It was that same affiliation which drew Shaw to Ibsen and Shaw's advocacy of Ibsen opened the theatre scene for Shaw, who found

I The Ibsen Influence on Shaw

...the English theatre was changed and improved by the production of Ghosts. Pinero became more daring than he had hitherto been and a vast amount of rubbish was swept out of theway of Wilde and Shaw. (Ervine 241)

his real element in controversial issues. Before he even thought of writing plays, Shaw had already written six novels between 1878 and 1883 as novel writing was considered to be the more respectable genre. All the melodramas and music hall comedies had made drama a peripheral genre during the late Victorian age. However, Ibsen's serious problem plays with their philosophic turns reinstated drama's prominence which had been in effect since the ancient Greek drama. Shaw sees that the strong and brave individual in Ibsen's plays contest and open these matters to discussion without which "no mere turning of the wheels of public machinery will do any good" (qtd. in Britain 385). Shaw remarks that after Rosmersholm, Ghosts and Hedda Gabler created

Finney observes that Ibsen is "widely credited with virtııally inventing the emancipated woman in the last act of A Doll House" (oolbsen and Feminism" 93). And as Shaw was deeply influenced by Ibsen in his dealings with idealism and the woman question, I assume that scholarship which investigates Ibsen's women characters can shed light on our understanding of Shaw's approach to his women characters. Obviously, Ibsen was not Shaw's only source of inspiration in his very intense involvement with the woman question. On the other hand, Ibsen's significance in the development of his talents as a playwright is an undeniable fact. Wisenthal convincingly argues that if it had not been for Ibsen, Shaw would not probably have taken up playwriting in the first place. For it was to suppoıt the new theatre movement in England pioneered by JT Grein's Independent Theatre, Shaw completed

his incomp\ete Widowers'Hoı.ıses, which he started to write in 1884-5 in collaboration with William Archer. Wisenthal also suggests that having written the Qııintessence, Shaw became a sort of leading proponent of Ibsen.

Hence he must have felt himself obligated to contribute a play to the Independent Theatre written in the same lines with Ibsen. (55) Another important point worth noting is the fact that Ibsen's work broke the ground for Shaw, whose work had not drawn much attention before

so much sensation and were received with such abusive terms, he felt

himself

obliged to take part in ttıat debate as Someone who had a lot to say on Ibsen

(Quintessence v-v11). With this lecture and then the publication of The Quintessence of lbsenism, Shaw changed the way Ibsen was received in England. Originally given as a lecture at the Fabian Society under the general

heading of "Socialism in Contemporary Literature," Shaw reports that he regarded it as a "'piece d'occasion' and put it aside." If Quintessence is given as a lecture under the general umbrella title of "Socialism in Contemporary

Culture," why does Shaw take the woman question as the central concern of his discussion? In his "Mill, Marx and Bebel: Early Influences on Shaw's Characterization of Women" Norbert Greiner draws our attention to Engels'

views on how emancipation of women in a society can be "the nafural measure of general emancipation" (11). In that respect, any efforts to emancipate women is a direct attempt to emancipate the whole society under the aegis of socialism.

Ibsen's influence on Shaw was not limited to Shaw's work only, but rather Shaw disseminated his understanding of Ibsen very effectively changing the way Ibsen has been interpreted in the English speaking world.

In her "The Doll House Backlash: Criticism, Feminism, and Ibsen", Joan

Men in Petticoats

Shaw and the Woman Question Contextualized

58

s9

Templeton defines A Doll House as the "Uncle Tom's Cabin of the women's rights movement" (28). In spite of the play's lucid message and direct

world. To analyze Ibsen's understanding of women's rights and the sources of his feminism can be useful in two different ways. First of all, it helps

involvement with the woman question, Templeton notes that there has always

establishing the link between Ibsen and Shaw's individual approach to the

been a certain universalist "backlash" which tries to overlook its feminist aspect. She describes how certain critics strive hard to read A Doll House

devoid of its feminist associations, making Nora everywoman and her problem with her husband just a personal family problem without any gender connotations.

Templeton notes that the main purpose of this depoliticizing campaign is

as they assert "...a corrective effort to free Ibsen from his

erroneous

reputation as a writer of thesis plays, a wrongheaded notion usually blamed on Shaw, who, it is claimed, mistakenly saw Ibsen as the nineteenth century's

woman question and provides a culfural perspective on the common disposition of women during the victorian Age all around western Europe.

Templeton observes five basic issues in Ibsen's A Dolt House which correspond to the mainstream women's rights struggle of the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. First of all, Nora's complaint -- that she has been sinned against by her father and later by her husband who expect her to act only to please them all the time -- echoes wollstonecraft's criticism against women's education which make them play things "at the expense of every solid virtııe." Nora's complaint at the last scene of A DoIt House: exemplifies this point: "He [Nora's father] used to call me his little doll, and

greatest iconoclast and offered that misreading to the public as The Quintessence of lbsenism" (28). Wisenthal's survey of how Shaw's view of Ibsen has been received in the English speaking world deserves a long

play with me, as I in my turn used to play with my dolls.... Then I passed from father's hands into yours..." (95).The play also dwells upon the

quotation:

nineteenth cenfury universally agreed-upon means to women's emancipation:

'I used to like Ibsen very much before Shaw began to explain him; but if Ibsen means what Shaw says he means Ibsen is not the man I took

him for.' Robert Blatchford 1897. 'After A Doll House the Women's Righters, mistaking the artist for a propagandist, were riotous Ibsenites fiudging from a certain brilliantly misleading opuscule by Mr. Bernard Shaw) I fancy that for a moment the Socialists were under the quaint delusion that they had found a new prophet.'A.B. Walkley 1901. 'Ibsen was ruined in this country by his English interpreters, who, the more sympathetic they were, the more deadly they became. Ibsen for example, has never recovered from Mr. Bernard Shaw's victimisation of him. Together with Shakespeare, he was butchered to make a Fabian

holiday....'It is still the bane of English and American criticism that all too often we do not see Ibsen face to face but through Shaw darkly.' Evert Sprinchorn 1973. .. (3-4) Wisenthal notes that this was just a set of examples to show the extent of controversy Shaw's Ibsen criticism has created in the English speaking

education. one reason why Nora leaves her husband's house is to be able to

educate herself. Templeton also cites Harriet Martineau's "on Female Education" in which Martineau2e argues that women should be educated to become men's companions, not their servants or play things. Nora says as much when she declares that she is not fit to be Helmer's companion, nor is she fit to bring up her own children as she barely finds herserf morally responsible enough to take charge of her family. The last point Templeton makes, as she puts it, is one of the most important issues of the nineteenth century woman right's movements: the struggle to assert a woman's duty to

herself to develop intellectual and moral virtues against the idealist notion that women had to devote herself to her husband and children with complete self-abnegation (32).

2eMartineau

was an essayist, novelist, journalist, and economic and historical writer (1802l876). For more information on Martineatı see

http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/top

icl367020lHarriet-Martineaı"ı.

Shaw and the Woman Question Contextualized

60

Men in Petticoats

6t

Ibsen's quasi-socialist tendency can be considered as one ofthe roots of feminism-as socialism and feminism were considered to be "bed

the only English intellectual who was deeply influenced by Ibsen's play; the

fellows" during the nineteenth century. Another significant element of Ibsen's feminism is "actual feminists in his life" (Finney 89-90). The closest feminist in his life was his wife Suzannah Thoresen's stepmother Magdelene Thoresen. Magdelene was a Danish novelist, playwright and translator of French plays and most probably the first "New W'oman" in Ibsen's life. She played a crucial role in the formation of Ibsen's strong women characters.

and her friends: "We were restive and impetuous and almost savage in our

his

Finney maintains that Suzannah left an extremely important mark on Ibsen's formation of strong-willed characters such as Nora. Ibsen also had very close

socialist feminist writer Edith Lees describes the impact of the play on herself arguments. This was either the end of the world or the beginning of a new

world for women.... I remember that I was literally prostrate with excitement because of the new revelation" (qtd. in Beckson 138-39). As Shaw argues, theatre had become the new pulpit, the new church where the public was enlightened on the new issues such as the role of the "new woman". London press did not hold the same ideas on lbsen.

of A

The general key of the notices following the performance of Ibsen's Ghosts is as follows: "Ibsen's positively abominable play entitled Ghosts...This disgusting representation...An open drain; a loathsome sore unbandaged; a dirty act done publicly; a lazar house with all its doors and windows open..." (qtd. in Quintessence 89). "Bestial, cynical, disgusting, poisonous, sickly, delirious, indecent, loathsome, fetid, literary carrion, crapulous stuff, clinical confessions..." (3). These are not very flattering remarks, but Shaw would never be discouraged or disheartened by such

of A Doll House as a work of art and maybe more than that as a revelation: "I

philistine views. Shaw had such a broad vision that, for him, it was inevitable for the theatre of his time to change after Ibsen's plays found their way to London stage. Shaw believed so strongly in the revelatory power of Ibsen's

see a vital truth searched out and held up in a light intense enough to dispel

work that he suggests one must go to Ibsen's plays as one goes to a dentist. It

all the mists and shallows that obscure it in actual life. I see people silent, attentive, thoughtful, startled-struck to the heart, some of them" (qtd in

is not much fun, most of the time pain is unbearable but good for your health

relations with the era's leading Norwegian feminist Camilla Collett, whose opinions on marriage and women's role in society influenced Ibsen immensely (93). In the same way Shaw's feminism is attributed to the strong women in his life-first of all, his mother.

Wisenthal notes that even though Shaw had been familiar with lbsen's work through his friend William Archer30 (1856-1924), the 1889 production

Doll House by Janet Achurch and her husband Charles Charrington at the Novelty Theatre initiated his "active involvement" with Ibsen. Shaw wrote a letter to the Pall Mall Gazette (June 13, 1889), describing the merits

Beckson 160).

For Shaw, Ibsen is a prophetic writer, not in the sense that he could foresee the future or offer a conduct of life, but as a writer who can see the reality which has been hidden behind all ideals and illusions.'' Shulv was not 30

Ibsen's first translator and one of the most fervent advocates in England. t' Shaw would later on expand his views on Ibsen's clear vision that has exposed the idealsidols (Britain 385). Shaw believes that people idealize unpleasant and unnatural situations to make them endurable. After they pass this self-delusion part they become fervent followers ofthese lies and proı]lote institutions like marriage and put social pressure on others also to bear them. Maıriage and woman's subordinate role in marriage are the core issıles for Shaw.

and well being. Shaw would agree with Brandes that in Ibsen's work "Truth

and freedom are one and the same...And without truth there could be no change, no genuine freedom" (qtd. in Hemmer 68). In the Quintessence, Shaw also emphasizes how lbsen's work is about destroying illusions and showing society and the world around it without the blinding effects of the "ideals," a term which Shaw used to mean received ideas that distorted people's view of reality (19-22). According to Shaw, as most people do not have the courage to confront their illusions and charge them, they simply call "the sour grapes they can reach sweet" (22). Thus they

Men in Petticoats

Shaw and the Woman Question Contextualized

62

distort and create a totally illusionary sense of reality. Innes observes a very important psychological aspect in Shaw's reading of Ibsen:

What Shaw singled out was a strategy for trapping the audience through sequentially manipulating their responses, discrediting socially conditioned reflexes, exploding the conventional moral categories of hero or villain, and forcing spectators to re-evaluate their assumptions about the world around them. (Modern British Drama 1s-16).

As a result, the audience has no choice but revising their world view. Thus they are made to reconsider what is morally sound and unsound from a very

different perspective. Although it may not summarize Ibsen's art as a dramatist accurately, Innes notes that Shaw used this very same strategy throughout his own career as a playwright: "I deal in the tragic irony of the conflict between real life and the romantic imagination" (qtd. in Innes Modern British Drama 16). There is a very strong parallel between what he holds to be his own dramatic strategy and what he observes in Ibsen's art. Innes maintains that Shaw used Ibsen's realistic characterization which involves the representation of each character from their own 'operspective independent of moral stereotyping" as a yardstick to evaluate and criticize Victorian drama (16).

How does this strategy-to force an audience to confront their prejudices-operate in Shaw's approach to the woman question? The question to ask here is how ideals and idealism apply to Shaw's approach to the woman question. Victorian society fostered such idealization and higher

expectations of women. Just consider "the angel in the house" ideal. An angel is a super human being who can create miracles. As well as carrying a kind

of

compliment in it, "the angel in the house" ideal also connotes a heavy duty and impossible standards. Any woman who could not succeed in complying

with that superhuman condition would automatically be made to feel a failure. The "angel in the house" has duties which require absolute selfsacrifice regardless of human happiness because of its defiance of human natlıre, being supernatural itself. In a letter to Jules Magny on December L6,

1890 Shaw writes:

o'...we

63

begin to worship these commandments and ideals

for their own sakes, we actually place them in opposition to the very purpose

His [Ibsen's] plays are simply dramatic illustrations of the terrible mischief and idealist in their

they were instituted to serve, i.e. human happiness.

inexorable devotion to what they call their duty". (Letters IB74-1897 277)

One of the critics who accused Shaw of misinterpreting Ibsen was Gerould Daniel Charles. In "George Bernard Shaw's Criticism of Ibsen" (1967), Charles remarks that The Quintessence of lbsenism oodoes not tell us a

great deal about the plays as plays, it is

full of information about Ibsen in

relation to British public opinion and to the new drama in England" (137). In fact Shaw starts with a rather long introduction which sounds a bit irrelevant

to Ibsen's plays. Rather than directly dealing with the plays and analyzing them, Shaw directs our attention to the perspective that should be assumed to make sense of Ibsen's plays. In a sense he emphasizes the timeliness and significance of Ibsen's dramatic philosophy for late Victorian England of 1890. In The Quintessence after discussing the two types of pioneers and Ibsen's harsh criticism on ideals32 and idealists, Shaw deals with the woman issue.

According to Shaw, not only the Victorian man but also the woman had that "ideal" of a woman, which is contrary to the realities of life and human nature. Shaw makes his point through the example of the celebrated Ukraine

bom Russian aristocrat Marie Bashkirtseff, who struggled to become an artist, devoting all her time to distinguish herself in a male dominant society.

Bashkirtseffs much debated diary titled I Am the Most Interesting Book of 32

Shaw defines what he means with ideal, idealist and idealism in the following terms: "One or two persons with whom I have discussed the matter seem to have supposed that idealism stand and falls with generalization, abstraction, typification, and cognate methods of thought.

This of corırse would be absurd, although no doubt it is trying to work these methods that people fall into the mistaking which I call idealism. For instance, it would be interesting to obtain generalization of feminine beauty of the English type by making a composite photograph from all the pretty women in the country. But if you proceed to denounce as ugly every woman who did not resemble the photograph, and to take exception to her taste in dress on the ground that her bonnet, however becoming to herself, was unsuited to the face in the photograph, that worıld be idealism; but obviously a denunciation of such idealism would not be a denunciation of composite photography.'' (Fragments of a Fabian Lectııre 95)

64

Men in Petticoats

Shaw and the Woman Question Contextualized

65

AII (1887) was received with caution and distance, almost with an hostility by

reality. Consequently, to make marriage endurable to themselves, they would

Review of Review's editor William Stead who, in Shaw's words, "entered upon a campaign with the object of establishing the ideal of sexual "purity" as a condition of public life" (Quintessence 31). In his review Stead

...there are Philistine parrots who agree with their owners that it is

rationalize thus:

better to be in a cage than out, so long as there is plenty of hempseed

condemns her efforts: "artist, musician, wit, philosopher, sfudent, anything you like but a natural woman with a heart to love, and a soul to find its

themselves that the mission of a parrot is to minister to the happiness

supreme satisfaction in sacrifice for lover or for child" (32).Shaw argues that

of a private family by whistling and saying Pretty Polly, and that it is in

Stead's judgment on Bashkirtseff is a representative of the whole society's attitude towards women. For in Victorian society women did not have many options but getting married and having as many children as her husband

the sacrifice of its liberry to this altruistic pursuit that a true parrot finds

wished.33 Marriage was almost the only viable option for a middle or upper-

class Victorian woman. In the third chapter entitled "The Womanly Woman" Shaw argues against

the idealized notion of womanly woman who is expected to sacrifice all her

time for her children and husband instead of pursuing a cateer, perfecting herself in an art or aspiring to become a scientist or scholar (Quintessence 323). According to Shaw, this is not only unnatural but also unwise for man to ask for such a great sacrifice-for that can only lead to a disaster since "the

self sacrificer is always a drag, a responsibility, a reproach, an everlasting and unnatural trouble with whom no really strong soul can live" (34). Therefore, this kind of idealism which has almost no solid ground in the natural affairs of human heart devastates human relations from the very beginning. Shaw observes that idealism and the ruin caused by such idealism in human relations has a significant place in Ibsen's plays. He reads Brand, Peer Gynt and The Wild Duck as plays in which idealists destroy their friends and most close relatives. Shaw argues that in a given society of one thousand

people seven hundred of them would probably be happy with their marriage and never question the institution; of the other three hundred, two hundred and ninety-nine would be very uncomfortable but would not dare face the

For a very interesting and enlightening description ofthe circumstances ofnineteenth century women visit http:/iwww.hastingspress.co.uk/history/ I 9/overview.htm. 33

and Indian corn there. There may even be idealist parrots who persuade

the supreme satisfaction of its soul. (130)

Shaw condemns the novels and romances of his times as wearing "the most

beautiful of all the masks-those devised to disguise the brutalities of the sexual instinct in the earlier stages of its development. .." (20). Following that argument, he also suggests that marriage and family

life are forced upon

people although they are absolutely incompatible with their nature:

oomen

try

to graft pleasure on necessity by desperately pretending that the institution forced upon them is a congenial one.... and that a woman once desired is

always desired" (21). According to Shaw, it is even more unnatural for woman with its presumptions "that family is woman's proper sphere, and that no really womanly woman ever forms an attachment, or even knows what it means, until she is requested to do so by a man" (21). The maniage, or the family life, in these terms, is a trap both for women and men, whereas the idealists who would not be brave enough to face this reality would still "declare that the grapes they cannot get are sour...and also insist that the sloes they can get are sweet" (22). On the other hand, the realist would speak of marriage thus: "It is insufferable that two human beings, having entered into relations that only warm affection can render tolerable" (23-24). Essentially, Shaw is not against marriage. In Getting Married (1907), for instance, despite its shortcomings marriage is preferred to any other kind of union. What basically Shaw objects to is the feeling of entrapment parties felt within the legal framework of the marriage of late Victorian age. It is crucial to keep in mind that divorce was very painful and hard to get especially for women, as only rape, sodomy and bestiality were considered to be grounds

66

Men in Petticoats

Shaw and the Woman Question Contextualized

upon which marriage might be dissolved. According to Shaw, as people had

very little chance of restoring their happiness in case of a tratmatizing relationship in their marriage, it was not a reasonable choice as it was.3a Shaw fuithers his attack on that idealism from the aspect of marriage

which is strongly associated with woman, since it is regarded as the only choice for women. Shaw suggests that most men get married just to gratify their sexual "appetite," which they call o'love" to disguise even from themselves the real truth. Therefore, they do not see marriage as an end in itself but as a means to their own camal satisfaction. Once this camal appetite

is satisfied, Shaw argues, the husband goes back to his daily pursuits wide in the outside world, such as his business or other social and political pursuits. Consequently, a married woman is left alone at home in her confined world

to run the house. This insufferable situation, which might be expected to create a kind of rebellion, on the other hand, due to cowardice on women's side lead to idealization of the institution to make it tolerable for the very victim herself. When she finds that idealized love lasts only as long as the lust is quenched, and her newly married husband spends very little time with her but exhausts all his energies for work, she devotes herself to domestic duties and childcare. Thus, the illusion that woman's natural sphere lies with her family as a mother to look after the children and as the mistress of her house to run domestic matters is formed. (Quintessence 36-42)

The fact that Shaw pays so much attention to the idealized subjection of women in the late Victorian age along with Bashkirtseff issue tells us a great

deal about his political stance in the woman question. Shaw is for

the

emancipation of woman from the very beginning of his career as a playwright

considering the consistence of his work to Qııintessence a|l through his writing "ar"er."

"

Shaw had direct experience of such an unhappy marriage in his own mother and father's marriage, a case that Shaw had witnessed and suffered from at a very early age. (Holroyd, Search 13-36) 3s Although Shaw denounced some of his writings such as The Philanderer in his later years, he always confirmed his opinions that he put forward in Qııintessence.

67

Despite Ibsen's huge influence on Shaw, many critics observe that Shaw's opinions on the woman question were not solely formed through

Ibsen's work. Barbara Bellow Watson, in her A Shavian Guide to the Intelligent Woman (1964), explains Shaw's relation to Ibsen's work with these words: "Gathering up all that was implicit in the time, notably in the work of Ibsen, Shaw made explicit in his theories and vivid in his fiction, the 'new' assertion about women; that they exist as individuals, quite apart from their sexual role" (17). Watson also adds that Shaw created exquisite woman "characters and also heroines, that in their eccentricity and egotism they are neither ridiculous nor horrible, but charming and triumphant. Further, they

have a genuine importance as protagonists." (17) Before Shaw created his unforgettable women like Vivie Warren, Eliza Doolittle, Saint Joan or Major Barbara among many others, he had already dealt with the woman question

and emphasized the centrality of this issue in his work. Investigating the influence and importance of his early writings in the form of novels that Shaw wrote between 1879 and 1884, Watson sheds light on how Shaw's opinions on the woman question had already been formed when he was in his twenties. She states that Shaw used these writings as a resource for his later career as a playwright taking oocharacter, sifuations and whole scenes for later

and usually greater treatment in the plays" (33-34). Watson observes that Shaw's views on the woman question remained consistent all through his life

(33-4). Lorichs touches on the same point stating that especially the education of women, which was an important concern for Shaw all through his career as a playwright, was also the central theme of Shaw's first literary achievement My Dear Dorothea (140). Shaw was among the pioneers who realized the extent of Ibsen's influence which was so overwhelming that o'a modem manager need not produce The Wild Dııck, but he must be very careful not to produce a play which will seem old-fashioned to play-goers who have seen The Wild Dııck, even though they may have hissed it" (qtd. in Berst, "New Theatres for Old" 72). During 1890s as a theatre critique, as he acknowledges, his criticism was "a siege laid to the theatre of the nineteenth century by an author who had to cut his own way into it at the point of a pen, and throw some of its defenders

68

Shaw and the Woman Question Contextııalized

Men in Petticoats

to the moat" ("New Theatres for Old" 58). Ibsen was Shaw's starting point and model in attacking the old drama and building the new one.

III

SHAW AND WOMEN

69

Men in Petticoats

Shaw and Women

70

71

her children like Mrs Clandon in You Never Can Tell (1897) or dominate the

situations independently as Vivie Warren in Mrs Warren's Profession (1894) does; his mother's relation with Vandeleur Lee 9

His Mother's Son Shaw's attitude towards art (like his attitude towards most things) is a complicated subject because of his varying and apparently contradictory utterances on it. That is why it is important not to take any one statement as Shaw's whole view of this or any other subjecı. (Wisenthal46)

in Sunday husbands from

Candida's (1895) Marchbanks to Adrian of The Millionairess (1935); or the fear of disappointment in marriage as in the case of Edith and Sykes in Getting Married ( 1 908). Shaw's father and mother seem to be a very unlikely match considering their ages and stations in life. George Carr Shaw came from an aristocratic

family who had been in the decline. Although he had a name and good connections, he was 38, a drunkard and a failure in terms of work when he proposed to 2l year old Lucinda Elizabeth Gurly who came from a wealthy family and had every reason to expect to make a good match. However, she was in the middle of a crisis in her life due to her family affairs. Any choice but staying with her father and her would be step-mother must have sounded

Bessie [Shaw's motherJ was teaching singing and Lucy [Shaw's sisterJ was trying to make a career singing in opera bouffe. Both women rebelled against their gender defined roles and were crucial in Shaw's sympathy with the plight of the independent woman. But it was his mother's assertion of female power and her defiance of assigned female roles exuality, respectab ility, and career fulfillment that most affected Shaw. (Peters, "Shaw's Life" 6) concerning

s

Affirming Peters' point, Griffith observes that "the women of Shaw's family were in some respects prototypes of the 'new woman"' (164). If we take these two statements as a starting point, a brief look into the portrait of Bernard Shaw's mother will shed light on Shaw's approach to the woman question. Apart from two Dublin years from 1874 to 1876, Shaw spent the first forty two years of his life with his mother until he got married in 1898 and moved out to live with his wife Charlotte Payne (Townshend) Shaw. We can see many of the themes that Shaw would use in his plays in his family history: The strong woman who can leave home and take the responsibility of

Carr Shaw's proposal ignorant of the fact that she was marrying an alcoholic. (Holroyd, Search 8-12) a better option to her. She accepted George

When Mrs. Shaw discovered the truth, it was too late for her. Holroyd states that there was no love between the husband and the wife who despised

and found him revolting. George Bernard Shaw was born into this very unhappy family atmosphere. Quite obviously, his mother was far from being affectionate to her children: "'I knew very little about her."' This was partly because she did not concem herself with him. Her own childhood had been made miserable by bullying, but Lucinda never bullied; she made her son miserable by neglect: o"She was simply not a wife or mother at all.' Nor

Synge Street a home: 'neither our hearts nor our imaginations were in it"' (Holroyd, Searchl6). Owing to her neglect, little Bemard Shaw had to spend most of his time with the servants whom he did not like in the least. Despite her indifference, Shaw as a boy was very much an admirer of his mother36: 36

o'I

In a letter to Gilbeı1 Muıray in l911 Shaw confesses his oedipal relation to his mother: "I very seldom dream of my mother; but when I do, she is my wife as well as my mother. When this first occured to me (well on in my life), what surprised me when I awoke was that the notion of incest had not entered into the dream: I had taken it as a matter of course that the maternal fiınction included the wifely one; and so did she. What is more, the sexual relation

Men in Petticoats

Shaw and Women

72

hated the servants and liked my mother because on one or two rare and delightful occasions she buttered my bread for mç, she buttered it thickly instead of merely wiping a knife on

it..." (20). The fact that even such

a

small gesture and generosity was enough to forget her neglect and forgive her reveals the extent of his thirst and hunger of attention from his mother. In Sixteen Self-Sketches Shaw justifies Bessie thus: "...she detested her grand aunt and regarded all that had been taught her of religion and discipline as

tyranny and slavery. Consequently, as she was naturally very humane, she abandoned her own children to the most complete anarchy." (24-5) He, furthermore, expresses his boundless admiration with these words: "I could idolize her to the utmost pitch of my imagination and had no sordid or disillusioning contacts with her. It was a privilege to be taken for a walk or a visit with her, or on an excursion" (20). The mother of three children, Mrs. Shaw introduced Vandeleur Lee, the renowned music teacher of the time in Dublin, into her family in 1860. Shaw accounts for Lee's place in his mother's life with these words: "He not only made my mother sing by a method that preserved her voice perfectly until her

Although his biographers suggested that there was a love affair between Vandeleur Lee and his mother, Shaw always rejected the rumor stating that his mother was such a sexless woman that she could stay in the barracks of an army from 20 to 40 year old and get out of it without a stain on her character (Search26). Shaw did not have much respect for his father. George Carr was never a successful businessman, so he always had financial troubles. In addition to that, his drink would always come before his children and wife. Although

Carr could somehow afford booze, there was never enough money to send Bemard to good schools. Hence, George Bernard had to attend a Catholic day school at Vandeleur Lee's suggestion, which as Holroyd comments was a terrible blow, a social suicide for any Protestant boy as he would never be welcomed by the Catholic boys meanwhile losing his caste in the Protestant community. At very early ages he was to be apprenticed to many jobs. Finally, at fifteen he started to work at aland agent's38 as a clerk. He never liked the job and blamed his father for not taking sound care of him and his education.

(S e arc h 26 -3 6)

When his mother left Dublin with the sisters

death at over eighty but gave her a Cause and creed to live for" (Self-Sketches

3l). In the next fourteen years that she would stay in Dublin, Lucinda was all

73

in

1874, following

Vandeleur Lee, Bernard was left behind with his father. Young Shaw did not

for music, dedicating all her time for rehearsals and practice. Holroyd

hesitate to leave home at the first opportunity

suggests that Shaw had from time to time doubted whether his real father could have been Vandeleur Lee, who was such a dominant presence that they

ask his father's health even by letter. In the following ten years at least, Shaw

even started to live together after some time (Search 24).

spending all his time at the British Museum reading room and following all

Lee's contribution to the family budget gave the Shaw family

a

considerable breathing space as George Carr Shaw's business did not do very well. In 1866 they were able to afford to move to Dalkey Hill37, a seaside

of Dublin nine miles to the city centre, with Vandeleur Lee. This mönage a trois was accepted by George Carr Shaw without much ado. suburb

acquired all the innocence of the filial, and the filial one all the completeness of the sexual one." (qtd. in Griffith l6l) " Shaıv later in his Sixteen Sel/'-52"r"rrt says that when his mother told him that they were going to live in Dalkey Hill, getting this news was the happiest moment in his life (Search 27).

in

1876 not to return again or

financially depended on his mother, while writing six hard-to-publish novels, the latest literary, artistic, political and philosophical movements. His mother

was the one who supported him on his way to a successful career as a playwright. It was in 1885, at the age of 29, Shaw started to earn his own life as a journalist (Shaw, Self-Sketches 87). Yet he still lived with his mother and sister Lucy until he got married in 1898.

As Shaw followed his mother rather than staying with his father, we can safely say that in his estimation Bessie was a strong woman who had the 38

Townshend's, his future wife's family owned the business.

74

Men in Petticoats

Shaw and Women

75

power to change her dismal situation and emancipate herself from a husband who did not deserve her or her children. With this move Bessie became the

head of her family-the very opposite of the role assigned to her in the Victorian society. The son of such a mother would obviously deny the conventional role model which women were supposed to follow. In one sense, the 'onew woman" of the time was Shaw's mother incamate (Sally Peters, 'oShaw's Life" 6). She was a Nora, even stronger than Nora as she

also managed to shoulder her children on the way to her own and their emancipation.

10

Shaw as a Lover and Husband

In most of his plays, Shaw seems to be the ultimate expert in

sexual

relations. Yet in his own life, as his biographers and he himself tell us until he started to earn his own life

in

1885, Shaw had almost no serious relation

with any woman. In his Shaw in his Time (1965), Ivor Brown accounts for Shaw's failure in terms of his relations with women within these words:

"Poveğ

had its share and the lover must feel abashed... [if he] cannot pay the bill for even the most simple entertaining" (73). As soon as Shaw started to make money he almost became a Casanova.

Shaw was very open about his sexual life. Although it ought to have been very private, Shaw did not feel any restraints not to make it public that he had his first sexual experience at the age of 29 with one of his mother's

friends, Mrs. Jenny Patterson, a widow 13 years his senior. Unfortunately, this first experience did not turn out well in the years to come Shaw carried Jenny's jealousy to the stage in The Philanderer in the character of Julia Craven. Brown notes that Shaw flirted with a lot of women in his thirties. Among these women were Florence Farr3e, Janet Achurchao, Annie Bessant4l,

3'Fıorence Farr, Mrs Edward Emery (1860_19l7), English actress and director, chiefly

connected with the introduction of plays by Ibsen, Shaw, and Yeats to the London stage. She played Rebecca West in the first London production of Ibsen's Rosmersholm (1891) and appeared as Blanche in Shaw's Widowers'Houses (1892), the first of his plays to be staged (Oxford Companion to the Theatre). a0 English stage actress (1364- 1916) who acted the Nora part in the first English I Dol/'s

Hoııse.

a'

British socialist, political activist, columnist and Irish Home Rule supporter (1847-1933). She was converted to socialism bv Bernard Shaw.

76

Shaw and Women

May Moniso', Eıeano. Marx43, Mrs. Patrick Campbellaa and Ellen Terryas. Shaw's relationship with most of them was only on a platonic level: "His dreams of fair women made him see himself as an incorrigible philanderer in

fancy while remaining an escapist in practice . . ." (Brown 73). His correspondence with Ellen Terry is a very good indication of this escapism and fear of commitment. Although Ellen Terry wanted to meet him in person

many times, he always rejected arguing that what they had platonically was much more precious than what they would experience physically.

At the age of forty as a renowned Fabianista6, drama critic, political pamphleteer, public speaker and joumalist Shaw was a very popular a2Daughter

of the renowned artist, political activist and author William Morris who was a friend of William Shaw (Britannica Online Encyclopedia). o3 The youngest daughter of Karl Marx (1855-1898). She was a political activist and literary translator. She translated Ibsen's An Enemy of the Society andThe Lady of the Sea. (Encyclopedia of Marxism) Shaw took part in her home reading of A Doll's House (1886), Shaw read Krogstad and Eleanor took Nora. (Finney, 89) aa Mrs. Patrick Campbell (1365-1940) was an English actress who earned her early success in 1890s in two of Pinero's plays; Paula in The Second Mrs Tanqueray (1893) and Agnes in The Notorious Mrs Ebbsmith (1s95). She also acted in plays like Ibsen's Hedda Gabler (1907) Shaw was an admirer of her as an actress. He wrote the part of Eliza Doolittle in Pygmalion (1914) for her. They exchanged letters for a long time. "(Their correspondence was published after his death, and formed the basis of Jerome Kilty's dramatic dialogıe Dear Liar,1959)" (Oxford Companion to the Theatre). Brown also gives a brief account of Shaw's stormy relation with Mrs. Campbell: "With a fiery and capricious temper... she was even ready for physical violence...Like Jenny, she was punished in a play. The ridiculous grapple of King Magnus and Orinthia in the Apple cart. . .is based on some in-fighting when Shaw was insisting on leaving Mrs. Pat's company for home and duty" (82). " Du-e Ellen Alice Teıry was the English stage actress (|847-1928) (oxford Companion to the Theatre). She had a very interesting correspondence with Shaw. Shaw wooed her through letters but he refused to meet her in person. For more detailed information see Auerbach. o6 Fabian society was founded in 1883-4. Shaw was one of the three most influential members of Fabian socialism in England. The movement took its name from the Roman military leader Fabius Cunctator (Fabius the Delayer) who had used gradualism as a strategy to reach his ends. In that the Fabian socialists also assumed gradualism rather than violent revolution, they expected to slowly move into important positions and change the cultural and political climate gradually. HG Wells was also one of the important Fabians. Although the number of the members of Fabian society never reached more than ten thousand, the Fabians had a great influence on the Labour Party. With Sidney and Beatrice Webb, Shaw was one of the ideologues of the party. (Britannica Online Encyclopedia) In the 1889 Fabian Essays in Socialism, Shaw was the only writer with more than one essay. Fabian gradualism also affected Shaw's plays. Apart from Widowers' Hoııses, almost in no other play does Shaw assume a crude propagandist attitude. There is nothing directly related to socialism in most of his plays. For instaııce, anyone who does not know that Shaw was a socialist would

Men in Petticoats

77

bachelor. Just like Don Juan in Man and Superman he would always escape in the last minute from further commitment, marriage; one of the last victims

being Bertha Newcombe, Beatrice and Sidney Webb's very close friend. Holroyd relates how Shaw was looking for a relationship as productive as Sidney and Beatrice's for they were both very actively engaged in intellectual work, writing their separate books thus never demanding each other's attention or interest as a price of their marriage. (Holroyd, Search 429). When Shaw discovered that Bertha would not be as independent as he would like, nor would allow him to be independent he tried to make her understand that their relation would not work, but almost like Julia Craven in The Philanderer, she would not be convinced (Search 430-31). When Shaw met Charlotte Payne Townshend, a well to do Irish lady who had been recruited to the Fabian cause by Beatrice Webb, they both took a sudden liking to each other. Miss Townshend had such an enorrnous wealth that she had donated 1000 pounds to the London School of Economics and another 300 pounds for a scholarship for women. Her generosity made all the

Fabian doors wide open to her. Charlotte had read Shaw's Quintesssence and very much influenced. She became his volunteer secretary learning to decode

Shaw's shorthand; she helped him in the publication process of Plays Unpleasant and Plays Pleasant in 1898. Although they got on perfectly well with each other and everybody expected them to get married soon, Shaw never proposed. Even when Charlotte herself proposed, overcoming her Victorian "womanly pride," Shaw did not consent arguing that the immense difference in their income would make Shaw seem like a fortune hunter in the eyes of the world. (Search 432-42)

Taking long trips to Ireland, to the north of England and Italy, Charlotte absented herself from Shaw's life. During Charlotte's last visit to Italy, Shaw experienced a foot injury which ended in such severely swollen foot that he had to go through an operation. For almost two months he could not walk and

not be able to guess that fact about the writer having seen Pygmalion, Caesar and Cleopatra or The Millionairess.For more detailed information on Fabianism and Shaw see Carpenter; Beilharz and Nyland; Holroyd, Search 124-33,17l-90.

Shaw and Women

78

Men in Pettİcoats

he was so helpless and desperate that he acutely realized how lonesome and desperate he was, that he really needed a support and that he could not go on

79

Tanner in Man and Superman yields to the same temptation. Epifania's speech in The Millionairess (1935) seems to supply us with an explanation.

solo. Consequently, he had to admit that he really needed her (Search 43165). Yet again, as he did in his plays, he could not help thinking of her but ambivalently. There was that Charlotte with "die schöne grünen Augen" who

Although her husband is unfaithful, she does not want to divorce him as

had a feminine attraction for Shaw, and there was that other Charlotte who

from being wooed and bothered by them. As Griffith marks, Shaw himself was a rather "philandering" man before his marriage and felt that tendency from time to time, yet the married Shaw would not go any further than

represented the "spider" who would snatch away

his independence

and

devour him. In that, Shaw was just like Jack Tanner in Man and Superman,

but only with one difference that instead of the spider, Tanner uses the boa constrictor as an image:

You count that I have lost only one Charlotte,....but I have lost two....I may miss "die schöne grünen Augen", but then I think of the other

Charlotte, the lier-in-wait, the soul hypochondriac, always watching and dragging me into bondage, Charlotte,

the terrible

always planning nice, sensible, comfortable, selfish destruction for me,

wincing at every accent of freedom in my voice so that at last I get the trick of hiding myself from her, hating me and longing for me with the absorbing passion of the spider for the fly. (Collected Letters 18981910 24)

Shaw is obviously more articulate on Charlotte's negative aspects. As Holroyd states, he "felt relieved" that she had gone. The beautiful green eyes are heavily outweighed by the "lier-in-wait", "planning nice, sensible, comfortable, selfish destruction for me" and "the soul hypochondriac" and what not. This is not a very surprising stance, considering all Shaw's pronouncements on marriage. In The Quintessence, The Philanderer and in many later plays such as Getting Married there are always characters who are

might be expected and her reason is that when she has a husband she does not have to won"y about other men (70). Her married status gives her protection

flirtation as he 'owas happiest leaving it at that and was relieved after his functional celibate marriage...to be able to plead his wife's feelings whenever... a passionate huntress... threatened to disturb and shatter his emotional brittleness" (160). According to Peters, marriage gave Bernard Shaw's life a certain discipline and direction. She describes how marriage changed Shaw's life with these words: "Safe from pursuing women, the married playwright became the successful playıvright" (16).

As we know from his biography, Shaw and Charlotte had a

celibate

marriage partly because of Charlotte's fears of matrimony since she was over

forİy when they got married. Charlotte believed that child bearing would likely to be fatal to her. As Sally Peters observes, there was another reason why the marriage was never consummated. Shaw married Charlotte while he was in a wheelchair in 1898 and after another accident in the first few months

of his betrothal he also broke his arm. Therefore, in the first two years of their marriage, Charlotte assumed the role of his nurse and the pattern continued all through their married life.

Shaw's correspondence shows that far from expecting Charlotte to devote her tiıne and energy for his comfort so that he could use his time for

extremely suspicious of marriage as a sound institution. In one of his personal letters to Mr. Bright, a junior who asked his opinion on how to become a writer, along with varying advice he strongly urged him not to get

his writing, Shaw always encouraged her to take up an

married (Collected Letters 1874-1897 465).

the municipality of Rome. When she came back she wanted to resume her

For all his opposing views, the fact that he married a woman for whom he had such "terrible" reseryations might seem self-contradictory, but Jack

independent

occupation which would keep her busy and useful. While Charlotte was in her last trip to Italy she had taken his advice and done a thorough survey

of

secretarial work for him, but Shaw wanted her to write her own book (Collected Letters 1898-1910 40). Shaw always respected her as an

80

Men in Petticoats

Shaw and Women

independent entity; for instance, although

81

it was considered to be man's

responsibility to do the tax return of the whole family, as women would not be recognized as independent bodies in marriage, Shaw objected to doing her income tax refurn documents together because neither he knew her income nor would think it right to condescend to reduce her to such an inferior position (Rodelle Weintraub 7). All these accounts given by different sources demonstrate that Shaw's conduct towards

11

Shaw's Support for Women's

his wife in his marriage was

Political Representation

consistent with his pro-feminist writings.

Shaw always wanted women to get involved in politics and take responsibility like men. He himself was proud more than anything to be a vestryman for the South St. Pancras county council for six years from 1897 to

1903. During his active career as a vestryman he opposed acts which excluded women from taking active participation in the borough Councils.

According to Shaw, the presence of women would give the parliamentary system a sense of seriousness and responsibility.aT What Shaw observed as a male politician in these borough meetings was that even very grave matters could be degraded into the status of mere trifles by the untimely jokes of the all-male members and dismissed as if they bore no importance at all: "during

a facetious debate in the House of Lords, being that these Councils would consist of aldermen and a woman could not possibly be an alderman. With

this Joke', women vanished for several years from the

London

municipalities" (Holroyd, Search 416).

For Shaw, women's involvement in politics promised not only the restitution of women's political rights, but also constituted a political a7

Holroyd relates Shaw's views thus: "'English decency is a rather dirty thing. It is responsible for more indecency than anything else in the world. It is a string of taboos. You must not mention this: you must not appear conscious of that: you must not meddle with the other-at least, not in public. And the consequence is that everything that must not be mentioned in public is mentioned in private as a naughty joke. . ..There is only one absolutely certain and preventive for such indecency, and that is the presence of women. If there were no other groıınd for giving women the vote, I would support it myself on no other ground that that men will not behave themselves when women.are not presenİ." (Search 4|6-17)

Men in Petticoats

Shaw and Women

82

83

necessity for the good of the whole society. Shaw believed that women even

when they are excluded had political powers indirectly; by way of

Chairman, but "proceeded to give the householders' representatives an embarrassingly intimate cross-examination" (Search 417). Shaw's relation

influencing their husbands, fathers, brothers, friends and relatives, women

with the suffragettes revealed other complications.

had, in fact, a lot of influence on the politics. Holroyd notes that Shaw used

his "experiences as a vestryman" to publicize "the need for women on public bodies," but the public opinion of the time might well be seen in the attitude of The Times towards a letter on women which they declined to publish. He just wanted to challenge and change "the customary polite assumption that women are angels" (Search 417) which seemed to lie at the very heart of

women's exclusion from the political rights and other advancements. In Shaw's view, the moment you stop treating people fairly and honestly you become fair game for all kinds of trickery and dishonesty. Thus Shaw defends women from accusations of trickery and crooked ways, another discourse which aims to justify the exclusion of women from political bodies. In his 1907 letter to New York American which was published under the

title "Why All Women are Peculiarly Fitted to be good Voters" Shaw states that "If once you introduce injustice, evil is never left on one side" (251).

Women, having been denied human dignity, cannot be expected to act honorably. (Note how his argument echoes Mill's views on the same point!). Consequently, women were left only with the possibility of indirect involvement which could often be irresponsible or dangerously manipulative. He would rather see women take straightforward responsibility for their political views and answer for them directly. (Watson, Shavian Guide 189e0)

He also argued for the inclusion of women into the politics on

the

grounds that women had their own needs and problems which could only be addressed

by them. While Shaw was serving as a vestryman at the

St.

Pancras Vestry board in late 1890s, there was a question of whether to build a

public toilet for women or not. When a group of landlords came to object to the o'construction of an underground lavatory for women," Shaw suggested that the delegates should not be received since he believed that an all-male

group could not represent "a woman's question." He was overruled by the

Men in Petticoats

Shaw and Women

84

85

police. These arrests were a part of their strategy as to attract public attention to their cause. Emmeline Pankhurst's defense before the court, "suffrage Speech at the Old Bailey" (1912) is a significant event in the history of women's rights movements. The speech gives a brief account of how the

12

Shaw and the Suffragettes

In "Shaw on Woman Suffrage:

E. Kelly

A Minor Player

on the Petticoat Platform"

claims that though Shaw is widely known as a feminist and an active supporter of the suffrage movement, his position on the suffrage was quite "ambivalent" and far from serious in most of his supposedly grave pronouncements and that he was most of the time reluctant (1992), Katherine

support Pankhursts, who were the leading figures of the suffrage movement. On the other hand, a parallel reading of Shaw's views on women's active participation in politics, Shaw's celebration of Sylvia Pankhurst draws a different picture of her than her obituary on Shaw's death.

to

According to Harrison, the writer of Sylvia Pankhurst: A Crusadins Lfe o.very 1882-1960, despite a considerable amount of struggle and hard work,

little visible progress had been made since Mary Wollstonecraft" until the breakthrough in women's rights by the Pankhursts. Haırison suggests that Pankhursts, mother Emmeline and daughter Sylvia, were the most important figures in the British women's rights movements after Wollstonecraft. (6-7)

In

1903, the same year Shaw's career ended as a vestryman, a very

important development took place in the history of women's movements in

England. Emmeline Pankhurst (1858-1928) founded the Women's Social and Political Union (WSPU). Soon it attracted large numbers of women who sought enfranchisement for women. Although Emıneline Pankhurst and her

movement developed and came to such a point that suffragettes were accused of using militant tactics and violence.

With the passing of the 1867 Reform Act, Pankhurst writes, women had the illusion that they would have the right to register for Parliamentary Elections. Yet the word "male"

in

1832 Reform Act, which had extended

to a large number of men, meant the exclusion of the women from suffrage. Pankhurst expresses the injustice of such an Act as enfranchisement

follows: "...that we must pay our taxes, we must obey laws; but when it comes to choosing the men who impose the taxes and make the laws, we have no legal existence..." (193). Pankhurst questions the injustice of women's being judged solely by men: "What right have you, as men, to judge women? Who gave you that right, women having no voice in deciding the legal system of this country, no voice in saying what is a crime and what is not a crime?" (197) Notwithstanding, she still uses the court platform to present their cause. First of all, she declares that the determination of the parliament, the politicians and the media to ignore and avoid them left them with no choice but to press their cause further by radical action. She states that although the members of WSPU tried to use very

civil acts to

present

their cases to the House of Commons by petitions, their petitions were not accepted. The letters they wrote to newspapers were boycotted, and their questions to politicians ignored. Yet they had no intention of being put off by this avoidance. When they insisted on being answered, they were arrested and convicted. Pankhurst argues that they were given no choice but to take

friends tried every civil means to make the women's cause public and to change the laws which did not give women the right to vote or to be elected,

more and more radical measures to attract public attention to their cause. (re2-e8)

she saw that moderate measures did not or could not yield any results in any

Shaw showed his support to the suffragettes with his plays and

All

means. Consequently, WSPU decided to be more active and radical in their

pamphlets. In his "Why

demonstrations. As a result, a lot of the WSPU members were aırested by the

(1907), Shaw argues that giving the right to vote to women means activating

Women Are Peculiarly Fitted to be Good Voters"

86

Men in Petticoats

Shaw and Women

a most beneficial energy, which stood wasted because of the exclusion of women from the political system. As an intellectual who believes that there is no difference between men and women in terms of their mental capacities and talents, Shaw expresses his views in the following words: "...there is in England at present-a very wonderful contingent of women of extraordinary ability...doing first rate work...By giving them the franchise England will set free an immense and beneficial flood of political and social energy which is now taken up by this question" (254).

Along with his political speeches, pamphlets, interviews and letters to the press, Shaw as a playwright supported the suffragettes with two of his plays in which suffragettes are represented quite fairly and heroically. In Press Cuttings (1909), suffragettes are the central issue and the protagonists of the play. Again in Fanny's First PIay (1911) Fanny is a very advanced girl, a Cambridge student who is actively involved in the suffragette movement. Indeed, Fanny's arrest by the police at a suffiagette meeting is the source of inspiration for her character in the play.

In Fabian Feminist: Bernard Shaw and Woman (1977),

Rodelle

Weintraub gives a rather enlightening description of Shaw's relations with the suffragettes and especially with Emmeline Pankhurst and her daughter Sylvia Pankhurst. Although Shaw was himself a feminist, he was a man who did not like to act in a movement over which he had very little control. That is why, at times, Shaw did not give as much support as the suffragettes would

have liked. In many cases, he declined to talk on suffragette meetings and sign petitions. For instance, when the Pankhursts in the beginning years of World War I wanted to seize the opportunity to force their case to Parliament, Shaw declined to give his support and he was "attacked for his pacifism" as a result. As Rodelle Weintraub relates Shaw and Pankhurst's relations "soured a

bit during that period" (10). On the other hand, after the war they reconciled

and their solidarity was established once again: "Mrs. Pankhurst included in her speeches lines Shaw wrote for her" (10).

Far from dissociating himself and caricaturing the suffragettes, as Kelly asserts, Shaw appreciated and applauded the Pankhursts' political struggle.

Talking on the BBC in and Sylvia Pankhurst:

l93l

87

Shaw finds many parallels between Saint Joan

If you want an example from your own time, if you want to find what women can feel when they suddenly find the whole power of society marshaled against them...then read a very interesting book...by Miss

Sylvia Pankhurst describing what women did in the early part of this century in order to get the.... vote. Miss Sylvia Pankhurst, like so many other women in the movement, was tortured. In fact, except for buming, she suffered physical torture which Joan was spared...If you read Miss Pankhurst you will understand a greü deal more about the psychology of Joan... (qtd. in Romero 191) It is not likely possible to pay any higher compliment than that to a woman

like Sylvia Pankhurst, who dedicated her life to her cause. When Shaw died in the autumn of 1950 Sylvia Pankhurst wrote a eulogy inthe New Times and Ethiopia News:

I have fond memories of Bemard Shaw's outspoken support to the suffragettes, at a time when the voices were raised against us....I remember gratefully his help during the first World War, when I and others from our headquarters in the east End of London were striving to

obtain fairer dealings for the mothers, wives, and children of the soldiers....Shaw emerged as protagonist of social welfare and reform when English socialism wore the numbers of its early glory, proclaiming the brotherhood of mankind. (qtd. in Romero 273) Thus Sylvia Pankhurst sums up her relations with Shaw, who was not always as supportive as expected. Whereas, he still gave favorable attention to the suffragettes with his writings and his conduct. Watson suggests that as a socialist, Shaw believed that winning the right to vote could not and should

not be the final aim of the women's rights movements. Suffrage would not

solve most of the problems that women faced that day (and today). Watson notes that when women finally got the right to vote, they did not vote for women but brought men to posts with their votes. For Shaw, women's suffrage raised deeper questions, and he found a kind of illusion in the belief

BB

Men in Petticoats

Shaw and Women

that suffrage alone could bring equality between sexes (Watson 212-14). According to Shaw, women had also to take important posts, get more responsibility in public bodies, and hold more political power in terms of representation.

IV

SIIAW'S WOMEN

CHARACTERS

l I

89

90

Shaw's Women Characters

Men in Petticoats

9L

he can, if not become his mistress" (251). This was an idea quite widespread

among the radicals of the time. In a very highly cited quotation Friedrich Engels establishes a direct link between marriage and prostitution: "Marriage

itself remained, as before the legally recognized form, the official cloak of prostitution, and moreover, was supplemented by rich crops of adultery" (qtd.

13

Mrs lY'arren's Profession (1894) Along with, Man ond Superman (1903), Pygmalion (1913), Heartbreak House (1916) and Saint Joan (1923) Shaw scholars have shown a great interest in different aspects of Mrs. Warren's Professiorı. Nethercot aptly catalogues the literary influences and stimulants which were in operation when Shaw wrote Mrs. Warren's Profession. Among the works Shaw had in mind was a story by Maupass anİ: Yvette, which Janet Achurch Charringtona8, read first and asked Shaw to adapt to stage. Holroyd states that Shaw started

Mrs. Warren's Profession two days after he borrowed a private copy of Pinero's The Second Mrs. Tanqueray4e from his close friend, critic and playwright William Archer (Search 291). A few days later, he told his Fabian friend Sidney Webb, one of the three most significant figures of the Fabian society with his wife Beatrice and Bernard Shaw, that he had finished the first act of his new play where he blended the plot of The Second Mrs. to write

Tanqueray with that of The Cenci (292).

ln Mrs. Warren we find a very lively not-conscience stricken "fallen" woman, Mrs. Kitty Warren who believes that she has been the victim of capitalism which has created such a huge gap between the poor and the rich that morality and integrity are out of question in such an unjust and immoral system. She has justified all her deeds arguing that as a working class girl instead of wasting her life like her half-sister who was poisoned at the lead

factory and died at a young age, she traded her chastity for a better and "honorable" life. While doing that Mrs Warren also suggests a parallel between marriage and prostitution: "What's a woman got to do? Marry him o8

She was the first Nora in l889 A Doll Hoııse, who also wrote a play departing from the same play Mrs. Daintrees Daııghter. ae Nethercot also notes that in the nineties the fallen woman as a dramatic issue was quite popular. He gives the following examples: Wilde's Lady Windermere'S Fan, Dıımas'Ia Dame aııx Canıölias, and Aı.ıgier's Le Mariage d'olymp.

if

in Greiner 11). Mrs warren, furthermore, argues that in the brothels she runs, women have better treatment and prospects: none dies because of lead poisoning besides some may mar-ry really wealthy and respectful people.

A play of such radical messages can only be grasped in its dialogue with the other plays of the late Victorian period. According to Shaw, the conventional theatre had created an audience that expected established beliefs to be repeated again and again, and saw any ideas that challenged these

beliefs as contrary to human nature. Shaw calls this problematic relation between real life and expectations from the stage "theatrified imagination": "Mrs. Warren's Profession shall be tolerated on the stage only when they are beautiful, exquisitely dressed, and sumptuously lodged and fed; also that they shall, at the end of the play, die of consumption to the sympathetic tears of the whole audience, or step into the next room to commit suicide" (186). On

the other hand, Shaw's aim and struggle were basically to undermine these ideals which for him were insults to human reasoning.

In Mrs. Warren's Profession, instead of throwing "the whole guilt of Mrs. warren's profession on Mrs. warren herself' shaw directs "that guilt on the British public itself' (200-201). As also Eltis emphasizes, Shaw gives Mrs. warren a chance to justify herself against the conventional morality (229). Kitty as one of the daughters of a "widowed" woman sees what poverty is at a very young age. She implies that her sister Lizzy and Kitty herself were also illegitimate children. She states that their father was a "gentleman" which suggests that their mother was the gentleman's mistress. she also grew up without ever knowing her own father. Neither is there any sign of the elder sisters' father. In that sense, even before her birth, Kitty's destiny was in a way determined by her family history. Despite the fact that their mother tried to lead an "honorable" life, she could not save her

Shaw's Women Characters

92

Men in Petticoats

daughters from destruction. One of her daughters died because of lead poisoning at the white lead factory. One married to a worker who became an alcoholic later on and made life miserable to her. On another line, Lizzy and Kitty became prostitutes and only thus saved themselves from destitution. Shaw raises two questions here; one moral and one political. Which one is the right thing to do as an individual? To stay where you are and accept your

ever to learn who her father is. In fact

Kiğ's

and money behind unless all her questions are answered. When Kitty explains everything, all her circumstances and how she was drawn to prostitution in a way implying that all were in the past and nothing to do with

the present, Vivie understands her mother and she believes that she is justified. The next day, though, Vivie leams that her mother is still engaged

in the same business, in partnership with Crofts, a character she abhors so much that she states should she find any resemblance between herself and him, she "would open an artery and bleed to death" (ll3). She immediately

andLizzy's prostitution: The society that would not help

create a healthy environment where individuals can lead their lives honorably and with dignity or Lizzy and Kitty who feared the white lead factory more

leaves home and goes to her friend Onoria Frasier, with whom she plans to become partners in actuarial mathematics. In the last act of the play, she just

than prostitution?

rejects all the proposals made to him by Praed, Frank and lastly and quite

Everybody says that Lizzy would jump off a bridge and commit suicide because of her "wicked" life. When Kitty-working at a restaurant sixteen hours a day barely keeping body and soul together-sees Lizzy again,Lizzy is not desperate as they picture her but glamorously glowing. She is well dressed like a lady and has a lot of money in her pocket. Because

Kiğ

Vivie feels that she knows nothing

about her mother before she confronts her. She is ready to leave all the luxury

fate as the step sisters have done and yield to a miserable life or eam your own independence at all costs? The political question is "Who or what is to

blame for

93

movingly from her mother. She states that she does not want to see her mother any longer. That is as much as Shaw punishes Mrs. Warren for her "sin". Her justification of her profession on the stage and her relatively soft punishment in the end were less than satisfactory for the censor of the time.

has

no better prospects before her, she yields to temptation but contrary to o'fallen" sisters prosper and become very "theatrific imagination" the

Shaw was accused of promoting prostitution.

successful businesswomen in white slave trade, opening brothels in Brussels,

braved to stage the much condemned and attacked Ibsen's Ghosts, refused to

Vienna and Budapest.

stage

Kitty has a daughter but she does not know from whom she conceived her. Although she leads a quite unconventional life ignoring all social and moral conventions, Mrs. Warren wants to bring up her daughter Vivie just like a lady. She sends her daughter to the most prestigious schools, she hires

first actresses to whom Shaw offered Mrs. Warren's role said to Shaw that even in a room, on her own, she found it difficult to utter these sentences aloud, let alone on the stage to a house full of spectators. When it was first

Even JT Grein, the director of the Independent Theatresl, who had

premiered in the U.S. in New Haven

the most distinguished tutors and she tries to give her the best of everything.

in

1905,

it

the

created so much public

t' The Independent Theatre Society (1391-1S97) was founded by Holland born drama critic JT Grein in l891. In its foundation German "Freie Bühne" and French "Thöötre-Libre" were

Vivie goes to Newnham College, Cambridge and distinguishes herself in Mathematical Tripos as a third wrangler.so On the other hand, Mrs. Warren finds only too little time from her business to spend with Vivie. Thus Vivie becomes an independent young woman and of course she demands more than 50

Mrs Warren's Profession because he found it too radical. One of

taken as prototypes. Grein wanted to stage the new drama on stage which could not find their way to the commercial London theatre (Miller 165-75). His first production, Ibsen's Ghosts, as Shaw also notes, was a landmark in modern British Theatre. Shaw, for instance, published his The Qııintessence of Ibsenism to defend Ibsen and this very production (Qııintessence 26). Grein was proud to have produced the first Shaw play thus opening Shaw's way as a dramatist: "If the Independent Theatre had done nothing else for the British drama than to give a hearing to George Bernard Shaw, I contend that it jııstified its existence" (qtd. in

At the bache]or's degree program the third highest ranking gradııate of the department of

Miller

Mathematics at Cambridge University.

k I

175).

Shaw's Women Characters

94

reaction that a second performance was not allowed by local authorities although the house was fully sold out. In New York, the news of the New Haven incident created such a public attention that Mary Shaw, one of the actresses, could not even approach the theatre without the assistance of a police officer. In spite of a revised script, the play could not be given a second performance in New York either. In an unsigned notice to The New York Herald,1905, the enraged anonymous critique attacked Mrs. Warren's Profes

s i ons2

severely:

The only way successfully to expurgate Mrs. Warren's Profession is to cut the whole play out. You cannot have a clean pig stye. The play is an insult to decency because It defends immorality,

95

follower of Ibsen, Shaw considered this rather harsh criticism as an assurance of his success as his master Ibsen's Ghosts instigated similar criticism in 1890. Despite all the protests and the press attack on Mrs. Warren's

Profession, a U.S. court declared the play proper for public performance (Connolly 20). It took some time for Mrs. Warren's Profession tohit the English stage.

When finally in 1925, it was staged in Birmingham,20 years after the stormy American press, the public opinion seemed to have cooled: "...truIy moral

play ever produced on the English stage, not excepting miracle plays, morality plays, or religious propaganda plays" (Birmingham Gazette,28 July 1925). This is a very surprising notice indeed considering the fact that the play had remained banned for 32 years. The notice also draws our attention to Shaw's admiration for Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress (1678), maybe the most popular work in religious English literature. So much so that in more than

It glorifies debauchery. It besmirches the sacredness of

And, worst of all,

Men in Petticoats

it

clergyman's calling.

countenances the most revolting form of

degeneracy, by flippantly discussing the marriage of brother and sister,

father and daughter, and makes the one supposedly moral character of the play, a young girl, declare that choice of shame, instead of poverty is eminently right. (qtd. in Evans, 139-40)

The public, the mass media and the general readership expected the fallen woman at least to repent, or better yet to commit suicide or die.s3 An ardent 52

Aüso see Berst "Propaganda and Art in Mrs. Waııen's Profession'' (1966) and Nelson "Mrs. Warren's Profession and English Prostitution" (197lll972). s3 Elizabeth Gaskell's Ruth (1853) received similar reviews but in a lower key: "The most

striking characteristic of the book, we should say, is its perfect simplicity, truthfulness, its following out, step by step, of nature in all its parts, together with its exquisite purity of feeling in dealing with a subject which so many would shrink from. For instance, the latter part of the first volume shews [sic] us Ruth living with her seducer at a Welsh inn-a grand opportunity for commonplace moralists to picture to us teffible struggles of conscience in one or both of theın-the debasement of the one, the coırupting influence of the other. The wife and mother who wrote "Ruth" does no such thing. Ruth is still the simple girl, countrybred, delighted with the new sight of motıntain Scenery' with all her sympathies not deadened, but heightened, by the new power which has been developed in her, the entire devotion of a most humble, most trustful love. (qtd. in Helsinger et al. Vol. III, 118) Despite all her serenity and calmness Rılh cannot escape the fate of the "fallen woman" of the Victorian

300 years after its publication it has never been out of print, and it has been translated into 200 languages. Shaw declared his admiration for Bunyan in many different platforms placing Bunyan at a higher status than Shakespeare (Chesterton 50). Shaw himself on many occasions declared that the theatre is the new church and he himself is the preacher of that new religion, just note

the title of

his 1909 play The Shewing-Up of Blanco Posnet: A Sermon in

Crude Melodrama.

There is a strong connection between Shelley, Joan of Arc and Shaw. According to them, the old morals have lost their flexibility so much so that they cannot serve the needs of people any longer. All three despised the morality of their times and proposed a new view of morality, a set of fresher and more flexible values. Yet these new views were taken as heresy and immorality by the advocates of the old school and the masses who followed them blindly. Thus Saint Joan was condemned to death by the very people who would sanctify her in a few generations. Shelley suffered the same fate.

His child was taken from him on the grounds that his morals were not fit to Age. Elizabeth Barrett Browning and Charlotte Bronte ask Gaskell not to let Rııth die at the end of the novel. However, Gaskell yields to the "conventional fate". (Helsinger et al., I l9)

96

Shaw's Women Characters

Men in Petticoats

97

bring up a child. Shaw was also ostracized many times through censure and exclusion in many different ways.

So if this is intended as a corrective to The Second Mrs. Tanqueray, the morality of Cenci as the anti-thesis, how will we account for a central new woman character like Vivie Warren, who has a totally different agenda on her way to her emancipation? One explanation is quite biographical; when Shaw reads the first act to Sidney and Beatrice Webb, Beatrice asks him to make the girl a rather strong governing girl, not like the girl who commits suicide, just like the one in Maupassarıt's Yvette (Holroyd, Search 29|-92). This is a young modern girl, an unwomanly woman, a'onew woman" who can face any realitysa no matter how rash it is. One of the morals of the play

is that while poverty leads to prostitution, prosperity and education create virtuous and strong willed women like Vivie Warren (Search,291). As Davis also suggests, if we ignore the title and the preface and take the play without these two, we see that the play is centered on Vivie Warren (23). Mrs. Warren herself as a character is of secondary importance. Everything and every other character in the play revolve around Vivie. From the first scene to the last, Vivie is everywhere and in every conversation if not physically at least as the topic of the conversation. In that sense we can say that the play has two basic layers; the title and the preface suggest that the seemingly

dominant layer is centered around Mrs. Warren and her profession, prostitution but the really dominant layer is Vivie Warren and her attitude towards life as a "new woman."

t4 Vivie Warren 14.1 The *New Woman"

Sarah Grandss coined the phrase o'new woman" in March 1894 in an article

entitled "The New Aspect of the Woman Question". Shaw was also concemed with the 'onew woman" but he had called her an "unwomanly \ryoman" in The Quintessence,"an advanced woman" in The Philanderer aıd "modern young lady" in Mrs. Warren's Profession. Grand's article abounds with different classifications of women. Along with the "new woman', as a new concept in this essay, she also states that most opposition to women,s rights struggle comes from the "Bawling Brothers" who would listen to no sensible argument as they have formed their opinion of the women from their experience of the o'scum

woman", the immoral, unethical, intriguing and unreliable woman. They also know another type of woman the "cow woman" submissive woman whom they take for granted and can ignore. onto that scene a new type of woman is introduced by Grand:

Both the cow-woman and the scum-woman are well within the range of the comprehension of the Bawling Brotherhood, but the new woman is a little above him, and he never even thought of looking up to where

she has been sitting apart in silent contemplation all these years, thinking and thinking, until at last she solved the problem and proclaimed for herself what was wrong with Home-is-the-Woman,s'oDiet.ich offers such a reading pointing the centre of the play as Vivie's psychological challenge to face the reality: "... one character, usually a younger person, a potential Realist, is taught a lesson by another character to better realize his or her authentic self. . ..Vivie experiences a death ofthe old idealist selfand is reborn as an incipient Realist." (86)

Sphere, and prescribed the rcmedy. (142) 55

one of the leading feminist writerş of her times whose The Heavenly Twins was a heavily disctıssed and rather popular novel ofthe 1890s.

Shaw's Women Characters

98

Men in PetticoaıS

In another article she published two months later "Man of the Moment,"

complaining of the double standards families apply in the upbringing and education of girls and boys, Grand declares that boys are allowed to do anything without any restraint. However, girls are subjected to the strictest

disciplining possible. This discrimination creates men who are not

responsible or considerate about anything. According to Sarah Grand: "It is shameful to think how he was neglected and allowed to act on his own worst

impulses until the "new woman" came to correct him" (148). It is really interesting that in both of these early uses of the expression, the "new woman" is used for someone with authority who has made up her mind to stop the wrongs of the patriarchal society. 'oTo correct" is the key word as it

connotes a kind

of authority, power, determination, superiority and

the

knowledge of the right from the wrong. The long expected "new woman" finally arrives with a strong hand and confidence, which were not the common characteristics of the old womanly women who were taught to be submissive and obedient by their parents and the society. She is also balanced and virtuous as she has her own moral principles unlike the

ooscum

woman"

who holds no principles and recognizes no restraints as long as she realizes her ambitions. The first important characteristic of the "new woman" is the

power which comes from rejecting the idea that men are her superiors. Moreover, she knows what she is doing as a moral being. Finally, she is perfectly aware of what she is asking as she has an agenda. She has demands

which have been legitimated and gained the support of not only the women but also the conscientious men such as John Stuart Mill, Henrik Ibsen, Bernard Shaw and HG Wells. The expression acquired such a wide use that it has been applied to all the novels written on the question of women in the late nineteenth century (Nelson ix-xiv).

Almost a century after its coinage, Viv Gardner, in her "Introduction" to The New Woman and Her Sisters (1992), sums up the different uses of the expression by different discourses. We can apply her definition of the "new woman" to some of Shaw's women characters. She describes the "new

99

100

Shaw's Women Characters

woman" as 'oyoung, middle class and single on principle" who ignores fashion and adopts a masculine outlook. And as in the case of Vivie Warren, the 'oneıü woman" has "been educated to a standard unknown to previous generations of women." In addition to that as in The Philanderer she is "a devotee of Ibsen and given to reading 'advanced' books." Just like Grace Tranfield in The Philanderer and Lina Szczepanowska of Misalliance she is "financially independent of father or husband, often through eaming her own living in one of the careers opening up to women at the time, like journalism o'new woman" was and teaching." As in Vivie's case, Gardner notes that the depicted as affecting "emancipated habits, like smoking, riding a bicycle, using bold language and taking the omnibus or train unescorted" (4-5).

This new assertion of power by women was taken as a threat to the patriarchal society and the first reaction was of course to undermine its dignity through the caricaturization of the new woman. It was taken up by the conventionalists immediately, but rather than an expression of respect, used in a derogatory manner to mock modern advanced women. As Gardner observes, the "new woman" was caricatured in Punch and Sydney Grundy's

play The New Woman Q89ğ with the latchkey and cigarette as symbols of her independence from home and social conventions. As seen in the picture, she has neglected all her domestic obligations, she sits lost in her thoughts in the middle of a mess which is extremely uncomely for a woman. We are made to feel that she is acting against her "nature" and becomes an artificial imitator without anything to be respected. The picture also implies chaos and anarchy with its emphasis on the loss of order in her surroundings. The

latchkey suggests that she does what she wants: she can leave home independently without a chaperone to supervise and protect her and can come

back again without any explanation. The fact that she is smoking a cigarette suggests that she has done with all gender boundaries and does not observe social rules on womanliness or etiquette. Her reclining sitting position can be associated with the inconclusiveness of her struggle, she has not gained her emancipation as she may want as the image suggests and she is still kept in

her supposedly subservient position despite her claims for equality. A standing upright position would signify more dignity and confidence to the

Men in Petticoats

101

woman in the picture. The glasses on a young woman and the shape her nose and face taken suggest that she has difficulty in clearly seeing what is before

her, which can be read as her lack of clear-sightedness or deficiency of her

vision making her worldview invalidated by her shortsightedness.s6 In Grundy's fashionably titled play The New Woman, "the new woman" who has rejected all moral constraints and any sense of duty is a threat to the

well-being of the society. One of the leading'onew women", pretentious Mrs. Sylvester neglects her "domestic duties" to write books on public morals,

while in the process she almost ruins her friend Gerald's marriage. She does not respect her husband Mr. Sylvester any longer as she finds him dull and backward. Instead, she falls in love with a newly married man Gerald, with whom she collaborates to write a book on the new morality. To emphasize the moral vacuum more deeply, Mr. Sylvester in the same manner is drawn to Gerald's wife Margery, who as a faithful "womanly woman" would not cheat on her husband. Mrs. Sylvester has influenced Gerald and accordingly the husband starts seeing his wife Margery as intellecfually inferior to this new woman, as it is made obvious, in a conversation overheard by Margery. Grundy suggests that by defying the conventional moral code, women necessarily destroy family bliss and harmony. At the end of the play Margery, the womanly woman, triumphs and forgives her husband who has leamt his lesson and realizes the merits of a conventional morality in marriage.

Gardner draws our attention to the irony that the actresses who acted in

these roles were in their own lives the o'new women":

"simply by working

they were, transgressing the social boundaries that required middle-class women to be dependent on their father, husband or brother" (3). Moreover, working on the stage as an actress was an additional offence to that middle'u ". . ..dea. Donna Quixote, be not stupid, Fight not with Hymen and war not with Cupid. Run not amuck against Mother Nature's plan. Nor make a monster of your mate, poor Man, Or like La Mancha's cracked, though noble knight. You'll find blank failiıre in mistaken fight." (qtd. in Gardner, 4)

t02

Shaw's Women Characters

class convention since acting was not considered to be a very honorable profession for women. Gardner suggests that these actresses fervently o'new woman" as they found in them an welcomed playing the roles of expression of their own sentiments and identified with these roles strongly.

In his "Preface" to the play, Shaw gives an account of the sacrifices actresses made to stage Mrs. Warren's Profession. He states that the actresses believed in the play even more than the writer himself and never despaired despite all kinds of discouraging reactions by theatre owners and critics. As Shaw observed of his play'o...it was written for women; that it has been performed and produced mainly through the determination of women that it should be performed and produced; that the enthusiasm of women made its first performance excitingly successful..." (Mrs. Warren's "Preface", 165). In Shaw and The Actresses (1980), Margot Peters emphasizes the significant

role actresses played in the formation of the new theatre: 'oThe New Drama was very much the drama of the New Woman; the emancipation of women on stage reflected the emancipation of women off it, and was fought for, to a great extent, by actresses struggling to free themselves from the bondage of

traditional roles" (xi). The experience of playing the roles of new women made the actresses despise dramatic roles of traditional women. Gardner also states that although a great number of actresses came from

theatrical families, there were also a large number of middle-class women who took up acting. You can imagine how difficult it was for most of these

Men in Petticoats

103

during the Victorian and Edwardian Ages, we will better appreciate the sacrifices these actresses made for their art.s7

Actresses who had gained power on British stage for the first time in history demanded roles which they could identify with and relate to. Not only

a

of Shaw's early plays were women.s8 Janet Achurch who acted in the role of Nora in A Doll House production in 1889 asked Bemard Shaw to write a play with a character like the actresses, but also

Nora-a

great number of the audience

request which resulted in candida. Holroyd reports that it was also

Janet Achurch who told Shaw about Maupassant's short story'oYvette" and asked him if he could adapt it for the stage. (Search 291)

According to Lorichs, the new woman appears in Shaw's plays as Vivie and Mrs. Warren in Mrs. Warren's Profession (1894), as Barbara in Major

Barbara (1905), as Edith and Lesbia in Getting Maruied (1908), as Fanny and Margaret in Fanny's First Play (1910), as Eliza and Clara in Pygmalion (1912-1913) and as Joan of Arc in saint Joan (1923). (13) Lorichs also lists some "minor" unwomanly or "new woman" characters such as Sylvia and Grace in The Philanderer (1893), cleopatra in caesar and cleopatra (1898),

the suffragettes in Press Cuttings (1909), Anjanska in Anjanska

The

Bolshevik Empress (1917), Amanda and Lysistrata in The Apple Cart (1929), the patient in Too Good to be True (1931), Epifania in The Millionairess (1935) and Serafina in his 1950 play Why She Would Not (I4).In this long

list, Vivie Warren is the foremost and first "new woman" in the Shavian

middle class women to convince their families to let them become actresses. However, these women were determined to go on stage despite the price they o'In

moving into that 'nether world' where they were certain 'to lose caste', they were to achieve a degree of autonomy in their lives and an opportunity for creative fulfillment, and the very lack of

had to pay for doing so:

conventionality that was still part of the image of the stage may have been part of the attraction" (Gardner 8). If we keep in mind that, for middle class o'loss of caste" women not only the stage but any kind of work meant a

57

Consider how much resistance Florence Nightingale faced in taking up the profession of as rather domestic and innocent. 'o "The strong, dynamic women of the plays were said to have inspired many women to break the bonds of their victorian upbringing. By the 1890s Shaw's name was connected intimately with the propaganda on behalf of 'the new woman'. As the arch-progressive he was eager to argue the case for radical feminism, to preach the rebel's gospel of liberation. Responding to these overtures, many women, young women especially, were enthusiastic in their support for Shaw, often treating him as a mentor from whom they could learn what to think, feel and do. F.C. Bumaud, writing of the audience at the court Theatre during the Barker-Vedrenne regime, which Shaw so dominated, observed: 'The female element predominates over the inferior sex as something like twelve to one. The audience had not a theatre-goiırg, but rather a lecture-going, Se[non loving appearance'" (Griffith l57).

nursing-which, compared to acting, would be considered

Shaw's Women Characters

r04

canon. She

is a

Men in Petticoats

new, unwomanly, emancipated, university-educated,

professional, strong-willed woman.

se

L05

Szczepanowska and Lesbia have liberated themselves from the restrictions

of

that male sphere.

As a follower and great admirer of Ibsen, Shaw naturally owes a great deal to Ibsen's characterization of women on the stage. On the other hand, while we can talk about Shaw's women characters as new women, we cannot apply the same term to Ibsen's women since the term had not been coined yet when Ibsen wrote A Doll House and the woman movements were still at a more immature level. Naturally Shaw's strong women characters are not only

individually emancipated but they belong to a "new" woman type which was gaining momentum with the rising feminism of the last decade of the nineteenth century. Although there are so many similarities befween the emancipated woman and the "new woman," there is not a total overlap.

Finney defines the "new woman"60 as "a literary type which flourished above all in Victorian fiction of the 1890s". As Finney puts it, in spite of the fact that they have distinguished themselves from the conventional women around them, Ibsen's four women characters still have not reached the level of emancipation that would set them completely free; they are still "defined in terms of male characters" (96). In Rosmersholm. Rebecca West6l for instance uses her female beauty and charms to "manipulate" the men around her. In his notes he took for A

Doll House Ibsen comments

ooa

woman cannot

be herself in contemporary society, it is an exclusively male society" (qtd. in

Tornqvist 7). Shaw's "new woman" characters such as Vivie, Lina

Barbara in Major Barbara, onthe other hand, is not a university educated professional woman, she is doing philanthropy work but this can hardly be regarded as a profession that could economically emancipate her; still, she is a new, emancipated woman as she enjoys a certain freedom outside her home and gets involved in the public life through the Salvation Army. Eliza Doolittle in Pygınalion is also a new emancipated professional woman. Mrs. Warren is an emancipated, professional woman. Joan is a new, unwomanly, emancipated, strong-willed woman. uo In he, Women and Modern Drama: Freııd, Feminism, and European Theater at the Tıırn of the Centııry (1989) Gail Finney also writes a chapter on Shaw's Candida entitled "The 5e

New Woman as Madonna: Shaw's Candida". 6' This is not the English writer known as Rebecca West (1892-1983). Her real name was Cicely Isabel Fairfield. She was trained as an actress in London as a young girl and she borrowed her pseudonym from Ibsen's Rosmesholm.

14.2

Duty and Self-Abnegation

All

women are brought up from the very earliest years in the belief that their ideal of character is the very opposite to that

of man; not self-will, and government by self-control, but submission, and yielding to the control of others. All the moralities tell them that it is the duty of women, and all the cuwent sentimentalities that it is their nature, to live for others; to make complete abnegations of themselves, and to have no life but in their affections. (Mill, Subjection 144)

What was expected of women in the Victorian era was to devote themselves

to their husbands and children. Of course such an absolute self-abnegation requires a rather submissive and meek attitude. Girls were brought up to assume such a role. In 1799, Wollstonecraft's contemporary Hannah More

wrote on the education of girls: "Girls should be led to distrust their own judgment; they should learn not to murmur at expostulation; they should be accustomed to expect and to endure opposition. ...they should early acquire a

submissive temper and a forbearing spirit" (94,5). What distinguishes Shaw's

women characters is their tendency to trust their own judgments over all other influences. They have so much confidence in their own values and principles that neither their parents, nor elders, nor lovers could persuade them to take another line rather than their own. Neither

Vivie nor Eliza would

listen to such a maxim. They quite independently trust their own judgments, never asking anybody for advice. When others give them their piece of mind,

they listen but do just as they find fit to do. Joan of Arc is the Shavian heroine who can be regarded as the paragon of such an independent character. When everybody thinks that she is mad, she just trusts her inner

106

Shaw's Women Characters

Men in Petticoats

voice and makes everybody dazzledwith her self-confidence and faith in her lnner volces

It is one of the most important virtues of the "new woman" to be selfreliant, thus independent and strong. Shaw's "new woman" just revolts

against submissiveness and what distinguishes her from Ibsen's Nora of I Doll House is that we see Nora as an emancipated woman only at the end of the play. Shaw's women characters are emancipated from the very beginning.

Even when they are seemingly submissive like Ann Whitefield of Man and Superman, they act with a motive that would please them the most. For instance, although Nora does not have a hold on her husband Torvald, Ann Whitefield is quite easily in control of all the circumstances around and she is a master of commanding everyone about, including her mother, her late father, her guardians and friends. When Nora discovers the weak sides of her husband she

is disillusioned and

heart-broken, whereas

Ann manipulates

them riding on their weakness and folly.

The extent of self-abnegation expected of the nineteenth century woman can be best understood in texts written as guidebooks for women especially on what to expect from marriage and how to make the best of it. One of these popular books is Ann Taylor of Ongar's Practical Hints to Young Females, on the Duties of a Wife, a Mother and a Mistress of a Family (1815). Even the title speaks volumes, yet in her words: 'oWhen he [the husband] vowed to take you for better or worse, he staked the happiness of his future life; a treasure for which the most ample portion is insufficient to compensate" (12).

Men are raised to the status of "treasure" while the female consent and will nullified. Taylor suggests that by just consenting to marry her, the man has fulfilled his duties and all the responsibility and duty now the woman's to conduct: "He staked the happiness of his future life"-but, how about the woman? More so as she has less power and opportunity legally, economically and socially, a woman takes a great risk. Besides, she has nowhere or no one

o'On your part, you to turn to when she is disappointed in her marriage. promised to love as well as to honor and obey; and probably from the allperfect being to whom you then surrendered yourself, you expected to derive

107

such unintemrpted felicity as would render the fulfillment of this promise constantly easy and delightful" (12). Taylor wants to make sure that women have no right to expect happiness or favors in a marriage as her role in this

institution

is to be the giver not the taker. Even in a severe case of

disappointment she has no choice but to make the best of it and seek a relief

in her own personality since there is no way out once the marriage is

consummated:

But, however discreet your choice has been, time and circumstances alone can sufficiently develop your husband's character: by degrees the discovery will be made that you have married a mortal, and that the object of your affections is not entirely free from the infirmities of human nature. Then it is, that by an impartial survey of your own character, your disappointment may be moderated; and your love, so

far from declining, may acquire additional tenderness, from

the

consciousness that there is room for mutual forbearance ... (12)

Actually the last suggestion by Taylor reveals how desperate

the

sifuation was for the women. There is no sensible connection between the

"disappointmerıt," its remedy and the expected result as there is no sound psychological ground for her solution. Shaw's heroines hardly ever accept such a severe self-forgetting role in their relations with men.

Mrs. Warren's Profession, as the title suggests, is about a woman's profession. This unusual collocation for 1890s indicates an independent woman who does not rely on a husband or father economically. considering

the time

it

was written, 1894, teaching and nursing are the first two

professions which come to our minds. On the other hand, as we progress in

the play we realize that this is a different kind of profession, not a very respectable one. Nevertheless, what is to be emphasized here is the fact that Mrs. Warren's Profession is centered on women's profession and what that means for her. Having a profession is the only way for the emancipation

of

women.

Through Praed we are made to understand that Vivie Waren has graduated from Cambridge university with a tripod as a third wrangler and

Shaw's Women Characters

108

Men in Petticoats

109

she is totally capable of supporting herself using her skills in actuarial calculations. Although Vivie is encouraged to leam more about art and music, she simply finds them boring and useless. We can only understand this attitude from the point that anything which does not help her establish her independence is irrelevant for Vivie. That is why instead of going to concerts or visiting art museums she prefers to study law with an eye on the

bonds. Even in the first scene, she discloses her plans for starting her own life

stock exchange. (217-l 8)

oostolen"

At this point, it is timely to recall

that during the nineteenth century,

although girls were sent to schools and tutored at home, this education did not aim to prepare them to a professional life. They were expected to learn languages, music, mathematics, painting and embroidery, yet all these skills

were acquired to recommend the young lady to an eligible bachelor. For instance, just think of Cecily Cardew's education at the very beginning of the second act in The Importance of Being Earnest. She is expected to leam German, political economy and geology without any economic profits in prospect. Education is intended just as an intellectual pursuit. In Jane

Austen's Pride and Prejudice, Mr. Darcy's list of subjects is longer: "A woman must have a thorough knowledge of music, singing, drawing, dancing, and the modem languages, to deserve the word" (29). To be esteemed as an "accomplished" lady a woman had to go through all those essential arts and European languages like French, German and Italian. In the third act of Man and SupermanDon Juan criticizes lady's education asking Dona Ana: "...marriage is a mantrap baited with simulated accomplishments and delusive idealizations." Don Juan concludes his remarks with the question: ooWhen your sainted mother.. .forced you to leam how to play half a dozen pieces on the spinet which she hated as much as you did-had she any puıpose than to delude your suitors....did you ever open the spinet from the hour the church united you?" (156-57)

Though Mrs. Warren intended Vivie's education as a recommendation for her daughter's hand in maniage, Vivie realizes that her education has made her an independent body. She can stand on her own feet instead of depending on her mother with whom she has never cultivated any strong

independently. In her opening conversation with Praed, she says that all she needs to settle independently is a train ticket to London. When she talks to

her mother, she tells her that her lifestyle may not suit her. Interestingly enough, Mrs. Warren does not have any idea about what that education

At the end of the play, she asserts that Vivie has her education from Mrs. Warren, meaning that she has done

means to her daughter.

something totally unintended with it.

On the other hand, Vivie contradicts her mother saying that although she

is a conventional woman atheart she means to act and preach like a woman who has rebelled against society: "Yes: it's better to choose your line and go through with it. If I had been you, mother, I might have done as you did: but I

should not have lived one life and believed in another. You are a conventional woman at heart. That is why I am bidding you goodbye now" (286). Vivie sees her mother as a threat against her freedom. Declaring her independence as an emancipated woman, she announces that she will neither have a husband nor a mother: "My duty as a daughter! I thought we should come to that presently. Now once for all, mother, you want a daughter and Frank wants a wife. I don't want a mother; and I don't a husband." (284-85). What makes her so bold is the fact that she does not have to depend on them. Even in the face of such a horrible discovery what makes her so strong

and determined and undisturbed is the confidence her education gives her. She has necessary qualifications to start a new life so she has the luxury to turn her back to tainted money, which as Holroyd points out is o'an advance

on the Widowers' HoLıSeS" (The Search 293). In the latter, Harry Trench, upon a similar discovery cannot tuın his back to it but "give way to it" (293). Another crucial point in Vivie's speech above is her repudiation of duty to her mother and to her lover Frank. As Shaw states distinctly and with great emphasis in Quintessence'. "Unless woman repudiates her womanliness, her duty to her husband, to her children, to society, to the law, and to everyone

but herself, she cannot emancipate herself' (43-4). Within that context, we can say that the central concern of Mrs. Warren's Professiorz is Vivie's

Shaw's Women Characters

110

emancipation. Repudiation of duty and self-sacrifice are not only indispensable for an emancipated woman but also for healthier relations between man and woman. According to Shaw, no one can have a good relationship with a self-sacrificer: "No one ever feels helpless by the self helper; whilst the self sacrificer is always a drag, a responsibility, a reproach, an everlasting and unnatural trouble with which no really strong soul can live" (Quintessence 34). In the same manner, Mrs. Warren herself is not a self-sacrificer. She has repudiated her duty towards society choosing prostitution as a profession and to her daughter by staying away from her and seeing her only during short holidays.

14.3 Challenging the Gender Boundaries:

Vivie as Man-Woman

Shaw's contemporaries in the 1890s criticized the "new woman" for not being a "natural" woman. As Shaw's intention was to create an "unwomanly" woman through Vivie character, obviously Vivie has to be almost everything that the womanly woman is not and ought to exclude everything that the womanly woman is. In 1869 in an article published in The Quarterly Review Burrows voiced the conventional attitude on women's education: The one thing men do not like is the man-woman, and they will never believe the College, or University, woman is not of that type. Sensible men will always like sensible and cultivated women; but they will always prefer that their good sense and cultivation should have come through channels which they recognize as suitable for the womanly character. The leamed woman does not make the best educator of children. We require the well-trained and well-balanced woman. The duties of women do not to any extent lie in the intellectual direction.

Their sprightly intuition is often, in practical matters, worth far more than the reasoning faculty which a laborious education has developed in man... (104)

Men in Petticoats

L1_1

Burrows' reasoning is based on the firm presumption over the "nature of women" and her duties which stem from that "nafure." Women are "naturally" expected to stay at home to give birth, breed and educate the new generation; while the men provide for the whole family. This hegemonic, unquestionable "common-sense" leads him to believe that educating women

would disharmonize the family and cause a catastrophe in society. In such a cultural context, any woman who rejected the conventional role of women in society had to dissociate herself from the womanly women. Even with her "laborious education" at Cambridge and "the intellectual direction" of her

life, Vivie becomes a man-woman; hence, unattractive to man. Although many women critics have celebrated her as a strong, emancipated o'new woman," there are also critics who attack Mrs. Warren's Profession almost on the same grounds that the anti-feminists criticizeditfor. Wiley asserts that through making Vivie "non-woman," Shaw blurs the potentially feminist message of the play. More than that by seeming to address the "new woman"

ambivalently, he deludes the reader: "devoid of identity as her mother, Paula Tanqueray, and Mrs. Dane, since she looks like a woman yet is not one."

Wiley also adds that far from contributing to the solution of the woman question Shaw's approach can only be considered as o'no answer at all" which

leads to "a dangerous suggestion that making the problem go away only necessitates making women disappear" (Wiley 121). Grecco also criticizes the play from a similar perspective asserting that there is 'oonly one woman in it, Mrs. 'Warren" (93). According to Grecco, what makes Vivie almost a "non-woman" is the stage directions given about

her as to her clothing, the way she shocks Praed with her firm hand-shake and conversation and the fact that o'she cares nothing about romance or beauty, but only for working and getting paid" which are supposedly in the male domain and no woman would condescend to act or think like a man on

Vivie's problematic sexuality from a different angle suggesting that Shaw's efforts to depict Vivie as a sexless character reflects his "own Oedipal struggle;" just as he tries to distance himself away from his mother's body with the fear of incest. Within this these important issues. Davis approaches

Shaw's Women Characters

r12

paradigm, Davis argues, Vivie acts as Shaw's subconscious and alienates herself from her mother (24).

Davis furthermore, interprets Vivie's break-up with Frank, Praed and Crofts as the "pathologisation of the self-sufficient New Woman into the lesbian" (25). As a result, she becomes "a theatrical parody of the New 'Woman" (25). What Davis suggests is that Shaw had assumed the discourse that he himself criticized severely in his Quintessence. Shaw gave the reviewer of Marie Bahkiıtseffs book aS a representative of a dominant

Men in Petticoats

Lt3

complexity and roundness. These harsh critics usually pick up the most negative aspects of Shaw's women characters and listing them try to prove that Shaw was against the women's rights movements of the time. Shakespearean characters are also round and many-sided in order to creaİe a

fully consuming identification with the spectators. Though Shaw criticizes Shakespeare on many different aspects, he seems to have appreciated Shakespeare's full-fledged characters. On the complexity, and seemingly contradictory nature of his characters Shaw writes:

discourse, which tells the story of a Ukrainian young woman who spends all her time in intellectual and artistic pursuits to excel in them. In the review,

...we must not infer one quality from another, or even rely on the constancy of ascertained circumstances. It is not only that a brave and good humored man may be vain and fond of money; a lovable woman

the writer admits that she can have accomplished herself in sciences and arts

but a woman who has trespassed into the "male domain" so much could not be called a woman any longer. In the same line, Davis aligns Shaw with such

greedy, sensual, and mendacious; a saint vindictive; and a thief kindly; but these very terms are made untrustworthy by the facts that the man

who is brave enough to venture on personal combat with a prizefighter or a tiger may be abjectly afraid of ghosts, mice, women, a dentist's

male-chauvinist rhetoric.

Rhoda Nathan in a way suggests a connection between the woman question and sexual identity (272-73). While Gainor admits that Mrs. Warren was a success with women of the time, she claims that it is the only feminist play in the whole Shavian canon. According to Gainor, much of Mrs. Warren's feminist appeal owes largely to Beatrice Webb, with whom Shaw discussed the woman question deeply and intensely. However, Gainor insists, even so neither Vivie nor Kitty is a feminist, since both act and reason in the

reality we still see Don Quixote as a great hero, even much greater than some perfectly, flawlessly drawn heroes like D'Artagnan. Their flaws do not make

boundaries and codes of the patriarchal capitalist system. Hence in spite of its reception as a pro-feminist play, it is, in Gainor's terms, "a disturbingly dark

Shaw's characters such as Frobius in Androcles and the Lion, who is afraid of mice in spite of his fearless attitude towards the gladiators, less heroic or

exposö of the relation between capitalism, prostitution and the New Woman'' o'new woman" characters, Gainor (35). As a general tendency in Shaw's

noble.

observes an androgynous tendency which is quite "biased" since "he virtuaily ignored this phenomenon in men who were at the time of equal interest to

scientific community-focusing almost exclusively on instances in women" (68).

In response to all these accusations, criticism and attacks that blame Shaw for undermining the image of the "new woman," we can quote Shaw as an aı1ist, aware of the fact thal he was to depict his characters in all their

forceps, public opinion, cholera epidemics, and a dozen other things that many timorous mortals face resignedly enough... (qtd. in Dukore

34)

As Borges reminds us for all his folly

and problematic relation with

Very interestingly, Finney, without any reference to Shaw's

work,

describes the general tenets of the "new woman," on the very grounds that Shaw has been criticized for creating a "man-woman." Finney observes that emancipated women in Ibsen's plays share certain qualities such as ignoring

"a strict division between conventional masculine and feminine behavior," "by their disdain for public opinion" and "freedom from the hypocrisy that often accompanies maintenance of the status quo" (93). Their emancipated

tt4

status

Shaw's Women Characters

is reflected not only in their speech and attitudes but also in their

appearance.

With respect to Shaw's plays the emancipated women can be termed as oounwomanly" 'onew woman." For instance, in Mrs. Warren's Profession, the

Vivie is described

as

ooPrompt,

strong, confident, self-possessed, not dowdy.

She wears a chatelaine at her belt, with a fountain pen and a paper knife among its pendants ." (62) Lina Szcepanowska also first appears on stage in man's clothing and everyone thinks that she is a man. Upon discovery, ool

must apologize, madam, for having offered you the civilities appropriate to the opposite sex. And yet, why opposite? We are all human: males and females of the same species. When the dress is the same the distinction vanishes." (621) In Saint Joan, the Inquisitor argues that the way Saint Joan is dressed like a man is in itself a very strong indication of Tarleton remarks:

heresy:

Mark what I say: the woman who quarrels with her clothes, and puts on the dress of a man, is like the man who throws off his fur gown and dresses like John the Baptist: they are followed, as surely as the night follows the day, by bands of wild women and men who refuse to wear any clothes at all. When maids will neither get marry nor take regular vows, and men reject marriage and exalt their lusts into divine inspirations, then as surely as the summer follows the spring, they begin with polygamy, and end by incest. (993) Upon this accusation Saint Joan tries to justify why she had to transgress the gender dress code and dress like a man with these words: "I was a soldier living among soldiers. I am a prisoner guarded by soldiers. If I were to dress aS a woman they worıId think

of me aS a woman: and then what would

become of me? If I dress as a soldier they think of me as a soldier, and I can

live with...as with my brothers" (994). Joan dwells on the psychological aspect of dressing. Saint Joan refuses to be treated like a woman and she prefers to be taken as a soldier, seriously. It is also worth noting that Bernard

Shaw himself was also very careful about the way he dressed. Out of the

Men in Petticoats

11s

usual fashion, he created a rather eccentric image for himself. Rejecting to dress62 conventionally, he distinguished himself from the masses.

Finney observes that language is another sign of emancipated women. She particularly draws our attention to o'...colloqualisms, topics traditionally regarded as unmentionable for young midlle-class women, and swear words" (93). These "unwomanly" women who reject the artificial distinction between man and woman usually dare to assume "manly" gestures. Tn The Philanderer the most "unwomanly" woman of the Ibsen Club, Sylvia shocks others by the language she uses: "(Contemptuously) I knew it. Of course it was nothing but eating too much. I always say Paramore was an ass. (Sensation. The group of Cutberthson, Craven and Julia breaks up as they turn in dismay)" (146)- In another occasion she still uses very "unwomanly" language addressing Charteris

:

SYLVIA(.raımping up on her knees on the settee, and speaking over the back of it) Whats up, Charteris? Julia been making love to you?"

CHARTERIS (Speaking to her over his shoulder) No. Jealous of Grace.

SYLVIA

Serve you right.

You

are an awful

devil for philandering.

CHARTERTS (Calmly) Do you consider it good club form ro talk that way to a man who might nearly be your father? (136)

As we see here, neither Charteris nor Sylvia feels themselves obliged to observe conventional rules which force them to treat the opposite sex within

certain rules. They put aside Victorian code of conduct which strictly regulates the relations between men and women and address each other as human beings. A very similar incident takes place in Mrs. Warren's opening scene between Praed and vivie. The way vivie addresses Praed without any

u'G. K. Chesterton, writing of him in

1910, said, "his costume has become part of his personality: one can come to think of the reddish-brown Jaeger suit as if it were a sort of reddish brown fur ... his brown woolen clothes, at once artistic and hygienic, completed the appeal for which he stood; which might be defined as an eccentric heal thy-mindedness."

Men in Petticoats

Shaw's Women Characters

116

reservations makes Praed very huppy at last to be able to talk to a woman naturally:

PRAED. When I was your age, young men and women were afraid of each other: there was no good fellowship. Nothing real. only ga]l|antry copied out of novels, and as ıulgar and affected as it could be. Maidenly reserve! Gentlemanly chivalry! Always saying no when you meant yes! Simple purgatory for shy and sincere

The letter she wrote to her parents is rather telling on how she tries to dissociate herself from her femininity assuming a masculine personality which she associates with independence and power: o'You must now consider me...a son,' Nightingale thought of telling her mother when she left for nursing training....performed by women, becoming educated professionally was a male prerogative. In later years, Nightingale, often referred to herself as a a man of action' or a 'man of business"' (Anderson and Zinsser 168). o

By making Vivie "unwomanly," "man-woman" Shaw

souls. (216)

Anderson and Zinsser explain this man-woman attitude with these words: .,For privileged women, the only model of independence and achievement was a male one. Freedom was possible only if one acted as if one were a man: by doing, by writing, by relying on one's own moral authority, by breaking the conventions of femininity." (169) The new women, the groundbreaking pioneers, did not have any standards or models just to follow, so they were from time to time tactless, most of the time they "improvised" not knowing how best to behave. According to Watson: "Much of the ill-temper engendered by the emancipation process is caused by this need to improvise one's manners, which has faced both women and Negroes in the twentieth century." She further explains: "The instinctive defense against subservience is arrogance; yet affogance in a newly liberated chattel is not an endearing or reassuring trait" (19). This was not only a problem with Shaw's fictive characters. Nightingale's case provides a more solid example which reveals the directionlessness and the "out of place" feeling in either sex roles:

As the founder of modem English nursing, Nightingale later provided a model for other women who wished a life outside the home. But in Nightingale,s youth, a woman who wished to move beyond the womanly roles had to look to male examples for inspiration. By writing, by studying, by working outside the home, privileged women called their sexual identity into question. Acting in ways defined by their culture as unwomanly, they and others concluded they must be acting like men. (Anderson and Zinsser 168)

TI7

does not aim to

undermine the feminist or the "new woman" cause of his play, but he simply

depicts the challenge that the "new woman" has to face. Mrs Clandon of Shaw's seventh play You Never Can Tell (1897) voices this very sentiment:

"Mr. Valentine, you must excuse us all. Women have to unleam the false good manners of their slavery before they acquire the genuine good manners of their freedom. Don't think Gloria vulgar: she is not really so" (310). The 'onew woman" has to open her own path while in the process making

a great number of mistakes. Far from condemning these mistakes, he believes that making mistakes is a natural way of leaming. As Shaw makes Fanny repeat the fictive Cambridge Fabian Society's motto in Fanny's First Play: "Yoı cannot learn to skate without making yourself ridiculous" (18).

14.4

Vivie Warren as an Independent and Strong Woman

Many critics, Gainor and Ervine among others, think that although Vivie draws a lot of male attention in the play she is a very unattractive character in many ways. Ervine suggests that more than a Shavian female character, Vivie was conceived on the direct influence and direction of Beatrice Webb, who asked Shaw to "write a play about a real, modem, unromantic, hardworking woman" resembling, presumably herself: and as neither he nor she liked each other, the effort to create a sympathetic character in her image was certain to

result in a very displeasing one" (255). Ervine adds that "Vivie is entirely unromantic, and would in life, be remarkably unattractive to the mass of men:

118

Shaw's Women Characters

live in perpetual virginity; the sort of woman GBS professed to admire, though none of the women with whom he philandered was in the least like her" (255). Yet, I think Ervine misses the main concern of the play which is obviously not centered around Vivie's sexual charms or a woman almost certain to

The most significant problematic of the play is Vivie's discovery of her mother's identity, thus her own. Considering the meaning of

Men in Petticoats

L19

Jalland gives a rather enlightening account of how the single girl, "old maid"

o'spinster" was regarded

by their contemporaries as "a human

failure,

condemned to lonely life of futility, ridicule or humiliation" (253). Although these women were very helpful to their families, looking after old parents,

attractiveness.

helping brothers and sister-in-laws, caring for the children of the family still they depended on "family charity" "without the personal rewards reserved for

such a huge blow to her sense of self-respect, how she takes it and how she copes with this new revelation are atthe very center of the play. On the other hand, Ervine is quite right to suggest that work will help her overcome this

wives; they became resident maiden aunts, permanent child minders and

traumatic identity crisis. The impact of the shock can never be underestimated. It is at such a point of traumatic discovery that Vivie declares her determination to remain single to Frank Gardner'

Vivie's declaration of independence refers us to an extremely important late Victorian issue. Andersson and Zinsser note that marriage was the only option for a middle-class and upper-class women and that those who did not get married were usually regarded as social failures (158-59). On the question

of single \üomen in the nineteenth century, Helsinger et al. point out an extremely important fact. The number of women in the country far superseded the number of men (135). Helsinger et al. estimate that there were

2.5 million women without a husband. Although marriage was the most expected and wanted position for women of the time, remaining single was also a highly probable circumstance.

In most cases women remained single unwillingly but in some very famous cases it was their own choice such as Joan of Arc's and Elizabeth I's (Gordon 6-7). Jalland observes that "Victorian social conventions and laws were based on the mistaken assumption that all women would marry" (259). Women with a more independent nature especially preferred to stay single in the nineteenth century: Jane Austen63 and Florence Nightingale among many

others. The Victorian view of the old single maids was not flattering at all' .'Jane Austen as an unmarried daughter played extremely well the part that was expected of her. . . when her mother became ill she and her sister Cassandra looked after the housekeeping...help at her siter-in-law's confinements...looked after children..." (Hill 75-

63

16)

nurses, and unpaid housekeepers" (253).

In Shaw's first three plays, we have at least one girl or eligible woman who makes up her mind to remain single: Blanche in Widowers' Houses, Grace in The Philanderer and Vivie Warren in Mrs. Warren's Profession. The one woman in Shaw's plays who decidedly reason for her single status is

Lesbia

iı

Getting Married:

I'm a regular old maid. I'm very particular about my belongings. I like to have my own house, and to have it to myself. I have a very keen sense of beauty and fitness and cleanliness and order. I am proud of my

independence and jealous for it. I have a sufficiently well-stocked mind

to be very good company for myself if I have plenty of books and music. The one thing I never could stand is a great lout of a man smoking all over my house and going to sleep in his chair after dinner, and untidying everything. Ugh! Although this is not a legal objection, Lesbia still wants to keep the right to remain single and to stand as a respectable woman even after that choice. On the other hand, Victorian and Edwardian societies look down on women who stay single calling them "spinsters" or "old maids." Claiming such a status is

not enough for her, Lesbia also voices a very advanced notion: having the right to have a child without enduring the relation with a man:

I ought to have children. I should be a good mother to children.

I

believe it would pay the country very well to pay me to have children. But the country tells me thaİ I cant [sic.] have a child in my house without a man in it too; so tell the country that it will have to do

Shaw's Women Characters

t20

Men in Petticoats

without my children. If I am to be a mother, I really cannot have a man bothering me to be a wife at the same time. (403) In his Preface to Getting Mawied Shaw expresses his opinions on the matter directly stating that the country wastes a lot of potential mothers because they cannot get married and maintains that he can see no reason why these women

cannot have children while they are being trusted with classroom full of children as teachers or governesses (346-47). Edith's objections to marriage on her wedding day are based on legal restraints. She asks her father: "Am I

if Cecil commits a murder, or forges, or steals, or becomes an atheist, I cant [sic] get divorced from him?" Upon her father's affirmative reply Edith reasons:

to understand that

Then I most certainly refuse to enter into any such wicked contract. What sort of servants? what [sic] sort of friends? what [sic] sort of Prime Ministers [sic] should we have if we took them for better or for worse for all their lives? We should simply encourage them in every

sort of wickedness. Surely my husband's conduct

is of

more

importance to me than Mr. Balfour's or Mr. Asquith's. If I had known the law I would never have consented. I don't believe any woman

would if she realized what she was doing.

Although the laws are not the ideal ones that they would rather have, Shaw still makes Edith marry Cecil. As Shaw argues in his "Preface to Getting Married', no matter how rotten and behind the times the marriage laws are, marriage is still the only viable option for men and women. He points out the fact that the opposite is "disastrous anarchical action." For the "violation of the marriage laws means either downright ruin or such inconvenience and disablement as a prudent man and woman would get married ten times over rather than face" (318). Shaw does not want to abolish the institution of marriage as he finds it "inevitable" and "compulsory." He

illicit relations men and women may still oppress each other in the same manner. According to Shaw, the problem is caused by argues that even in

marriage laws which ignore the human nature (318-20). Shaw also addresses

a most crucial aspect of men and women relations: fertility. According to

r2t

Shaw, as women gain more and more consciousness on their subservient position in the eyes of law and society, they will simply reject to bear children, thus the sterilization will cause a population crisis QaI-a). He urges policy makers to consider this very crucial aspect of the matter. Shaw proposes to make motherhood a professional activity like any other service.

As the society pay for any kind of service they buy from people, what

the

women endure to give birth and to care for the child ought to be considered as a service to society and thus compensated. In that way, women would not

feel themselves dependent on their husbands and fall into a subservient position (341-42). On the other hand, Shaw still demands "opening of other means of livelihood to women" (342). Shaw sharply observes that in terms of figures, urbanization in itself is a "sterilizing" process and he thinks that it is which has to be handled very delicately and urgently. In such a changing social pattem, Shaw believes the old morality has to revise itself a pressing issue

and recognize the right to have children to the unmarried women.

Gainor claims that, especially after Man and Superman (1903) Shaw shifted his focus from "the new woman" to'onew man", announcing the "new woman" as a defeat. Furthermore, in Shaw's formulation of the role of women in modern society, the eugenic need for mothers made him position women as a childbearing mother rather than an independent woman. Gainor detects the forerunners of that eugenic tendency even in The Philanderer (1893) and You Never Can Tell (1896) as the heroines are directed toward matrimony at the end of the plays (6-8). Yet Gainor does it so indirectly that one really finds it difficult to find her arguments convincing. First of all, she gives a long quotation from Beatrice Webb's diary where Mrs. Webb expresses her doubts about the validity of feminist claims, weighing them with the patriarchal discourse. As this is a personal diary not the total sum account of her clarified declaration on the issue, this document I think signifies nothing without her own publications or other public declarations. Moreover, it is not a very solid ground for us to evaluate Shaw through his Fabian friend's opinions on the issue. Although they may agree on hundreds of points to some extent, we can never be sure to what extent they see eye to

eye on this particular issue. Gainor uses Shaw's biographer Holroyd's

122

Shaw's Women Characters

another evaluation as a second witness to her thesis (8). Her third support is

personal letter Shaw wrote to a lady in 1891 after he published Tfte which are used to evaluate Shaw's Quintessence. None of these three texts stand on the role of woman as a mother is Shaw's own public statements, neither as a playwright, political pamphleteer, orator or critic'

In most of his plays, shaw's heroines make up their minds to get married: Major Barbara, Julia in The Philanderer, Ann in Man and Superman, Raina in Arms and the Man; bıt we also come across many heroines who are decisively single: Lady Cicely in Captain Brassbound's in Conversion, Kitty and Vivie in Mrs. Warren's Profession andJoan of Arc

the Saint Joan. Shaw never shows them under a negative light, as he shows slumlords of Widowers' HoııSeS, Julia womanly woman of The Philanderer, prefer or Candida's capitalist father Burgess in Candida. A11 these characters

staying single to getting married. In Mrs. Warren's Profession, particılarly we have a very interesting and oonew woman" provoking situation: Kitty Warren's case. Lorichs calls her a

(35), while Davis sees the close association of a brothel keeper with a "new (22-3). woman" character as undermining the supposed message of the play passes as Mrs Warren in the play yet this "Mrs" is a disguise she uses to

Kitty

protect herself and her daughter from social censure for she is or has ever

get been married. Although she must have had many opportunities to In married, we are made to understand by Shaw that she is decisively single' to the play, Kitty states that most of the girls in her establishment get married has ambassadors and start a new life. Praed maintains that the only stain she on her character in public eye is the fact that she is a single mother'

Therefore, we can conclude that in any period of her career as a prostitute she could have gotten married and led a different life. Moreover, she has reached job and enjoy such an economic independence that she can any time quit her

go retirement. Her answer is: "I must have work and excitement, or I should melancholy mad. And what else is there for me to do? The life suits me: I am

fit for it and not for anything else" (Mrs. Warren's, 158). Despite her love that and devotion for Vivie, her job is such an important part of her existence

Men in Petticoats

t23

even for her daughter she cannot give up her occupation and start a new life. Holroyd observes a similar pattem in Shaw's early works, his novels. He states that Shaw managed to deal with his depression and loneliness through

work and work also became a kind of savior even in his very early writing: Work, with which Shaw began to stave off this nuisance, becomes the hero of Immaturity once the discovery is made that all work is pleasant once the habit is formed. 'There is no such thing really as idleness; for

the people are often the busiest; but they are unsatisfied,' Smith explains. 'I suppose work in the sense we mean is sustained and intelligently directed effort resulting in the production or attainment of some worthy end...'Cyril Scott...finds salvation. 'What is there to live but work?' asks Scott. 'Everything else ends in disappointment. It's the only thing that you never get tired of, and that always comes to good.' (74-7s) Lorichs notes that Mrs. warren along with vivie is the first professional woman on the English stage (55). Instead of accepting conventional roles, Shaw's women characters, such as Epifania in the Millionairess (1935), go out and claim their place in the professional world.

t24

Shaw's Women Characters

Men in Petticoats

attempt to write a new Book of Genesis for the Bible of Evolutionists"

125

(Mills

124).

Mills t5 Creative Evolution and Superwoman in

Man und Superman (1903) There is a studied theory of Creative Evolution behind all my work; and its first complete statement is the third act of Man and Sup ermaız. (Sixteen Self-Sketches)

notes that Shaw attacks neo-Darwinism for two reasons. First

which might have "possible benefits for mankind" (124). He thought it as a starting point where hundreds of others would contribute to the development.

15.1 Creative Evolution6a and Woman

Mills gives a philosophical and scientific Major Barbara",

In "Structure and Philosophy in Man Fredric Berg notes a distinctive shift in Shaw's dramatic works starting with Man and Superman (1903). Although his works are heavily involved with the o'a confirmed mystic"' "Secular" issues of his time, Berg observes in Shaw: ,,This mysticism" writes Berg "led him to a long range solution to human problems, a solution he called the Life Force and a philosophy he called and Superman and

Creative Evolution." As she also notes "Over time, Shaw'S plays became less social diatribes and more parables" preaching the "creative evolution" (Berg 144). The third act of Man and superman matks this huge shift in shaw's works: "however fantastic its legendary framework may appear, is a careful

6aAıthough renown philosopher published a book in 1907 with the title Creative Evolırtion -Shaw states that his idea of "creative evolution" is independent of (Englishlranslation I 9 I I ), he himself and Bergson owed their starting points to that both argues Shaw ı.ğ'on'.. Saıriuel Butler (183-_1902) (Holroyd Pursııit,73). For a discussion ofthe connection between Shaw and Bergson see Pharand's "Shaw's Life Force and Bergson's ölan vital" a question of influence" (ı ss ı ). For a brief discussion of Bergson's book see Collinson ( 1 3233). Also see Bergson's Creative Evolııtion

(l91l).

of

all, Shaw believes that Darwin "banished mind from the universe" claiming that there is no reason or logic in evolution leaving all the change to chance. Secondly, Darwinism had been expropriated by capitalists and imperialists to justify their laissez faire policies through relying on survival of the fittest principle. On the other hand, Shaw was not very clear about his most important concepts such as "Life Force" and "Creatiye Evolution". Therefore, he was heavily criticized by philosophers for not systematically explaining his theory 023). Far from offering a perfect miracle which would solve all problems within a foıtnight, Shaw did not see his theory aS 'oan infallible or unique philosophic system", he believed that it was just a theory

genesis of Shaw's theory

of

Creative Evolution. He notes that the idea goes as far back as 500 BC to Heraclitus who is renowned for his proverb 'ono man washes in the same river twice", emphasizing change and development through time. Mills lists Lamarck, Buffon, Erasmus Darwin (Charles Darwin's grandfather) and Samuel Butler among the most prominent scientists, philosophers and artists

who infiuenced Shaw's formation of his theory of evolution. What Shaw owes to Buffon is the idea that "species change under the direct influence of environment...unfit are eliminated...the fit are preserved through heredity". Erasmus Darwin shifted the focus from Buffon's environment to a Lamarckian environment tracing back all life to a "single filament endowed with irritability and excitability" (124). He, furthermore, "endowed plants as well as animals with sensibility, and attributed their evolution to their own efforts to attain certain structures" (124).

Mills

suggests that this can be best

understood in terms of Chomsky's theory which states that human beings are bom with an innate ability to leam a language. In the same line, life force can

Men in Petticoats

Shaw's Women Characters

t26

be described as the innate push to procreate, develop and evolve (I2D'6s of Shaw addresses this very aspect ofcreative evolution in the dream section Man and Superman through Don Juan:

Are we agreed that Life is a force which has made

innumerable

experiments in organizing itself; that the mammoth and the man, the mouse and the megatherium, the flies and fleas and the fathers of the Church, are all more or less successful attempts to build up that raw

force into higher and higher individuals, the ideal individual being omnipotent, omniscient, infallible, and withal completely, unilludedly

self-conscious, in short a god?...Life has not measured the success of its

attempts

at

godhead

by the beauty or bodily perfection of

the

result...birds....Life was driving at brains-at its darling object...an organ by which it can attain not only self-consciousness but selfunderstanding. (149-50)

Lamarck's contribution to the theory comes at this point' He asserted that evolutionary changes are not chance developments but results from "a drive within the creature themselves in response to their circumstances" (Mills oouse and disuse, sense of need, and willed effort" have 125). Moreover, particular significance in evolution (125). Shaw's particular objection to Darwin was that same point clearly made by Butler; the idea that Darwin

"had banished the mind from the universe"; instead of that the neoLamarckians, Shaw and Butler offered a theory of evolution which has the following definition as a starting point premise "a conscious, creative,

immaterial force expressing itself in matter and molding matter in the pursuit of its own purpose" (126). Butler and Shaw refined Lamarck's theory 6scriffith distinguishes Shaw's understanding of evolution from Darwin's and explains Life chapter Force in the service of Creative Evolution: "Darwinism was btıt an amoral, nihilistic to the return to wanted hand, the other on of accidents, a series of unthinking. Shaw, with Lamarckian conception of evolutĞn as an 'open-eyed intelligent wanting and trying', was one progress resulting hom the desire or will to live more abundantly. Shaw's doctrine

p"r.po*. againit chance, choice against determinism, and design against opporrunism. power which Central to the doctrine *u. th. meta-physical notion of the life force as a tireless ever higher forms into itself within from growing uiward, and onward driving continually is more of organization, a power whiclı is driving at a larger, higher, more intelligent,

if

comprehensive consciorısness.'' (Griffith 126)

127

through making a connection between the animate world and the material inanimate world (127). This is seen in shaw's plays in certain crucial lines.

Choosing Pygmalion myth, for instance, as a title for his play, Shaw suggests the idea that by mere will of the sculptor, even stone may gain life and serve the life force miraculously. In a similar line, in saint Joan the entire universe; chickens, winds and cows help Joan achieve her aim because of her strong and determined will.66

To sum up, all the idea of evolution, change which goes back

to

Heraclitus is in the centre of Shaw's theory of creative evolution. But not in the form that Charles Darwin puts forward as a chance change. Instead, in another line formed by Buffon, Erasmus Darwin and Lamarck who state that these changes are willed, innate changes rather than external chance changes.

That is how from one cell formed billions of years ago all the diversity on earth formed itself. Needs and will have created all this unbelievable diversity. It has come to such a point that the Life Force has reached a level of consciousness through humanity and the language. Mills observes that: o'One salient point in Shaw's theory discusses the abruptness of the appearance of an acquisition that advances the evolutionary process, whether that acquisition appears as an organ or as a faculty of awareness. "The time

may come," Shaw predicts, "when the same force that compressed the development of millions of years into nine months may pack more millions into even a shorter space" (128). Actually, if we take that human being as the paragon of consciousness and capability to change material and nature in the last ten thousand years of the world compared to its estimated five billion uu

Bake. argues that for Shaw "... the will was a simple fact of nature. It exists. It is a caı.ısal agent, stıperior to the purely mechanical forces which the physicists understand ...His 'faith' consisted in the belief that this will is a fundamental and progressive force leading the

universe toward something we cannot begin to understand but which we can reasonably call Godhead. The Life force is only the will conceived as a general vital force that animates all life. It is not appropriate to speak of the Life Force as something that manifests itself in Ann Whitefield but not Violet Robinson, in Father Keegan but not Tom Broadbent. We all incarnate the Life Force. Some are closer to its goal than others, but Shaw always cautioned us not to be too confident that we know who they are....Shaw even suggested that he might be one of the utter failures.... Superman does not exist. We do not even know what he will be like; the Life Force does not know either, or we would not be muddling along in this disastrously inadequate manner." (5 1)

Shaw's Women Characters

t28

year age, the trend might take us to a future when evolutionary process can be totally controlled and materials acquire life through energy. Life Force

reached such a point that as Shaw puts into Don Juan's mouth in Man and Superman, Act 3: "It needs a brain, this irresistible force, lest in its ignorance it should resist itself." Furthermore, he advances the same idea: "Life was

driving at brains - its darling object." Mills notes that this is Shaw's very significant contribution to the creative evolution theory: "The outstanding purpose of more highly developed human brains - the "mind's eye," Shaw called it - is to see the purpose of life, just as the eye was developed so that living organisms could see where they were going in the physical world and see what was coming to help or threaten them" (129).

Thus the life force drives at brains and consciousness to attain betterment and perfection. In this theory of conscious willing, change is inevitable. Life force constantly pushes individuals to be extremely critical and discontented with their circumstances believing that the world and the universe are in a

of

for better. To be

contented with the circumstances and the existing system is the end of creative evolution since constant demand

change

that consequently brings stability and unwillingness to change:

...as long as I can conceive something better than myself I cannot be easy unless I am striving to bring it into existence or clearing the way for it. That is the law of my life. That is the working within me of Life's incessant aspiration to higher organization, wider, deeper, intenser self-consciousness, and clearer self-understanding...love for

moment...art...schooling of my faculties...religion...a mere excuse for laziness, since it had set up a

me...mere pleasure

of a

God who looked at the world and saw it was good, against the instinct in me that looked through the world and saw that it could be improved. (Man and Sııperman |65)

Artist's and philosopher's constant search for a better way of expression and existence are in the centre of Shaw's creative evolution. The individual, the superman must diagnose areas of development and through will must make himself evolve into a new being who can lead not only the others but

Men in Petticoats

129

also the material, the whole universe towards change. Any change is possible

if

life force brings it to the attention of a supernan. The superman of course is not a gendered word, meaning superhuman as Berg reminds us the

(r47).

15.2 Creative Evolution:

Man and Super(wo)man?

Where does woman stand in this theory of creative evolution?

Mills'

answer

is in the same line with Gainor, Kelly and Powell. Mills argues that Shaw's "creative evolution" model basically sees women as 'omore primitive and fundamental" than men. What is known as civilization is "an attempt on man's part to make himself something more than the mere instrument of woman's purpose". While woman represents nature and the instinct to reproduce, man is usually on the run more inclined to have his own way and stay independent. Yet since women have more instinctual powers and natural attraction, they "usually succeed in tuming man back to his specific biological function of reproduction and nourishment." Although man tries to carry political, cultural and economical life to higher levels, woman with her insistence to divert man's energy to home and family tries

(Mills

is a

distracter.

130) Gainor claims that with Man and Superman Shaw's focus shifted

from the "new woman" to New Man and that his concern with the "new woman" ceased with it (17). Gainor's and Mills' remarks leave us with a picture as if Shaw appointed a domestic existence for women and defined their ultimate function as childbearing and bringing up leaving the outside world, politics, business, arts, science and philosophy to man. In a letter he wrote to American poet and dramatist Josephine Peabody (1874-1922) in 1904, Shaw described Ann with these words: "Ann is the

Mother Woman. She is not an artist aiming at the production of a philosophy of life, like Tanner. She is not a moralist, like Ramsden, nor a sensualist like nobody in the play, she is a breeder of men, specialized by Nature to that end and endowed with enormous fascination for

it..." (Collected Letters

1898-

Men in Petticoats

Shaw's Women Characters

130

1910 474). What gives her this irresistibility is the Life Force. As also McDowell relates she is "mole complex" than her male counterpart, the father she has chosen for the Superman, Tanner (51). Berg observes that compared to Ann's cunning and clever brains, Tanner is a helplessly naive character who "makes a fool of himself in many different circumstances (151-52). Yet in the third act of the play which Berg calls the "inner play", also performed separately as Don Juan in Hell,roles change and Tanner, Don Juan becomes more mature and wiser.

One very important aspect of Creative Evolution is that the normal lifespan is too short for human beings to digest and become really wise people or experts on a süject. As Hippocrates puts it "Ars longa, vita brevis, occasio praeceps, experimentum periculosum, iudicium difficile" which means "art is long, life short, opportunity fleeting, experiment treacherous, judgment difficult"6T In Back to Methuselafr, Shaw suggests people should

live to 300 in order to be able to perfect and excel in science, philosophy, art, government and politics (xvi-xvii). Berg comments: "Only when the Life Force provides longevity which allows for full development of our mental capacities (now only possible in the death-induced immortality of the inner play) can ideas take primacy" (152). Although the focus is so much on the development of men, women seem to be excluded from all these intellectual, non-domestic worldly occupations. None of the women in the "outer play" in the first, second and neither fourth acts nor Dona Ana in the "inner play" the

third act, has any "new woman" characteristics like Mrs. clandon in You Never Can Tell, or Sylvia and Grace in The Philanderer or Vivie in Mrs.

Warren's Professioıe. Women Seem to be particularly appointed the child bearing function and excluded from all other pursuits. There is only that short sentence through the end of "The Revolutionist's Handbook", which reads: ooHome

is the girl's prison and the woman's workhouse" (262).

why does Shaw emphasize motherhood so strongly in this play? what Holroyd touches upon can supply us with a satisfactory answer: the possible

consequences 67

of

sterile love. Don Juan, running away from

http://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/ars-longa-vita-brevis.html.

August 5,2012.

the

L31

responsibilities of being a breadwinner and breeder will ğ to "manufacfure new forms of contraceptive sex which will lead to depopulation of the more advanced countries and a reduction in the educated classes" (Pursuit,75). In

Act III, Shaw voices this concem through the conversation among Ana, Don Juan and The Devil:

ANA. At all

events, let me take an old woman's privilege again and tell

you flatly that marriage peoples the world and debauchery does not.

DON ruAN. How if a time come [sic] when this shall cease to be true? Do you know that where there is a will there is a way? that [sic] whatever Man really wishes to do he will finally discover a means of doing?...You have taught women to value their own youth, health, shapeliness, and refinement above all things. Well, what place have squalling babies and household cares in this exquisite paradise of the senses and emotions? ts it not the inevitable end of it all that human

will shall say to the human brain: Invent me a means by which I can have love, beauty, romance, emotion, passion, without their wretched penalties, their expenses, their worries, their trials, their illnesses and agonies and risks of death, their retinue of servants and nurses and doctors and schoolmasters.

THE DEVIL: All this, Senor Don Juan, is realized here in my realm. DON JUAN: Yes, at the cost of death. Man will not take it at that price: he demands the romantic delights of your Hell whilst he is still on earth. Well, the means will be found: the brain will not fail when the will is in eamest. The day is coming when great nations will find their numbers dwindling from census to census....the boldly prudent, the thriftily selfish and ambitious, the imaginative and poetic, the lovers of money and solid comfort, the worshippers of success, of art, and of love, will all oppose to the Force of Life the device of sterility. (158) Shaw had been married for five years when the play was published and

his marriage was still unconsummated. We can safely say that in a1l this

t32

Shaw's Women Characters

Men in Petticoats

criticism directed towards the modern society he does not spare himself one bit from that harsh trashing. Considering the current population shrink concerns in modern Europe and some other advanced far eastem countries like Taiwan, Japan and south Korea, one can appreciate how shaw prophetically anticipated a serious problem for the future of the world.

133

tries to distance himself from Nietzsche in his "Preface" to Maior Barbara,

in many

other instances he expressed the affinify between his own

philosophy and Nietzsche's (191-92). In his 'oPreface" to Man and Superman, Shaw lists the writers, artists and philosophers with whom he finds a sort of

the

alliance: Bunyan, Blake, Hogarth, Turner, Goethe, Shelley, Wagner, Ibsen, Morris, Tolstoy and Nietzsche. Nietzsche appears at the very end of the list,

Advancement of Science (AAAS), in the year 2000 the first time in the world

but he still has an eminent place in his philosophy (29). Shaw detects a very

According to a report released by The American Association for

history Europe's "population's 'momentum' flipped from positive to negative". The report detects two factors behind this shrinkage. Firstly, women have less than two children in general; and secondly, the average age of childbearing which is 30 presently, is expected to be 40 in 2100.

Yet Holroyd argues that Shaw is not fair to women as he was in his other plays: "there is little sense in Man and Superman of the possibility of combining motherhood with creative work" (Pursuit 76). Shaw speaking through Jack Tanner voices the essential role of women in Man and Superman: "Here is a woman we all supposed to be rnaking bad water color sketches, practicing Grieg and Brahms, gadding about to concerts and parties, wasting her life and her money" (64). Her intellectual, artistic, social pursuits are nullified with relation to her biological function as a mother who

will

regenerate the world: "We suddenly leam that she has turned from these sillinesses to the fulfillment of her highest purpose and greatest function-to

increase, multiply, and replenish the earth" (64). According to Holroyd, Shaw's main concern in the play is that "biological progress must precede intellectual advance" (Pursuit 78). This maxim does not involve women only, men also have to yield to the call of the Life Force' As we see at the end of the play, despite all his protestations and obstinacy Jack Tanner, the philosophic man, cannot resist the Life Force and submits to Ann's desire. 15.2 Shaw and the Shadow of Nietzsche

Any analysis of Man and Superman woııld be insufficient and far

from

satisfactory without paying due attention to Nietzsche from whom Shaw borrowed the concept of "Superman" or 'oübermensch" as Nietzsche calls it' As Thatcher observes inhis Nietzsche in England 1890-1914, although Shaw

interesting affinity between Bunyan and Nietzsche stating that they both express almost the same views on common morality though using different mediums. If we note the fact that Shaw sees Bunyan as a writer more original

and creative than Shakespeare we would better grasp the quality of the connection he forms with Nietzsche.

According to Shaw, Nietzsche is the best representative of his age and generation. In a letter he wrote to William Archer he declares that in his plays he had tried to "put on stage for the time a dramatization of those three generations.... the old fashioned pious people, the generation of Mrs Fawcett, Lydia Becker, Stuart Mill &c, and the new Socialist Nietzsche generation" (Collected Letters II 138). Yet for Shaw, Nietzsche is an inevitable phenomenon of his age as he sees it. In a letter to Hyndmann, Shaw suggests that Nietzsche had been anticipated by Blake who "boldly called the powers of mischief God& his angels and the powers of well being Satan & his disciples" (Collected Letters II 162-63).

When one of his early biographers, American Archibald Henderson questioned Shaw about his debt to Nietzsche, Shaw quite candidly confessed that the first time he heard of Nietzsche was by a German lady who told him

that she knew where Shaw got most of the ideas in his Qııintessence'. Nietzsche's Beyond Good and Evil. Although Shaw had never heard of Nietzsche before, the title struck him. Shaw tried to read a few translations but he could never go through them. At last, Shaw had to resort to Thomas Common's book of selections Nietzsche as Critic, Philosopher, Poet, and Prophet (1901). Even though Shaw refers to Schopenhauer and Nietzsche frequently, Shaw states thaİ at times he feels himself as an "impostor" Since

Men in Petticoots

Shaw's Women Characters

134

of these names' Rather his real aim is he does not consider himself a follower ,,remind they called [his] individual eccentricities to [his] readers that what

andparadoxesarepartofthecommonEuropeanstocK,(553).Farfrombeing (Irvine 223)' Shaw is very well aware of an uncritical admirer of Nietzsche 'Nietzsche's notions and contradictions of the philosopher: the shortcomings

ofart,hisadmirationoftheRomansetc.,areveryunlikeanyviewsofmine;

I think he was academic in the and his erudition I believe all to be nonsense: book-learning about him...,, sense of having a great deal of secondhand

(Collected Letters II 553-54)'

HavingestablishedthedistancethatShawwasscrupuloustomaintain

betweenhimselfandNietzsche,wecanstatethatShawiscloserto

thaı in any other of his plays' Nietzsche's standpoint in Man and Superman have political, intellectual' unlike his other plays where women characters women characters of Man and social, professional, economical ambitions'

Supermanseemtobedevoidofthesepassions.Annis.oEveqrıvoman,,the archetypalmotherandnothingelse.ThiscorrespondstowhatHelmobserves

inNietzsche,sprimaryapproachtowomen.JustlikeDonaAna,sfinal as Don Juan in 'Flel/ "Not yet remarks in the scene which is also known

sing herself devoutly) I believe created! Then my work is not yet done. [Cros

intheLifetoCome.|Cryingtotheuniverse]Afather!afatherforthe

interested in women essentially Superman!,, (MAS 173), Nietzsche was also

'oasmothers,creatorsofa'highermankind"'(Helm75)'Thereisnotatrace ofVivieWarren,MrsClandonorCandidaanywhereinAnn,scharacter. Furthermore,ShawSeemstomakehisheroJackTannerthemouthpieceof of the "nature" of woman in Nietzsche's views on wornan. His definition BeyondGoodandEvilreads:..morenaturalthanthatofman,hergenuine, beneath the glove, her carnivore-like, cunning flexibility, her tiger-claws NAIVETE[sic]inegoism,heruntrainablenessandinnatewildness...the dangerousandbeautifulcat,.woman'...,'(101).AlthoughJackTanneruSeS resorts to wild and different images to refer to Ann, he still basically ..boa constrictor,,, ,,grizz:ry bear.., dangerous animal images such aS ,,crocodile,, and "tiger." A11 these wild animalS are ready to consume their any conscientious scruples' 'opre!", "man" in this particular context' without

13s

So we can say that Tanner is a quite Nietzschean character in

his

representation of women.

Nietzsche was quite skeptical about the "emancipation" of women. According to him, women had never been "more respected" in the history of the world than in the nineteenth century (100). Nietzsche claims that his age is in a deception with its democratic spirit which bestows more and more rights to women and thus "defeminize" them. He asserts that nineteenth century thinkers had a most impertinent and deceptive notion in presuming that they knew everything better than the ancients. He suggests that people of the classical ages were wiser in keeping women in a subordinate position (101). He also directs his attack on men who express their support to women'S rights movements calling them "idiotic friends and com-ıpters of woman among the leamed asses of the masculine sex" (101).

A typical

quote

from Nietzsche the infamous misogynist would suffice to expose the extent of his contempt for women:

Stupidity in the kitchen; women as cook; the terrible thoughtlessness

with which the feeding of the family and the master of house is managed; woman does not understand what food means, and she insists

on being cook! If woman had been a thinking creature, she should certainly, as cook for thousands of years, have discovered the most important physiological facts, and should likewise have got possession of the healing art! Through bad female cooks through the entire lack of reason in the kitchen, the development of mankind has been longest retarded and most interfered with; even today matters are very little better. A word to High School girls. (98) The quotation above is of course for Shaw rather alienating ince Shaw believes in the wonderful capacity of women to achieve as much as men do. Women are never inferior to men in Shaw's plays. Shaw has always declared

his faith in the progressive power of women like Florence Nightingale, the Pankhursts and Wollstonecraft. In Fanny's First Play (1911), for instance, Shaw depicts Fanny as a highly creative, deeply intellectual and politically advanced woman. In Press Cuttings (1909) Shaw again expresses his direct

Shaw's Women Characters

r36

support for the Suffragettes and declares them to be the modem Saint Joans' Nietzsche seems to have a totally opposite stand in his representation of the European women who strove to emancipate their sex: It betrays comıption of the instincts-apart from the fact that it betrays bad taste-when a woman refers to Madame Roland, or Madame de Stael, or Monsieur George Sand, as though something were proved thereby in favor of "woman as she is." Among men, these are three

comical women as they are-nothing more!-and just the best involuntary counter-arguments against feminine emancipation and autonomy. (233)

oonew woman", Having thus taken a condescending attitude towards the Nietzsche aligns himself with the patriarchal discourse which justifies the inferior status of women in society. Still Shaw is intellectually strong enough to pick the best aspects of Nietzsche's philosophy and keep his distance from certain aspects of his writings. Especially in his prefaces to Maior Barbara

I owe to

German Cuhure" (1911), Shaw distinctly expresses his displeasure for the critics who are in a tendency to associate his intellectual views with Schopenhauer and Nietzsche. (1907) and "what

Men in Petticoats

15.3 Ann Whitefield:

137

A Superwoman?

In his 1925 Nobel Prize Award Ceremony Speech Per Hallström, Chairman of the Nobel Committee of Swedish Academy marks a most significant point

in Man and Superman (1903) "proclaiming

that woman, because

of

her

resolute and undisguisedly practical nature, is destined to be the superrnan whose coming has been so long prophesied with such earnest yeaming." Halström also adds that though Shaw does not sound completely serious, yet there is fundamentally Shaw's "spirit of opposition to the earlier English worship of the gentle female saint." In that, Shaw's women characters are

usually his male characters' superiors morally, economically, personally, artistically and politically. Another play where Shaw places special emphasis on motherhood is Getting Married. Lesbia wants to bear babies, have children but without having to share her life with a man. She feels that she is being wronged not to be allowed to have a child and yet keep her independence. She argues that although the nation trusts their children to these single women at schools as teachers, at homes as tutors and see that they do a greatjob, the fact that they do not encourage them have children without a husband is a waste of maternal, physical, biological resor.""s.u8In a letter to Florence Farr Shaw suggests that mothers should be rewarded for every child they bring to world as they make a great contribution to the wealth of the country (qtd. in Watson

8s).

68Watson

also emphasizes the same point: "Generally, Shaw's later objections to the Family fall into two categories. He objects when it limits rather than liberates. He considers the middle- class family unit artificially segregated, and therefore (in the preface to Getting Married) a constraint upon free social intercourse, or (preface to Androcles and the Lion) an impediment to political and communal involvement. Shaw also objects (preface to Misalliance) to imposing emotional burdens on family members that are separate from mere human feelings. In all ofthese concerns, Shaw battles for the freedom ofchildren from any

artificial tyrannies, such as parental interference with children's marriages or social involvement, or demands for filial displays of affection that are not genuinely felt." (88)

Shaw's Women Characters

138

As Ervine

Men in Petticoats

notes although men found the play pleasant, some women

were infuriated being represented "simply as her husband's helpmate, a woman without will or purpose of her own, asserted that GBS was ignorant of feminine charm and selfless nature; and she denied...she hunted a man for her purpose" (390). In one of the reviews of the first performance of the play

1905, Baughan objects to Shaw's treatment of women in the play stating that Shaw built his whole theory of women hunting men on "the effects of the

in

disproportion between the number of women and men in England, and from

those accidental facts constructs a view of life which is only true in

a

parochial sense" (30). These comments and critics suggest that there is almost nothing that Shaw offers to women besides her role in family, society, marriage and breeding children. There is another group of critics who still think that Ann is a very strong and important woman character. vogt, in her "Ann and Superman: Type and Archetype," argues that Ann with her ever-changing character "becomes

(49). In "Shaw's Superwoman and the Borders of Feminism: One Step Over the Line," Mark Sterner maintains that compared to, for instance Pride and Prejudice's Jane,

identified with the essence

of creative Evolution"

who for the sake of modesty cannot make her feelings and inclination known to Bingley, Ann is brave enou gh to hazard her character in her chase after Jack Tanner. Although Sterner tries really hard to find feminist traits in Ann,

he fails to present any convincing examples from the play. Actually at the end of his article he admits that Ann is not Tanner's match in terms of intellectual pursuits. The best feminist point he could find in Ann's character:

A

salient characteristic is an underlying freedom from any genuine concern for what others may think of her, an emblem of Shaw's admiration for a woman who is able to swim free of the strangulating currents of conventional streams, even in the most conventional of societies. Ann's emotional independence from approval, in addition to her many other remarkable qualities, renders her a perfectly suitable mate for the world-betterer. Besides, they can make each other laugh. (1se)

1"39

Yet compared to Vivie Warren or Lina Szczepanowska, Ann has no intellectual, professional or social ambitions. rn A shavian Guide to the Intelligent woman, watson also analyzes Ann's character but she does not seem to propose her as one of Shaw's strong emancipated women. She just

emphasizes her "vitality" and notes that in shaw's characters as individuals, there are two basic traits that Shaw uses to judge them: the test of realism and vitality (61). within this paradigm, Ann is both very realistic and vital. still

she bears little comparison to Barbara, Epifania, Fanny or Cleopatra. As Powell suggests, Shaw's women characters like Candida and Ann "are limited in the exercise of their power to the realms of home, sex, and private feeling, and in this respect are characteristically Victorian" (97). on the other hand, they are not the ultimate Shavian women characters. rn Misalliance for instance, we come across quite a wide spectrum of women characters.

Men in Petticoats

Shaw's Women Characters

140

t4t

Shaw a Guide to Research (1992), reminds us that although it was one of Shaw's most successful plays in revival after his death, Misalliance "received only modest scholarly attention" (85).

t6 A Panorama of Most Wonderful Women: Misallİance (1910) Misalliancewas written in 1909 and staged in 1910 only for a short time-l1 performances. It did not have a successful box office until 1953, despite shortlived revivals in I9I7, 1930 and 1939. In his revealingly titled ,,,Nothing But Talk, Talk, Talk-shaw Talk': Discussion Plays and the Making of Modern Drama" Innes states that despite the short plays intervening between the two (such as The Glimpse of Reality, The Shewing up of Blanco Posnet, Press Cuttings and The Fascinating Foundling) Getting oowere clearly conceived as a pair" (163)' Innes Married and Misalliance finds a very interesting connection between Misalliance and Getting Married oohave a central position in which was written ayear earlier in 1908, as they Shaw's work, and mark a culmination of Shaw's development over the first half of his career" (163). They were so different from the plays written during the period that they "had to wait until the absurdist drama of had been accepted", before they could be recognized as major achievements (Innes r64-6s).

View of Edwardian Civilization in Misalliance," McDowell observes that although they acquired more attention by time, until the end of the World War II some of Shaw's plays such as Widowers' Hoı,ıses, The Philanderer, John Bull's other Island, Getting Married, Too In his "Shaw's Abrasive

True to Be Good,ln Good King Charles's Golden Days, Misalliance were not

as popular as some others such as Pygmalion, Maior Barbara or Man and

Sııperman (63). They were classified under the term "neglected plays" in 1987 Shaw Annual. And Stanley weintraub, in his authoritative Bernard

16.1

Lina Szczepanowska as the Superwoman

Innes' observation that Misalliance coı|d only become a public success after

Ionesco's plays broke the ground in Europe, is echoed in McDowell's observation that "in Misalliance we can identisı with Shaw's characters at least in part, so long as we can respect them or else delight in them to the

"Lina Szczepanowska is the only person in the play who earns our unqualified respect" (Mc Dowell 64). According to Rodelle Weintraub, although Lina Szczepanowska seems to be the most perfect, almost flawless, new woman in Shaw's plays, upon close examination she appears to be the slave of her own family traditions, for which she risks her life constantly (I7I). For Gainor, whose line of argument leads her to dissociate Shaw from the new woman,Lina represents nothing more than "the fascination and appeal of the exotically foreign oOther"' (131). On a different key, Holroyd notes that o'Lina's appearance 'in full acrobatic trapeze dress, as dazzling as possible, to make her effect when she throws off her masculine cloak' is the most astonishing entrance to be made in a Shaw play" (247). Yet, Holroyd does not pursue the connotations of such an o'astonishing entrance" which consists of many different layers that are disclosed gradually. Firstly, all the characters in the play presume extent that they are absurd. .." and moreover he adds

that only a man could show the "prowess" and skills to save the pilot Percival and then land "like a bird" (164). When they discover that all these fantastic deeds have been accomplished by a woman, they are all shocked to the last

degree. For nobody would expect this most extraordinary calmness and bravery from a woman. Secondly, the fact that Lina comes from a foreign country representing a culfure and values which do not recognize or confoım

to the Edwardian cultural scene of England makes her a perfect iconoclast. "ln her" writes Holroyd, "the characters are confronted by the spirit of the

r42

Shaw's Women Characters

Men in Petticoats

future, from where the manners and values of their polite world look absurd" (247). McDowell attributes another dramatic function to Lina stating that she

743

many extra pairs of arrns as an Indian god has, they could evolve them" (Shaw qtd. in Griffith 17). The fact that acrobats deal with acts and tricks which look incredible to a common person makes them perfect examples of creative evolution. They stand for the unlimited capacity of humanity. In the play we are told that Lina saves Joey's life when the plane crashes on the

is the "touchstone of value in the play and gives us the vantage-point from which to measure the other characters" (68). Mc Dowell also calls her "the Life Force incamate" (72). Her reception as the "most perfect new woman" "new and "the Life Force incarnate" lead us to the conclusion that she is the woman" formed through the creative evolution, a combination of Shaw's two very intense intellectual and political convictions. It is in the person of Lina Szczepanowska that Shaw's idea of creative evolution gives birth to his "new woman". It is in a background of middle-class family setting that her

All

personality shines, and the middle-class and upper-class English values represented by Tarletons, Summerhayes and Percival are put into an "absurd"

of the modem cinema, which Stanley weintraub thinks, debilitates the title of Man and superman with all the clark Kent connotations misleading the

perspective.

reader and the spectator.

Rodelle Weintraub's interpretation of Lina misses a very important point. She condemns Lina for being blindly enslaved by her family tradition which requires a member of the family to risk their lives every other day. As this is a play focusing on the parent-child relationships, Lina in the context of

The most important reason women have been "protected" so jearously, imprisoned into their houses under the guardianship of their family, subjected to strict dress codes sometimes not even showing their eyes, and forbids them from male company is the idea that women are not physically strong enough

her relationship with her family has a significant eminence for the structure of the play. First of all, the fact that the family tradition can be kept

regardless of the sex indicates the gender equality in Lina's family.

She

mentions the telegraph she gets from her brother and that is how she decides to take the plane to risk her life. on the other hand, Hypatia, for instance, is not allowed to work in the family business while her fianc6e and brother are most welcome. This marks and reveals the difference between the two

(Polish-English, unconventional-conventional middle class) Secondly, acrobacy as a family profession connotes a very important families.

evolutionary principle which asserts that skills acquired by one generation is transformed to following generations thus change in the genes become permanent.

Acrobacy, as a profession, is also closely related with the idea of creative evolution. The idea that Life Force pushes for developrnent, progress and perfection and "ifthe change requires eyes in the back oftheir heads and as

greenhouse with an unbelievable agility. She also saves Tarleton's life using

her professional acrobatic skills once more. And with her wonderful personality, she inspires courage in all of the characters in the play, especially in Bentley. she can read the Bible while juggling six balls and understand it. these skills make her a superwoman even in terms of the "superman"

to protect themselves from male sexual aggression. Lina szczepanowska, with her personality and physical strength prove that men are just like mice in the mercy of a fierce cat with their relations to Lina. Although all the male characters on the stage make sexual advances to her, we never feel that any of them can be athreat to her if she does not want it. she is the master of the situation in all cases. For instance, when Tarleton asks her to be his mistress, instead of getting furious and creating a scandal, she takes it "very calmly" asking 'oHow much will you pay?" (159). Although she has no intention of getting involved with hiın in such an affair, she wants to know her value as a mistress. only people with very strong characters can take such an "indecent"

offer without losing their tempers. In that Lina reminds us another Shavian caesar of caesar and cleopatra,who would tear a letter which

o'superman"

lists all his enemies in Rome.

I have mentioned above that Lina has been considered as the

most

remarkable "new woman" character that Shaw created (Rodelle weintraub

Men in Petticoats

Shaw's Women Characters

t44

that make her one' In the first 173), but I have not dwelt much on the features

place,sheisaprofessionalwomanwho,justlikeVivieWarren'hasthe

a Very strong sense of necessary skills to earn her own life, which gives her woman; in other independence and pride. Secondly, she is an independent in finding a suitable words, she has not made the sole aim of her existence

richhusbandwhowillprovideforher.Wecansafelysaythatthemost is her attitude significant feature which distinguishes the "new woman" againstmarriage.Asanemancipatedstrongwomansheneedsneither

L4s

Lina's foreign perspective helps Shaw deal with what is considered "honorable", what is "dishonorable" in a new moral and intellecfual plain where nothing can be taken for granted any longer (what Borges calls Shaw's

great gift of freeing us from our preconceptions).

As a result, even an immoral and loose character such as Frank Gardner in Mrs. Waren's

Profession can claim his intentions "honorable" automatically the moment he mentions marriage as an end to his relation with Yivie (232).In Misalliance also, Joey Percival is questioned by Hypatia's father Tarleton and her brother

After she declares protection nor anyone to work for and provide her with.

Johnny, on his intentions, whether he wants to marry Hypatia or not

thatsheforgivesBentley,schildishapproachesandTarleton'sand calling them summerhays, offers to make her their lover, mistress,

Lina, on the other hand, regards marriage as a most serious and offensive attack on her honor. She reports that Johnny has proposed her calling "her

.

,,honorable,, as she does not consider them a threat to her independence' we at best in her speech she see Lina Szczepanowska's "new woman" qualities to run away immediately: makes on Johnny,s proposal which makes her want

present position not nice for a woman." She finds Johnny's conviction shockingly immoral. In her own judgment, which is what as an audiencereader we come to identi$ı with, she is "what a woman ought to be." Her

and these I bear in silence. But now comes your Johnny

sense of honor is based on strong and solid principles and virtues. Her self-

LINA. .... All

I' Lina tells me I'm a ripping fine woman' and asks to marry him'

Szczepanowska,MARRYhim!!!!!...Hewilldothestraightthing I must know by me. He will give me a home, a position' He tells me

image of honesty is founded on the merit that she earns her own living; freedom that she lives on her own house, not in a house provided to her by a husband where she has almost no sense of ownership; she believes that she is

This to me' that my present position is not one for a nice woman' I am Lina Szczepanowska! I am an honest woman: I eam my living'

of the world: I a free woman: I live in my own house' I am a woman

woman of the world" as she is not bound to a house and its domestic circles, but is known and appreciated by thousands of people who pay out of their "hard-earned money" to see her. Moreover, she is also proud to be a

havethousandsoffriends:everynightcrowdsofpeopleapplaudme' to see me: I delight in me, buy my picture, pay hard-earned money

strong, skillful, brave, independent and "unbought"

Johnny's perception

amstrong:Iamskillful:Iambrave:Iamindependent:Iam unbought:Iamallthatawomanoughttobe...AndthisEnglishman!

thislinendraper!hedarestoaskmetocomeandlivewithhimin thisrrrrmabbithutch,andtakemybreadfromhishand,andaskfor pocketmoney,andwearsoftclothes,andbehiswoman!hiswife!

he shall ... And you may tell your Johnny to buy an Englishwoman:

notbuyLinaSzczepanowska;andlwillnotstayinthehousewere such dishonor is offered to me' (201)

ooa

of

woman. Marriage, in the instifution, requires woman to give up

professional work and becorne a housewife, means the loss of all the merits for Lina, accepting an ğect position. In her conception, marriage is to be

economically dependent on the husband, first of all. She abhors the idea of taking her bread from her husband's hand or asking for pocket money. She also shares the similar dislike Shaw's other strong women characters show towards "soft clothes" which mark a kind of submissive attitude towards the

role assigned to women in the patriarchal society. Another objection she raises is to be "his woman", which implies becoming a sex-slave who has very little say on her body or soul. The possessive adjective "his" makes Lina

Men in Petticoats

Shaw's Women Characters

146

feelcommodifiedbyJohnny.Consequently,shefeelsherexistenceasan predatory institution' independent human being threatened by a most

a subservient Lina emphatically declares that rather than yielding to such professions such as existence she would rather take up the most demeaning becoming an actress becoming a clown and make bad examples to children;

oroperasingerandwithwickedliespretendingtobesomebodyelse.Her merits of hard work, pride in her profession as an acrobat is based on the of grinding practice and honesty, skills that she acquire d at a great price also looks down on art training. In that she reminds us vivie warren, who almost in, what chesterton and celebrates only hard work, in such a way that calls, a "puritan" fashion.

Middle Class MoralitY ..Second most vital According to McDowell, after Lina, Hypatia is the her is usually person" in the play, whereas the general perception of ,,astringent and equivocal." McDowell also suggests that Lina's presence

her "environment'" All helps us see how different she could have been but have been caused by the playful cruelty and sometimes unpleasant bittemess

Tarletonkeepingherathome,notlettingher.onatureexpand,,inamore independentway(McDowell66;Sharp15).Inthatsense,asBertolini suggests,herfamily..limitsratherthanliberatesher,,(148).Healsoobserves such as ,,the freedom of children from any artificial tyrannies, that for Shaw involvement, or parental interference with children's marriages or social genuinely felt" (148) form demands for filial displays of affection that are not relations with their the basis of his concern as far as children and their Shaw introduces Hypatia with these Stage notes:

swift glances and movements that flash out of a waiting stillness, boundless energy and audacity held in leash" (115). what is remarkable in this description is not the physical features but the point that she is depicted as a "typical English girl" which makes her a type who stands for more than herself.

Hypatia's "swift glances and movement that flash out of a waiting stillness" point to her sexual energy and vitality which suggest Shaw's idea of Life Force. Lastly, "her boundless energy and audacity held in leash" give us a sense of Life Force in her pushing for creative evolution but in a sense limited and unfulfilled potential. There is a very strong connection between Hypatia and Lina in the play. In many various ways, Lina is the woman Hypatia wants to be but would not be allowed to become because of middleclass conventions which imprison women to home: 'owhen a woman has

16.2SubjectionandFamily:HypatiaTarletonintheBoundariesof

families is concemed.

147

..Hypatia is a typical

Englishgirlofasortnevercalledtypical:thatis'shehasanopaquewhite

and lashes, curved lips' skin, black hair and large dark eyes with black brows

nothing to do, money and respectability mean that nothing is allowed to happen to her. I dont want to be good; and I dont want to be bad: I just dont want to be bothered about either good or bad: I want to be an active verb" (r42). Instead of bringing happiness and freedom to Hypatia, her family's wealth restrains her. Though as individuals they are raİher well-meaning and

generous people,

Mr. and Mrs. Tarleton have been in Lundberg

and

Fumham's expression "agents of a vicious society vis-a-vis" in bringing up Hypatia (274). Her objection to this situation is crystallized in her dialogue

with Percival whom she invites to ignore social conventions and

act

naturally:

PERCIVAL. Confound

it, what sort of girl are you? What sort of house

is this? Must I throw all good manners to the winds?

HYPATIA. lfollowing himl Do, do, do, do, do. This is the house of a respectable shopkeeper, enormously rich. This is the respectable shopkeeper's daughter, tired of good manners. lSlipping her left hand into his rightl Come, handsome young man, play with the respectable shopkeeper's daughter.

(1

62)

Hypatia's attitude of pursuing a young man is even for percival (who has three fathers to discuss morality and who is as daring as flying an airplane

Shaw's Women Characters

148

Men in Petticoats

1.49

which had been invented just six years earlier, thus in its infancy and extremely dangerous and unreliable) a shocking and most scandalous behavior. In her teasing response to Percival, Hypatia's sarcastically repetitive use of the expression "respectable shopkeeper" three times is central to our understanding of her attitude towards her family and middle

began talking about it: I thought theyd all have got up and gone out of the room. But not a bit of it, if you please. They were all just as

class morality.

system I had. I said I was sure I knew nothing about such things, and

The "respectable shopkeeper" Tarleton does not seem to deserve such a title upon close inspection. First of all, he is a man of 'osuper abundant vitality,, which means he cannot help falling in love with women and

hadnt we better change the subject. Then the fat was in the fire, I can

bad as she. They all had systems; and each of them swore by her own system. I sat there with my cheeks burning until one of the duchesses, thinking

I looked out of it, I suppose, asked me what

tell you. There was a regular terror of a countess with an anaerobic system; and she told me, downright brutally, that I'd better leam

pursuing them with all his energy and source of wealth. The way he openly proposes to Lina on the stage indicates that he is a seasoned woman chaser.

something about them before my children died of diphtheria. That was just two months after I'd buried poor little Bobby; and that was

Everybody in the famil5ı knows about his affairs and nobody seems to take any heed of them any longer, including his wife Mrs. Tarleton. Secondly, he p as a man with very advanced views who reads a lot, opening free libraries for the profit of the public. Yet when it comes to his family affairs, we see

The point Shaw makes here through Mrs. Tarleton's speech is one of the most important themes of the play. The notion of "decency" marks certain

that his advanced views are only on the surface. For instance, the way he treats Hypatia, locking her into the house and not letting her get a job at his

own business just as he would let his son Johnny and Hypatia's fiancğe Bentley, reveals that he is a rathet conventional father. All his "respectability" costs Hypatia more restrains and more conventions to follow.

As an'oenormously rich shopkeeper", he represents the middle-class who in their social aspirations created so many conventions and social obligations that made human existence a mere suffering as far as social relations are concerned. Mrs. Tarleton's long lecture on the difference between aristocracy and the middle class makes us understand how artificial and unnatural Shaw finds the latter's social conventions:

MRS. TARLETON. But you know they've no notion of decency. I shall never forget the first day I spent with a marchioness, two duchesses, and no end of Ladies This and That....I'd never heard such talk in my life. The things they mentioned!... Drainage!! She tried three systems in her castle; and she was going to do away with them all and try another...I didnt know which way to look when she

the very thing he died oÇ poor little lamb! I burst out crying: I couldnt help it. It was as good as telling me I'd killed my own child.

subjects as unmentionable for Mrs. Tarleton who represents the middle class

values. "Drainage" is what

is

considered to be a vulgar topic with its unpleasant connotations. on the other hand, these unfounded standards for "decency" and "indecency" have a tremendous cost for Mrs. Tarleton as she lost her son because of such an ignorance which forbids her to speak very natural topics. Tarleton touches a similar vein when he says that although he talks to the parents of his young employees about warning their children on the dangers and possible traps of city life, the parents would not be able to overcome their shyness and advise their children in spite of the certainty of the hazards. Hypatia is the young woman who has been able to overcome this shyness and reject all kinds of social conventions which restrain her from

behaving "improperly", just like Undershaft

in Major Barbara; she

is

"unashamed".

Furthermore, very similar to Sylvia in The Philanderer and Eliza in Pygmalion she uses a Very "unconventional" and profane veınacular which tease and appall characters like Lord Summerhays and Percival. The violence

and destruction she applies to middle class conventions, decency and

Shaw's Women Characters

150

Men in Petticoats

language give her the chance to be the only character, other than Lina Szczepanowska, who has a healthy relation with reality. Although Gunner, the intruder who has discovered her mother's pre-marital affair with Tarleton upon her death and comes to revenge his mother, looks like an unnecessary digression in the general structure of the play, his expositions uncover the

relation of all the characters with reality; particularly so with his exposition of Joey and Hypatia affair. when he tells what he saw in the bath hiding, he

is made to sign a testament which accounts that he has told all kinds of lies about Hypatia. However, when Mrs. Tarleton discovers that he is Lucinda Titmus' son, an old friend of hers that she helped to stand on her feet after her relation with Mrs. Tarleton's own husband; she just tears the document and calls everyone to treat him decently and respectably. Nobody even attempts to deny that they doubted even a second the rightness of the account

PERCIVAL:

ls1

I shall do nothing of the sort.

HYPATIA: Yes, you will: you cant help yourself. (163) She is so confident of her own sexual charms and the irresistible power

of the Life Force that just like Ann in Man and Superman, she will not take o'no" for an answer. She has such an amazing strength of character that as long as she gets what she wants, Joey in that case, she does not mind how Joey handles the matter of their marriage with her father: "purely a question of money" (195). Hypatia's response is simply "Papa: buy the brute for me" (194). What makes Joey attractive to her is Joey's brave and adventurous nature that she from the beginning of the play treasures in man.

The fact that she wants to work in her father's business is another trait that distinguishes her from womanly woman. There is another important trait which shows that she is more a "new woman" than a ooconventional" one. For instance, when Johnny tries to protect her from Joey's harsh words, she

while Gunner was physically forced to deny her righteousness. Thus we are made to see the hypocrisy and the twisted relation the bourgeoisie have with facts and reality. Also we are made to understand that although respectability and gentle manners are so strongly emphasized they are nothing more than

rejects to be treated like a weak person who cannot take care of herself. Her rejection of male protection is also a gesture which delegitimizes the male-

appearances.

dominance over her person.

in

In her relation with Percival, the dialogue below also bears a central role our interpretation of Hypatia's character aS a "new woman" who is an

unconscious agent of the Life Force. In the first place, the very incident, Percival's plane crash, is even mystically initiated by Hypatia's will if we recall Tarleton's expression about her just moments before the crash: "Restless. Wants things to happen. Wants adventures to drop out of sky" (145). They do actually drop out ofsky, and once they do Hypatia cannnot be

PERCIVAL: |withdrawing quickly from her

toı,ıch] No, no: dont you

a perfect stranger?

HYPATIA: Dropped down from the sky. Dont you know that you must always go on like this when you get the chance? You must come to the top of the hill and chase me through the bracken. You may kiss me if you catch me.

convention" is one of Shaw's favorite themes in his plays. If we think of how in The Philanderer Sylvia Grace and Charteris delight in shocking people and each other in many different ways we can see that Shaw as a disciple

of

Ibsen makes a point of criticizing middle class conventions. Crane also notes

discouraged by objections:

know you mustnt go like this with

For all her rebellious traits, she still aims for marriage, a gesture which allies her with the conventional woman as Gladys Crane agues. In her "Shaw's 'Misalliance': The Comic Journey from Rebellious Daughter to ConventionalWomanhood" (1973), Crane observes that "rejection of

that in most of the cases the rebel is a woman character. The male rebels such

as Dick Dudgeon, Higgins, Tanner and Charteris are in the minority compared to female ones. When you consider the women rebels like Sylvia,

Vivie, Mrs. Warren, Candida, Mrs. Clandon, Eliza Doolittle and Ann Whitefield among many others; we see that they surpass the males by number and the strength of character in terms of determination and consciousness in

what they do and pursue. According to Crane, this is particularly so as

t52

Shaw's Women Characters

English women at the turn of the century "had more to rebel against than the men." Crane states that Misalliance has a special place in the Shavian canon as Hypatia is "his fullest creation of the rebellious daughter and woman." She does not reject "parental guidance" only but she also defies all the middleclass social expectations "hilariously overtuming conventional standards for

women.,, In that sense Hypatia, is like an extension of Man and superman's Ann Whitefield. They both chase men: "Like Arırı, Hypatia is a Life Force woman who recognizes in Joey Percival her ideal mate." Yet Crane marks a significant distinction between how they do these. While Ann is quite

hypocritical in her defiance of social expectations (only Tanner and her mother could detect her cunning), Hypatia is unashamed and open. She has no disguise. She does not only do them but she also defends them, just like Undershaft in Major Barbara. For all her rebelliousness, Crane argues that her pursuit of Joey and then her insistence to marry him makes her a "conventional woman" at the end of the play, rather than a liberated one (80)'

16.3 Marriage, Freedom and

Life Force

Men in Petticoats

153

his daughter is concerned he cannot let her have a more independent lifestyle.

When he boasts that he has let her free to choose whatever she wants to do, wherever she wants to go and whatever she wants to read, Hypatia simply replies: "Oh yes, if there had only been anything for me to do, any place for me to go, anything I wanted to read" (145). The alternative of marriage for

her is to become an old maid and remaining in the family circle which she describes as:

HYPATIA: Girls withering into ladies. Ladies withering into old maids. Nursing old women. Running errands for old men. Good for

nothing else at last. Oh, you cant [sic.] imagine the fiendish selfishness of the old people and the maudlin sacrifice of the young. It's more unbearable than any poverty: more horrible than any regular-right-down wickedness. Oh, home! home! parents! family! duty! how I loathe them! How I'd like to see them all blown to bits! The poor escape. The wicked escape. Well, I cant be poor: we're rolling in money: it's no use pretending we're not. But I can be wicked; and I'm quite prepared to be. (143)

In her own circumstances as a middle-class girl, she has only two of emancipating herself from her bonds, getting married is her only way of getting away from the pressure and suppression of her parents. Even in a very short period in the play we see that she can

As Hypatia

cannot think

manipulate Joey as much as she wants, and that Joey has no control over her, but she can make him do whatever she wants. Although her parents are very well-meaning people with their relations to other characters in the play, they

have been very restrictive and forbidding in their relations to Hypatia. Tarleton, for instance, is a very generous and friendly person. He invites Joey and Lina to spend the weekend with his family, although they have cost a considerable damage crashing on their Greenhouse with their plane. He

opens free libraries, is kind to Bentley even when he is impertinent and arrogant. He forgives Gunner quickly even though the latter has tried to kill him. Moreover, although he professes all kinds of advanced views from Darwinism to democracy and boasting as a champion of new ideas, as far as

options: to stay single or to get married.

A single life,

as Hypatia projects it

sounds unbearable. In that context, marriage signifies more than a romantic

affair "happy ever after" for Hypatia. She believes that any wedlock would save her from the confinement of her family house. If we take into account Hypatia's relations and flirtations with men, we see that although she is far

from admiring Bentley at the very beginning of the play, she cannot see anything better than getting married for herself. She simply admits: "What else can I do?" And even with Joey Percival we see that her situation is far from promising as Joey goes into bargain with her father just in front of her, regardless of her feelings to be made the object of an almost mercenary transaction. In fact, she manages to get Joey marry him through being utterly "wicked" throwing all decency away. Sharp argues that Misalliance is basically about "what constitutes a satisfactory alliance" (10). He also adds that the play tries to raise the

ts4

Men in Petticoats

Shaw's Women Characters

question "...which particular young man some young woman mate with" (10). Hypatia is really in the center of this quest. She has had many suitors in the playtime, at least four mentioned on the stage: Bentley, Lord Summerhays, Jerry Mackintosh and finally Joey Percival whom she pursues and makes him marry her, just like Ann of Man and Superman. She breaks up with Jerry as she thinks that he is not clever enough; she does not accept Summerhays' offer as he is old but still she keeps him in rear as a perfect substitute, telling him that she really enjoys his conversation and she feels

differently towards him than she does towards the other old man. Finally, she breaks up with Bentley to get Joey who has full body with the brains of Bentley. In her search for a more developed mate, she does not recognize any social convention or feel any guilt.

Hypatia differs from Ann Whitefield in the sense that her sole motive is not to serve the Life Force through getting the perfect father for the children she would bear but also and more consciously to break free from her family in the mean time. She is charged with the energy of the "life force" thatshe make adventures "drop out of the sky," and bring her a husband (Joey

Percival) and a model woman whom she really would like to lead the life of: Lina Szczepanowska. If we read this coincidence in the light of Shaw's theory of Life Force, we see that it is Hypatia's will that bring them to the scenery.

As Shaw

sees it

if one really wills something the entire universe will

serve that end and make it haPPen.

Although Ann whitefield's Life Force is focused on "a father for

the

Superman", we never see Hypatia associated with motherhood. Marriage for her seems to be a way of escaping from her family. According to McDowell, there is one more difference between Ann-Tanner and Hypatia-Joey matches'

In that while the first match has significance for the Life Force as their offspring has the potential to improve the human stock with Ann's goodlooks and Tanner's genius; neither Hypatia nor Joey seems to offer anything extraordinary. (McDowell 66)

16.4

155

Another Woman with a Past: Lucinda Titmus

Although we never see Lucinda Titmus on the stage, she holds a rather significant presence towards the end of the play. Lucinda Titmus' son Gunner reads his mother's letters after she passed away and discovers that her mother had an extra-marital relation with Mr. Tarleton when she was young and still

single. As the melodramatic depictions of these rich man-poor woman relations represent the woman as the victim and the man as the heartless seducer of her chastity and morals, Gunner moves with this assumption and comes to take revenge from his mother's corruptor, Tarleton. The idealism Gunner was infected with through reading ooworse-than-death" literature blinds him to such an extent that he seems to have forgotten the realities of her mother's life: after all, Tarleton reminds him that his mother had a happy maniage, set up a business most likely with the money he gave her as a compensation and brought up a son. 'oWhere is the disgrace?" Tarleton asks.

Like most of Shaw's characters, chiefly like the arm-maker Undershaft of Major Barbara, Tarleton is basically o'unashamed." This trivial approach to such a supposedly grave matter turns a melodramatically tragic event into a

farcical element. Lucinda Titmus, in certain ways, reminds us Mrs. Ekdal inlbsen's Wild Duck. Mrs. Ekdal was also the mistress of a rich man, Hakon Werle. When she got pregnant Werle married her to unsuspecting Hjalmar Ekdal. Hjalmar

and Gina Ekdal, husband and wife lead a huppy life with the old Ekdal and

their daughter Hedvig, who has a rather tender nature. Hakon Werle's son Gregers Werle comes back from his self-imposed exile, bitter with his father

knowing that his mother died resenting her husband's relation with Gina, their servant. The idealist Gregers believes that reality would make his friend Hjalmar's life more fulfilled and he discloses the secret that his wife was once Hakon's mistress. It so happens that Hjalmar cannot bear to have anything to do with his wife or his daughter, who is biologically by Hakon. While the Hjalmar, Gina and Gregers have that argument, Hedvig goes to the loft where she had sacrificed the wild duck just that morning to prove to her

t56

Shaw's Women Characters

Men in Petticoats

father that she loved him more than everything else and that there was no sacrifice that she could not make for him, but this time she kills herself. Shaw has a very different approach compared to Ibsen who has a taste for tragedy. Much as he admires Ibsen and holds him at a very high point as his master, his attitude towards his characters and what happens to them at

157

many affairs as she likes within the knowledge of her husband. Just like Mrs

Tarleton, Mr George does not object or cannot object to these affairs. Similarly in The Millionairess, both Epifania and her husband Alastair have their own affairs. None seems to hold the right to interfere with the other. As a result, we cannot say that Shaw claims a double standard for men.

the end of the play is usually in the same line with Gunner's, who aspires to

murder his mother's "seducer" but ends up making himself ridiculous before everyone.

Feminist writers of the time such as Sarah Grand and Sarah M. Amos bring a different dimension to Lucinda Titmus' story. According to these feminist writers men must remain as chaste as women and there could not be different standards for different genders on the case. According to Amos "the reason why the girls were so protected" (with this same protective efforts are

the prison walls built around women) was that there were men who were ready to "drag" girls "to their own pit of destruction" (289). Although these

wicked men are morally destructive, society does not condemn them but the women who are actually the victims. Oscar Wilde's I Woman of No Importance (1893) deals with that same argument. Tn The Heavenly Twins (1893), Sarah Grand makes a very strong stand against such a double standard through her central character Evadne. In the novel, through Evadne, Grand argues that as long as men are not judged by the same standards as women, women cannot have real freedom. In that men must also be made to account for their chastity and conduct as much as the women. Evadne learns that her husband is not as pure as she believed him to be.

As a consequence,

on their wedding day she simply refuses to live with him. When her parents voice the Philistine views of society that men might have some liberty on pre-marital sexual experience, she fires back and that she does not see what that liberty was based on, that such a double standard is groundless. If we

apply Grand's and Amos' reasoning to the affair between Lucinda Titmus and Tarleton, Shaw's tolerance for Tarleton works against the demands and expectations of the feminists of the period. On the other hand, Shaw recognizes the same right for women in Getting Married. Mrs George has as

16.5

Mrs. Tarleton: The Mother Figure

Shaw created many interesting and varied mother figures in a spectrum from protective and caring mother Candida to dominant and oppressive Lady Britomart, from Ann the huntress to Mrs Clandon the radical. It is hard to find the mother Jack Tanner's speech describes:

Oh, I protest against this vile abjection of youth to age! Look at fashionable society as you know it. What does it pretend to be? An exquisite dance of nymphs. What is it? A horrible procession of wretched girls, each in the claws of a cynical, cunning, avaricious, disillusioned, ignorantly experienced, foul minded old woman whom she calls mother, and whose duty it is to comıpt her mind and sell her to the highest bidder. Why do these slaves marry anybody, however old

and vile, sooner than not marry at all? Because marriage is their only

means of escape from these decrepit fiends who hide their selfish ambitions, their jealous hatreds of the young rivals who have supplanted them, under the mask of matemal duty and family affection.

(e6-e7)

Mrs. Tarleton does not seem to resemble the picture described above in the least because she basically does not have a high influence on Hypatia's decision. Although she tries to express her opinions on her daughter's choices, she still does not try to impose her own ideas to Hypatia. Just like Mrs. Whitefield in Man and Superman, she is a mother who does not have a strong authority over her children. In the final scene, for instance, she is the

158

Shaw's Women Characters

last one to learn of the newly formed engagements between Joey and Hypatia, and Szczepanowska and Bentley.

In the stage directions Shaw describes, Mrs Tarleton shortly as "a shrewed and motherly old lady who has been pretty in her time, and is still very pleasant and likeable and unaffected' (115). The first words she utters

in the play indicates her motherly side: "Are you ill child? There, there, pet: don't cry: there! there! there! Johnny will go for the doctor; and he'll give you something nice to make it well." Here she is talking to her daughter's fiancğ Bentley who cries like a child. But her tone and the affections she offers are not the sort of consolation one would direct to a grown up man. She is not a mother to her children Johnny, Hypatia and their peers only, but she also mothers her own husband. In the scene where Gunner pops up from the Turkish bath Tarleton calls "Chickapiddy" with panic, as a child would call for his mother: "Is anything the matter, John? Nurse says she heard you

calling me a quarter of an hour ago; and that your voice sounded as if you were ill. lshe comes between Tarleton and the manf.Is anything the matter?" (174). She finds out who Gunner is, one of her husband's old mistress' son, ool-ucy Titmus! Oh John, John!" and her she chides her husband only with: next words are: "Are you Lucy's son?" "Why didnt you come to me? I didnt turn my back on your mother when she came to me in her trouble. Didnt you know that?" (182-83) Mrs. Tarleton was one time Mr. Tarleton's employee and as she remarks she is happy to be his wife rather than one of the other employee's. Because of the gratitude probably she overlooks his affairs. One particular detail in the play reveals to what extent she was actually aware of and may be involved occasionally (182-83). Even though Tarleton cannot remember Lucinda Titmus, neither her name nor her face from a photograph, Mrs. Tarleton immediately recalls her from the photograph and treats her son Gunner with motherly affection. She asks Gunner "Why did not you come to me? I did not tum down your moment in her time of need. I would not turn down her son either" (1S3). What this "time of need" is not given clearly in the play but it is most probably the time when Tarleton left her to her destiny is implied strongly.

Men in Petticoats

159

On the other hand, in certain circumstances we see that she has quite good sense on the matter. For instance, she can clearly see that Bentley is not the right kind of man for Hypatia. when Hypatia complains that she does not know many eligible young men with whom she may marry, Shaw makes Mrs Tarleton say that she had more options as a working class girl. The variety

of

choice has a significant eminence in Shaw's theory of creative Evolution. This is directly linked to shaw's ideas that, the rigid class system in England works against the Life Force as it prevents both sexes select their ideal partners instinctually but limit themselves to socio-economically eligible partııers who may not be the best match at all. Thus the title: Misalliance.

160

Conclusion

Men in Petticoats

in love with an Egyptian doctor and she changes herself, from a millionairess who does not have to lift a finger to earn her life, into a woman who has to do with very little and make the best of it.

CONCLUSION In dialogue with their work, this study has been a kind of response to Gainor,

Powell and Kelly's criticism of Shaw which I described at the beginning of this book. These critics share a basic tenet in their criticism: They all overlook Shaw's positive support and representations, focusing only on his ambivalent and sometimes negative depictions. They ignore the fact that as a playwright it is Shaw's most serious responsibility to voice different aspects of the same issue through contrasting characters. Although he says that more than an artist he is a moral propagandist, Shaw also declares that to follow a crude propagandist strategy would

kill all his

1_61

effectiveness as a playwright.

That's why when he was asked to write a play on Ireland by WB Yeats, he wrote John Bull's Other Island (1904), which was not as flattering or glorifuing as the Abbey Theater would like. Although it was one of Shaw's most brilliant plays, it was turned down by the Abbey Theatre with some weak excuses.

Man and Superman is not a turning point in Shaw's charactetization of women as Gainor claims. In the plays following Man and Sııperman, there are "superwomen" like Major Barbaru, Eliza Doolittle, Saint Joan and Epifania among many others. Major Barbara, for instance, is a young woman,

Despite an unspeakably crude misogynist discourse in the westem canon, Shaw remained on the side of women in their struggle to gain equal rights and opportunities. To show the extent of this misogynist discourse, Bressler quotes statements from giant names of the westem Canon, such as Hesiod,

Aristotle, Plato, Sophocles, Nietzsche, proudhon, Twain, Barzac, Hawthorne and Emerson among many others (168-70). one of the most famous cases of the patriarchal discourse which affırms the existing power relations between the genders and reinforcing women's subservience is Shakespeare's The Taming of the shrew. In "Affective Resistance: performing passivity and Playing A-Part in The Taming of the shrew" Holly A. crocker describes how it was hard to stage the Shakespearean Katharine and how directors have tried to adapt her as they especially find the final speech "transgressive more than transformative" (143). crocker takes Shaw's criticism of The Taming of the shrew as a representative of the modern conscience: "Bernard shaw illustrates the final scene as embarassing and 'altogether disgusting to modem sensibility"' (158). As a world betterer, although Shaw admits that "In manner andart nobody can write better than shakespeare .... he did the thing as well as it can be done within the limits of human faculty" (Agitations 79),he still asserts that shakespeare is an overrated writer who relies on his

the poor through the Salvation Army at the beginning of the play. However,

"word-music" which "gives fascination to his most blackguardly repartees and sublimity to his hollowest platitudes,, (g0). 6e Shaw,s approach to Shakespeare essentially reveals his attitude towards women. As Sally peters

when she was disillusioned by the Army, she does not hesitate to take up her

observes shaw believed that "the fates of artists, homosexuals, and women

a new superwoman, who has very noble and humanitarian ambitions, helping

father's arm manufacturing as a means to her end. Eliza Doolittle goes through a similar change. Through her will to rise in social standing she learns to speak her own language better, and from a "gutter" flower girl at the end of the play she passes as a lady and all the time she never loses her dignity. Saint Joan as a superwoman, with her incredibly strong will makes everything in the universe serve her cause. Epifania in the Millionairess falls

6e

shaw had a very intense and powerful relation with Shakespeare's plays. He was in constant dialogue with the bard. For an analysis of Shaw's play in dialogue with Shakespeare, see Sally Peters "Shaw's Double Dethroned: The Dark Lady of the Sonnets, Cymbeline Refinished, and shakes versus Shaw", Shaw, vol.7, Shaw: The Neglected plays (19g7), pp. 301-3 16. Also see: George Bernard Shaw, Shaw and Shakespeare; An Anthologı of Beinard Shaw'sWriting on the Plays and Prodııction of Shakespeare. Ed. Edwin Wilson. New York: E.P. Dutton, 1961.

t62

Conclusion

are intertwined, insisting that all gteat art is didactic" and he worked for a society "unblemished by the inequalities of class and gender" (23)'

In her fınal paragraph of A Shavian Guide to the Intelligent Woman Watson summarizes her observations on Shaw's political attitude towards women. Watson argpes that "Shaw advocates all the equality between the sexes that nature will allow." She also states that rather than focusing on differences between the sexes Shaw has directed his attention to similarities and expressed them as has never been depicted before. When he had to make distinctions Shaw "places the second sex fırst" since "she has a closer

connection with the evolutionary work of the Life Force." Women can easily

be the "salvation of a society" with their "inspired practicality." Moreover, the advantages do not stop at that, a neril approach to women as giving her the equality would be a greatbenefit to the men as well as to women since a new appreciation of our common humanity with an unspoiled delight in sexual love." on the political level, "her evolutionary instinct, her reproductive labors and her place in the councils of state all benefit her whole society with the good of the individual woman" (2I4). Thus Watson

concludes her book on Shaw's political social and artistic engagement with

women. Shaw attributes a much more central and significant role to women in his theory of creative evolution, as they have a much stronger contact with the "life force." It is important to note that contrary to dominant patriarchal

discourse of the time which regarded women as untalented, dull and incapable creatures, Shaw saw a great many talents in women that men do not have. For Shaw, the mere exclusion of women from the public life saw a waste of these wonderful energy and skills. That is why in most of his plays llke Mrs Waryen's Profession, Maior Barbara, Captain Brassbound's conversion, Fanny's First Play, Pygmalion and Misalliance among many more others, we see most wonderful women characters who try to liberate these energies and present their skills to the good of the world and humanity' Opening all the walks of life to women was for Shaw to unleash the energy

Men in Petticoats

L63

and the potential of women to do good for themselves and for society as a whole.

Works Cited

t64

Works Cited

Beckson, Karl. London In the 1890s: London: WW Norton, 1992. Print.

WORKS CITED AAAS. "Europe's Population Has Developed New Tendency

to Shrink,

Science Study Reports". http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/200303laaft-eph032103.php. Web. 10 Aug. 2012.

Adams, Elsie. ..Feminism and Female stereotypes Weintraub 156-162. Print.

in

Shaw." Rodelle

Allett, John. "Mrs. Warren's Proffession and the Politics of Prostitution". SHAW Vol. 19 SHAW AND HISTORY (1999), pp 23-39. JSTOR. Web' 2 Sept. 2012.

A

165

Cultural History. New york and

Beerbohm, Max. "A Cursory Conspectus of G.B.S." 1901. Kronenberger 3-6. Print.

Beilharz, Peter and Chris Nyland. Ed. The webbs, Fabianism, and Feminism: Fabianism and the Polilical Economy of Everyday Life. Aldershot, Hants; Brookfield: Ashgate, 1998. Print. Bentley, Eric. "Bernard Shaw's Politics (A Birthday Tribute)" The Kenyon Review, Vol. 8, No.3 (Summer,1946),pp.347-371. JSTOR. Web. 12 Aug. 2012. ---.

"Life and work of Bemard Shaw". Theater Ta\k.2005. online video clip. YouTube. YouTube, 11. May 2011. Web. 17. Nov. 2012.

Anderson, Margaret Lavinia. "The Boundaries of the West: Endings and Beginnings". The Making of the Modern Europe, 1453 to the Present. iTunes. 16 January 2007. Web. 15 OcL2012.

Berg, Fredric. "Structure and Philosophy in Man and Superman and Major Barbara." Innes 144-161. Print.

Anderson, Bonnie S. and Judith P. Zinsser. A History of Their Own: Women in Europefrom Prehistory to the Present Volume,Il. New York: Harper &

Bergson, Henri. Creative Evolution. Trans. Arthur Mitchell. New york: Henry Holt, 1911. Questia.Web.24 July 2013. Berst, Charles A. "New Theatres for Old." Innes, Cambridge Companion 55-

Row, 1988. Print.

76.Print.

"Angel in the House." http:llacademic.brooklyn.cuny.edu/english/melani/novel-l9clthackeraylan

gel.html. Web. 7 Sept. 2012.

---. "Propaganda and Art in Mrs. Warren's Profession" ELH, Vol. 33, No. (Sep., 1966), pp. 390-404. JST2R. Web. 1 2 Aııg. 2012.

3

Auerbach, Nina. Ellen Terry: Player in Her Time. 1987. Philadelphia; University of Pennsylvania Press, 1997 . Print.

Bertolini, John A. o'Shaw Family Values". Shaw, Vol. 16, TINPUBLISHED SHAW (1996),pp. 145-1ı54. JST1R. Web. 12 Aıg.20|2.

Austen, Jane. Pride and Prejudice.Ed. James Kinsley. oxford: oxford UP, |980. Questia. Web. 25 Jıly 20|3.

Bevir, Mark. The Making of British socialism. Princeton: Princeton up,

Baker, Stuart E. Bernard Shaw's Remarkable Religion: A Faith That Fits the Facts. Gainesville and Tallahassee: UP of Florida, 2002.Ptint.

Birmingham Gazette.23 July 1925. Connolly, 180. Print

Baughan, E.A. "Shaw's View of Women". 1905. Gibbs

29-3l.Print.

2011. Print.

Bloom, Harold. Ed. Modern critical Interpretations: Man and superman. New York and New Haven: Chelsea, 1987. Print.

166

Works Cited

Works Cited

167

Bostridge, Mark. Florence Nightingale: The Making of an 1coız. New York: Fanar, Strauss and Giroux,2008. Print.

Conolly, L.W. Ed. Bemard Shaw. Mrs. Warren's Profession. Peterborough: Broadview Editions, 2005. Print.

Bott, Esther. o'Pole Position: Migrant British Women Producing 'Selves' through Lap Dancing Work". Feminist Review, No. 83, Sexual Moralities, (2006),pp.23-41. JSTOR. Web. 2l Aug2012.

Crane, Gladys. "Shaw's 'Misalliance': The Comic Journey from Rebellious Daughter to ConventionalWomanhood" Educational Theatre Journal,

Bressler, Charles E. Literary Criticism: An Introduction to Theory and Practice. Upper Saddle River: Pearson Prentice Hall, 2007. Print.

Crocker, Holly A. 'Affective Resistance: Performing Passivity and Playing A-Part in The Taming of the Shrew". Shakespeare Quarterly, Vol. 54, No.2 (Summer,2003).pp.142-159. JSTOR. Web.4 Feb. 2013.

Britain, I. M.. "Bemard Shaw, Ibsen and the Ethics of English Socialism." Victorian Studies, Yol. 21, No. 3 (Spring, 1978), pp. 381-401. JSTOR. Web. 16 Aıg 2012. Brown, Ivor. Shaw in His Tlıze. Nelson: London, 1965. Print. Burrows, M. Quarterly Review.vol.l26 (1869). Montgomery 104-105. Print.

Caine, Barbara. Victorian Feminists. Oxford: Oxford UP, 1993. Questia. Web.24 July 2013. "Campbell, Mrs Patrick" The Concise Oxford Companion to the Theatre.Ed. Phyllis Hartnoll and Peter Found. Oxford University Press, 1996. Oxford Reference Online. Oxford University Press. University of Pennsylvania. 7 Sept.2012. Web.

Carpenter, Charles A. Bernard Shaw University Press of Florida,2009. Print.

as Artist-Fabian.

Gainesville:

A Selective, Classified International Bibliography of Publications About Bernard Shaw: A Selective, Classified International Bibliography of Pııblications About Bernard Shaw. Binghamton

---.

University. 2Dec.2012. PDF file. Chesterton, Gilbert K. George Bernard Shaw. New York: John Lane Company, 1909. Print.

Coelsch-Foisner, Sabine. "spinsters versus Sinners: A Late-NineteenthCentury Paradigm in G.B . Shaw's Plays". In Imaginaires. ChampagneArdenne: Presses Universitaires de Reims , 1997 . pp. 91- 1 12. Print.

Vol. 25, No. 4 (Dec.,I973),pp. 480-489. JST2R.Web'26 Aıg.2012.

Crow, Duncan. The Victorian Woman. London: George Allen and Unwin, 1971. Print.

Davis, Jill. "The New Woman and the New Life." Gardner and Rutherford 17-36. Print.

Dhingra, J.D. Ibsen and SIıaw: Publications, 1991. Print.

A

Critical Evaluation. Jalandhar: ABS

Dietrich, Richard F. British Drama 1890 to 1950: A critical History. Boston: Twayne Publishers, 1989. Print. "Eleanor Marx." Encyclopedia of Marxism.. Web. 7 Sept.2012.

Eltis, Sos. "The Fallen Woman on Stage: Maidens, Magdalens, and the Emancipated Female." The Cambridge Companion to Victorian and Edwardian Theatre. Ed. Kerry Powell. Cambridge: Cambridge IJP,2004. 222-36.Print.

Ervine, St John. Bernard Shaw: His Life, Work and Friends. London: Constable and Company, 1956. Print.

Evans, Gareth Lloyd. The Language of Modern Drama. Dent and London: Rauman and Littlefield, 1977 . Print. ---. T.F. Ed. The Critical Heritage: George Bernard Shaw. London and New

York: Routledge,

197

6. Print.

Works Cited

168

Works Cited

"Fabian Society." Encyclopedia Britannica. Encyclopadia Britannica Online

Academic Edition. Encyclopredia Britannica Inc., 2012. Web. 07 Sept. 2012.

Finney, Gail. "Ibsen and Feminism". McFarlane, 89-105. Print. ---. Women and Modern Drama: Freud, Feminism, and European Theater at

the Turn of the Century. Ithaca and London: Comell University Press, 1989. Print. Freedman, Estelle B. The Essential Feminist Reader. New York: The Modem

Library,2007. Print.

Gardner, Vivien. "Introduction" Gardner and Rutherford 1-14. Print.

Gardner, Vivien and Susan Rutherford. Ed. The New Woman and Her Sisters: Feminism and Theatre 1850-1914. Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Press, 1992. Print. Gassner, John. "Bernard Shaw and the Making of the Modern Englis h, Y ol. 23, No. 7 (Apr. 1962), pp.

5 17

Mind" College

-525. Print.

Gerould, Daniel Charles. "George Bernard Shaw's Criticism of Ibsen". Comparative Literature , Vol. 15, No. 2 (Spring, 1963), pp. 130-145. Print.

Macmillan, 1992.

P

Gordon, David J. "Shavian Comedy and the Shadow of Wilde" in The Cambridge Companion to George Bernard Shaw. Ed. By Christopher Innes. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1998. 124-143.Print. Gordon, Tuula. Single Women: On the Margins? New York: New York UP, 1994. Print. Grand, Sarah. "The Man of the Moment". Nelson 146-l52.Print. ---. "The New Aspect of the Woman Question". Nelson 14l-146.Print.

Grene, Nicholas. Bernard Shaw: A Critical Review. Houndmills and London:

Macmillan, 1984. Print.

Gainor, J. Ellen. Shaw's Daughters: Dramatic and Narrative Constructions of Gender. Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Press, 1991. Print.

Gibbs, A.M. Ed. Man

159

Print.

Greiner, Norbert. "Mill, Marx and Bebel: Early Influences on Shaw's Characterization of Women". The Shaw Review, Vol. 18, Nol (January, 1975), pp. 10-17. JSTOR. Web.02 Aug.2012. Griffin, Ben. "Class, Gender, and Liberalism and Parliament, 1868-1882: The Case of the Married Women's Property Acts". The Historical Journal, Yol. 46, No. 1 (March, 2003), pp. 59-87 . JST2R. Web. 02 Aıg.2012.

Griffith, Gareth. Socialim and Superior Brains: The Political Thought of Bernard Shaw.London and New York: Routledge, 1993. Print.

Casebook. London:

Grundy, Sydney. "The New Woman. An Original Comedy in Four Acts." Nelson 295-301. Print.

The Extraordinary Upbringing and Curious Life

Gündüz, Atalay. o'Bayan Warren'ın Mesleği (1894) Adlı oyunda Fahişelik olgusu ve Bernard Shaw'un Estetik, Felsefi ve Politik Kaynakları". CBü

and Superman and Saint Joan:

A

rint.

Gill, Gillian. Nightingales:

Dr Gregory. From "A Father's Legacy to His Daughter". Montgomery 87-89.

of Miss Florence Nightingale. New York: Ballantine Books ,2004. Prinİ.

Gilman, Charlotte Perkins. "Yellow Wallpaper" (|892). Ed. Riclıard Jacobs. A Beginner's Gı.ıide lo Critİccıİ Recıding: An Anthology ısİ'Lİİeraı}ı T'exİ's. Lcındon: Rorıtledge,200l. pp. 302-323. Questia. Web. 29 Aug. 20l3.

Sosyal Bilimler

Dergisi,Yol I l, No. I (April 2013),

pp. 17 -28. Print.

Hallström, Per. *|925 Nobel Prize Award Ceremony http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel3rizes/literature/laureates/

ml?prinFl. Web.

13 August 2012.

"Harriett Martineau". Britannica. Web. 3I Aııg.2012.

I

Speech".

925lpress.ht

Works Cited

170

Harrison, Shirley. Sylvia Pankhurst:

A Crusading Life

1882-1960. London:

Aurum,2003. Print. Helm, Barbara. "Combating Misogyny? Responses to Nietzsche by Turn-ofthe-Century German Feminists". Journal of Nietzsche Studies, No.27

(SPRING 2004).pp.64-84. JSTOR. Web. 12 Maı2013. Helsinger, Elizabeth K., Robin Lauterbach Sheets, William Yeedet. The Woman Question: Social Issues, 1837-1883. Volume II of the Woman Question Society and Literature in Britain and America, 1837-1883. New York and London: Garland Publishing,Inc., 1983. Print. Henderson, Archibald. Bernard Shaw: Playboy and Prophel. New York and London: D. Appleton and Company,1932.Print.

---. George Bernard Shaw: His Life and Works, a Critical Biography (Authorized). Cincinnati: Stewart & Kidd, 1911. Print. Hemmer, Bjjörn.

Hill, Bridget.

o'Ibsen

and the Realistic Drama''. McFarlane 68-88. Print.

Women Alone: Spinsters in England 1660-1850. New Haven

and London: Yale UP, 2001. Print.

A

Sourcebok on Naturalist Theatre. London and New York: Routledge,2000.

Inwood, Stephen. City of Cities: The Birth of Modern London. London: Macmillan, 2005. Print. Irvine, William. "Man and Superman, A Step in Shavian Disillusionment." Huntington Library Quarterly, Vol.l0, No.2 (Feb., 1947). pp. 209-224. JSTOR. Web. 13 Aug.2012. Jalland, Pat. Women, Marriage and Politics: 1860-1914. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1986. Print. Johnson, Betty F. "Shelley's 'Cenci' and 'Mrs. Warren's Profession'." Shaw

Review 15.(1972): pp. 26-34. MLA International Bibliography. JSTOR. Web. 25 July 2012.

Kelly, Katherine E. "Shaw on Woman Suffrage:

A

Minor Player on the Petticoat Platform." The Annual of Bernard Shaw Studies. Vol. 14. 1992: Shaw and the Last Hundred Years. Ed. Bemard F. Dukore. University Park, Pennsylvania: The Pennsylvania State UP, 1994.pp.67-81. Print.

Khanna, Savitri. ooShaw's Image of Woman". The Shaviana Vol. 4 No. 7-8 (1973): pp. 253-59. Print.

1898-1918: The Pursuit of Power. London:

Langland, Elizabeth. "Nobody's Angels: Domestic Ideology and Middle Class Women in the Victorian Novel." PMLA, Vol. 107, No.2 (March,

I

New York: Random House, 1988. Print.

II

---. Ed.

1856-1898: The Searchfor Love.

Holroyd, Michael. Bernard Shaw Volume ---. Bernard Shaw Volume

t7t

Works Cited

Chatto&Windus, 1989. Print. Huneker, James. "The Quintessence of Shaw." Kronenberger

7

-25. Print.

Huxley, Elspeth. Florence Nightingale. New York: G.P. Putnam's Sons, 1975. Print.

Innes, Christopher. Ed. The Cambridge Companion to George Bernard Shaw. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1998. Print.

Modern British Drama, 1890-l990.Cambridge and New York: Cambridge UP, 1992. Print. ---. "Nothing but talk, talk, talk-Shaw talk." Innes Companion 162-179.Print.

1992), pp. 290-304. JSTOR. Web. 25

luly 2012.

Locke, John. "From Some Thoughts Concerning Education." Wollstonecraft 197-99.Print.

Lorichs, Sonja. The Unwomanly Woman in Bernard Shaw's Drama and her Social and Political Background Uppsala: Acta Universitatis Upsaliensis, 1973. Print. Lundberg, Ferdinand and Marynia Farnham. "Mary Wollstonecraft and the Psychopathology of Feminism" in A Norton Critical Edition: Mary Wollstonecraft

A

Vindication of the Rights of Woman: An Authoritative

Works Cited

t72

Works Cited

Text, Backgrounds, The Wollstonecraft Debate, Criticism.

Ed. Carol

H.

Poston. New York and London: Norton, 1988.273-276.Print.

McDonald, Jan. "Shaw Among the Artists". Lochurst 63-74.Print.

for

Thought. Volume 11

of

The Collected Works of Florence Nightingale. Waterloo: Wilfrid Laurier

UP,2008. Print. ---. Ed. Florence Nightingale: An Introduction to Her Life and Family. Volume 1 of The Collected Works of Florence Nightingale. Wilfrid Laurier UP: Waterloo, Canada; 2001. Print. McDowell, Frederick P.W. "Heaven, Hell, and Tum of the Century London" Gibbs 45-55. Print. McFarlane, James. Cambridge Companion to lbsen. Cambridge: Cambridge

UP, 1994. Print. Meisel, Martin. o'Man and Superman and the Duel of Sex." Bloom 99'119. Print.

Meyer-Dinkgrafe, Daniel and Gregory F. Tague. Origins of English Dramatic Modernism 1870-1914. Bethesda and London: Academica Press, 2010. Print.

Mill, John

Stuart. "The Subjection of Womeıl." (1869)

Mill:

The Spirit of the

Age, On Liberty, The Subjection of Women.Ed. Alan Ryan. New York and London: W.W. Norton & Company,1997.133-215. Print. ---. The Letters of John Stuart

Mill

A.

Women's Rights: Snuggles and Feminism in Britain

c. 1770-1970. Manchester and New York: Manchester UP, 2006. Print.

Marker, Frederick J. "Shaw's Early Plays" Innes Companion 103-123. Print.

---, Lynn. Ed. Florence Nightingale's Suggestions

Montgomery, Fiona

173

Vol. 2.Fd. Hugh S.R. Eliot. London:

Longmans and Green, 1910. Questia.Web.6 Sept. 2012.

More, Hannah. o'From Stricture on the Modern System of Female Education (1799)" Montgomery 93-95. Print.

Morgan, Simon.

I

Victorian Woman's Place: Public Culture

in

the

Nineteenth Century.International Library of Historical Studies 40. London and New: Tauris Academic Studies

York, 2007.Print.

"Mrs Grundy." Encyclopedia Britannica: Facts Matter. Britannica. Web. Sept.20l2.

8

Nathan, Rhoda B. "The Shavian Sphinx." Weintraub 30-38. Print.

---. "From Symposium: What May Lie Ahead for Shaw After the First Hundred Years" SHAW: The Annual of Bernard Shaw Studies, YoL 14 Shaw and the Last Hundred Years Ed. Bernard F. Dukore. pp. 265-76. JSTOR. Web. 25 Jı|y 20|2. Nelson, Carolyn Christensen.Ed. A New Woman Reader: Fiction, Articles, and Drama. Peterborough: Broadview Press, 2001. Print. ---, Raymon d S. " Mrs. Warren's Profession and English Prostitution" Journal

of Modern Literature, Yol. 2, No. 3 (197111972), 357-366. Indiana UP. JSTOR. Web. 25 luly 2012. Nethercot, Arthur H. 'o'Mrs. Warren's Profession' and 'The Second Mrs. Tanqueray"' The Shaw Review,Vol. 13, No. 1 (JANUARY, lg7}),pp.2628. JSTOR. Web. 25

luly 2012.

Nicoll, Allardyce. English Drama 1900-1930: The Beginnings of the Modern Period. London and New York: Cambridge UP, 1973. Print.

Miller, Anna Irene. The Independent Theatre in Europe, 1887 to the Present Present. New York: B. Blom, 1966. Print.

Nietzsche, Friedrich Wilhelm. Beyond Good and Evil. Trans. Helen Zimmern. A Public Domain Book. Kindle AZW file.

Mills, Cbrl Henry. "Shaw's Theory of Creative Evolution". The Shaw Review, Vol. 16, No. 3 (SEPTEMBER, 1973),pp.123-132. JSTOR. Web.25 July

Nightingale, Florence. Suggestions for Thoughr. Ed. Michael D. Calabria and Janet A. MacRae. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1994. Print.

2012.

Works Cited

174

Okin, Susan Moller. Ed. The Subjection of Women. John Stuart Mill. Indianapolis and Carnbridge: Hackett Publishing Company, 1988. Print.

Works Cited

t75

Rubinstein, David. Before the Suffragettes: Women's Emancipation in the 1890s. New York: St. Martin's Press, 1986. Print.

Pagliaro, Harold E. Relations Between the Sexes in the Plays of George Bernard Shaı,y. Lewiston: The Edwin Mellen Press, 2004.Print.

Saccio, Peter. Modern British Drama. The Great Courses. Audible Book.25

Pankhurst, Emmeline. "suffrage Speech at the Old Bailey" (1912). Freedman

Sharp, William

192-98. Print.

Peters, Sally. Bernard Shaw: The Ascent of the Superman. New Haven and London: Yale UP, 1996. Print. ---. 'oShaw's Double Dethroned: The Dark Lady of the Sonnets, Cymbeline

Refinished, and Shakes Versus Shaw", Shaw,Yol.1, Shaw: The Neglected Plays (1987), pp. 301-316. JSTOR. Web. 28 July 2012. ---. "Shaw's Life:

A Feminist in Spite of Himself'. Innes 3-24.Print.

---, Margot. Shaw and the Actresses. Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1980. Print.

L.

"Misalliance: an Evaluation." Educational Theatre Journal. Vol.8, No.l (March 1956). pp. 9-16. JSTOR. Web. 13 Au5.2012.

Shaw, Bernard. Agitations: Letters to the Press 1875-1950. Ed. Dan H. Laurence and James Rambeau. New York: Frederick Ungar Publishing Co., 1985. Print.

A Metabiological Pentateuch.l92t. New York and London: Oxford UP, 1947 . Print.

---. Back to Methuselah:

Collected Letters. Ed. Dan H. Laurence. New York: Viking Penguin, 1985. Print.

--.

---. Collected Letters 1898-1910. Ed. Dan H. Laurence. New York: Dodd,

Pharand, Michel W. "Shaw's Life Force and Bergson's Ölan vital: a question

of influence". Cahiers Victoriens & Edouardiens,33,1991. pp.87-101. Print.

Mead & Company, 1972. Print.

--. Collected Letters

1874-1897. Ed. Dan H. Laurence. New York: Viking,

1965. Print.

Rao, Valli. "Vivie Warren in the Blakean World of Experience". The Shaw Review,Yol.22, No. 3, (SEPTEMBER, 1987), pp.123-134. -rSTOR. Web. 31 Jı|y 2012.

---. The Common Sense About the War. Current History of the European War,

Vol. I-No

1. What

Men of Letters Say. New York: The New York Times

Company, 1914. Print.

Redmond, James. Ed. Women Cambridge UP, 1989. Print.

in

Theatre. Cambridge and New York:

Robson, Ann P. and John M. Robson. Sexııal Equality: Writings by John Stuart Mill, Harriett Taylor Mill, and Helen Taylor. Toronto, Buffalo and London: University of Toronto Press, 1994. Print. Romero, Patricia

Feb. 1994.

w. E. Sylvia Pankhıırst: Portrait of a Radical. New Haven

and London: Yale

UP, 1987. Print.

Roy, Emil. British Drama Since Shaw. Carbondale and Edwardsville: Southern Illinois

UP,

197

2. Print.

l: What I Owe to German Culture." l9ll. Bernard Shaw: Complete Prefaces, Vol.l: 1889-1913. Ed. Dan H. Laurence and Daniel J. Leary. London: Allen Lane The Penguin Press, 1993. 331-44.

---. "Dramatische Werke,

Print.

-_. Fanny's First Play.1911. Kindle AZW fıle. ---. "Fragments of a Fabian Lecture 1890." Wisenthal 81-96. Print.

--. Getting Married.

1908. Bernard Shaw: Complete

Vol. IV. New York: Dodd, Mead & Company, 1963.

Plays With Prefoces. 317

-492. Print.

Works Cited

176

---. "Letter to Josephine Peabody." Gibbs 19-20. Print.

---. "Major Barbara: First Aid to Critics." 1907. Bernard Shaw: Complete Prefaces, Vol.l: 1889-1913. Ed. Dan H. Laurence and Daniel J. Leary. London: Allen Lane The Penguin Press, 1993. 245-67 . Print. Man and Superman. 1903. London and New York: Penguin, 1957. Print.

---.

---. The

Millionairess. 1936. Baltimore: Penguin, 1961. Print.

--. Misalliance. 1910. Bernard Shaw: Complete Plays With Prefaces. YoL IV. New York: Dodd, Mead & Company,1963. 1-204. Print. ---.

Mrs. Warren's Profession. Plays Unpleasant 1898. London: Penguin,

1946.Print.

Our Theatres in the Nineties: Criticisms Contributed Week by Week to the Saturday Review From January 1895 to May 1898. In Three Volumes. Vol. I. New York: WMH. Wise&Company, 1931. Print.

---.

---. The Philanderer.

Plays Unpleasant 1898. London: Penguin, 1946. Print.

--. Press Cuttings.19l3. Kindle AZW File. ---. The Quintessence of lbsenism.London: Walter Scott, 1891. Print. ---. Sixteen Self-Sketchess. ---. Saint

New York: Dodd, Mead & Company, 1949. Print.

Joan. (1924). Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1986. Print.

---. Shaw and Shakespeare: An Anthology of Bernard Shaw'sWriting on the

Plays and Production of Shakespeare.Ed. Edwin Wilson. New York: E.P. Dutton, 1961. Print.

---. "Why

All

Women Are Peculiarly Fitted to be Good Voters" (21 April

1907 The New York American) R. Weintraub 248-254.Print.

---. "Woman-Man in Petticoats." (1927). Platform and Pulpit. Ed. Dan H. Laurence. New York: Hill and Wang, i961. pp. 172-|78.Prinİ. Showalter, Elaine. The Female Malady: Women, Madness and English Culture, 1830-1980. London: Virago, 1985. Print.

Works Cited

177

---. ooFlorence Nightingale's Feminist Complaint: Women, Religion, and 'Suggestions for Thought"' Signs, Vol. 6, No. 3 (Spring, 1981). pp. 395412. JSTOR. Web. 19 Mar. 2013. "Killing the Angel in the House: The Autonomy of Women Writers." The Antioch Review. Yol. 32, No:3 (Autumn, 1972), pp. 339-353. JSTOR.

---.

Web. 25 July 2012.

Silver, Arnold. Bernard Shaw: The Darker 1982. Print.

^Sı7e.

Stanford: Stanford UP,

Small, Hugh. Florence Nightingale: Avenging Angel. London: Constable, 1998. Print.

Sternlicht, Sanford. A Reader's Guide to Modern British Drama. Syracuse: Syracuse UP, 2004. Print. Strachey, Lytton. Eminent Victorians.19l8. Kindle AZW file.

Taylor, Aıırl Practical Hints to Young Females on the Duties of a Wife, a Mother, and a Mistress of a Family. (1 81 5). Boston: Wells and Lilly, 1 820. Open Library.Web.14 Feb. 2013. Templeton, Joan. "The Ibsen". PMLA,

Jıly

Vol.

Doll House Backlash: Criticism, Feminism,

104,

and

No. 1 (Jan., 1989), pp.28-40. JSTOR. Web.

15

2012.

"Terry, Dame Ellen Alice" The Concise Oxford Companion to the Theatre.

Ed. Phyllis Hartnoll and Peter Found. Oxford University Press, 1996. Oxford Reference Online. Oxford University Press. University of Pennsylvania. Web. 7 Sept.2012.

Thatcher, David S. Nietzsche

in England 1890-1914: The Growth of a

Reputation. Toronto and Buffalo: University of Toronto Press, 1970. Print.

"To Mr. Bemard Jaw." Punch or the London Charivari,YoL 147.25 Nov. 1914, Project Gutenberg. Web. 28 Aug. 2013. Tornqvist, EgiL lbsen: Print.

A Doll House.

Cambridge: Cambridge

UP,

1995.

Works Cited

178

Works Cited

Twells, Alison. British Women's History:

A

179

Documentary .from the Enlightenment to World War I. New York and London: I.B. Tauris,2007.

Wiley, Catherine. "The Matter With Manners: The New Woman and the Problem Play." Redmond 109 -127 . Print.

Print.

"William Morris." Encyclopedia Britannica. Encyclopedia Britannica

Valency, Maurice. "Man and Superman." Bloom 75-104. Print'

Online Academic Edition. Encyclopredia Britannica [nc. 2012. Web. 07

vesonder, Timothy G. "Eliza's choice: Transformation Myth and the Ending of pygmalion." Rodelle Weintraub 39-45. Print.

Sep. 2012.

vogt, Sally Peters. "Ann and Superman: Type and Archetype." Rodelle Weintraub 46-65. Print.

wallis, Eric. "The Intelligent woman's Guide: some

contemporary Opinion." Shaw, Vot. 11, SHAW AND POLITICS (1991), pp' 185-193' JSTOR. Web. 21 IulY 2012-

waltonen, Karma. "saint Joan: From Renaissance witch to New'woman." Shaw, Vol. 24, DIONYSIAN SHAW (2004), pp. 186-203 ' JSTOR'Web' 26

Jı|y 20t2. Wasserman, Marlie Parker. "Vivie Warren: Weintraub 168-173. Print.

A Psychological Study." Rodelle

watson, Barbara Bellow. "The New woman and the New comedy." The shaw Review, vol. 17.1, SHAW AND WOMAN (JANUARY 1974): 2-16. JSTOR. Web. 12 SePtember 2012. ---.

A Shavian Guide to

the Intelligent woman. (1964) New York: Norton,

1972.Print.

weintraub, Rodelle. Ed. Fabian Feminist: Bernard shaw and woman' university Park and London: The Pennsylvania State uP, 1977.Ptint. --- "Introduction." Rodelle Weintraub 1-I2. Print.

---. Stanley. Bernard Shaw: A Guide to Research. university Park: The Pennsylvania State UP, 1992. Print. wilde, oscar. The Importance of Being Earnest and other Plays. London: Penguin, 1986. Print.

Wisenthal, J.L. Ed. Shaw and lbsen: Bernard Shaw's The Quintessence of Ibsenism and Related Writings. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1979.Print.

--- "Having the Last Word: Plot and Counterplot in Bemard Shaw." ELH Vol. 50, No. I (Spring, 1983), pp.175-196. JSTOR. Web. 1l July 2012. Wollstonecraft, Mary. A Yindication of the Rights of Woman: An Authoritative Text, Backgrounds and Contexts, Criticism. Ed. Deidre Shauna Lynch. New York and London: Norton,2009. Print.

.-g

Index

180

Index

The Heavenly Twins, 16,97, 157

Grein, JT,56,93 Grundy, Sidney, 7, 14, 28, 100, r0l, 16g,172 The New Woman, 7 Hallström, 30,137,168 Hogarth, William, 133 Ibsen, Henrik, 1, 5, 10, 17,24,25, 37, 38, 53, 54, 56, 57, 59, 59, 60, 61, 62, 63, 64, 67, 69, 7 5, 7 6, 93, 95, 98, 100, 104, 106, 1 13, 1 15, 133, 152, 156, 165, 166, 167, 169, 17 1, 17 6, I7g A Doll House, l, 5,37,38, 54, 56, 58, 59,60,103, I04,106,

INDEX Achurch, Janet, 60,75,90, 103 androgynous,3,19, ll2 angel in the house, 4, 15, 43, 62 Archer, William, 56, 60, 90, 133 Austen, Jane, 108, 1 l8 Pride and Prejudice, 108, 138, r63 Barrie, James,25 Bashkiıtseff, Marie, 22, 63, 64, 66 Bebel, Ferdinand August, 57,168 Bentham, Jeremy,49 Berkeley, George, 34, 54 Bessant, Annie, 75 Blackstone, Sir William, 35 Blake, William, 133 Borges, Jorge Luis, 30,31,32,

rI3,145

British Drama, 24, 62, 166, 169, 173,176 Bronte, Charlotte,44 Bunyan, John,95, 133 Pilgrim's Progress,95 Butler, Samuel, 24, 31, 124, 125, t27 Cambridge University, 39, 40, 107 Campbell, Patrick,T6 Cervantes, 31 Charles Kingsley, 46 Charrington, Charles, 60, 90 Chesterton, GK, 20, 95,115,146, 165

Child Custody Act, 35 creative evolution, 8,9, 124, I25, 126, 127 , 128, 129, 142, 143, 147, 162

Creative Evolution, 124, I25, 126,

129, 130,138, 159, 164, 17| Dalkey Hill,72 Darwin, Charles, 125, I27 Darwin, Erasmus, 125, I27 Dr. Gregory,36 Dumas, Alexandre La Dame aux Camölias,90 Edwardian England, 2, 103, lI9, 140, 142, 166 Eliot, TS, 25, 27, 46, 47, 17 l Browning,Elizab eth B arrett, 4 6, 9 5 emancipation of women, 2, 3, 4, 5, 7, 12, 15, 19, 38, 47, 57, 59, 66, 74,96, 100, 102, 704, lo7 , 110, IT6, T35, T36 Fabian Society, 19, 39, 50, 57,

176

Brand,64 Ghosts, 17, 56, 57, 61, 93, 95

Hedda Gabler,57,76 Peer Gynt,64 Rosmersholm, 57, 7 5, 104 The WİId Duck,64,67 Ionesco, Eugöne, 141 Jane Eyre,27,29,44 LadyRhondda, 18, 19 Lamarck, l25, 126, 127 Life Force, 8, 9, 11,17,124,125, 726, 127 , 128, 729, 130, 132, 142, 143, 147, 151, 152, 153, 155, 159,162,173 Locke, John,4,l70 London School of Economics, 77 Luther, Martin, 37,54 Mad Houses Act, 35 Man and Superman Don Juan in Hell,8, 130, 134 Marx, Eleanor, 76 Marx, Karl, 57, 7 6, 166, 168 Maugham, Somerset,25 Maupassant, Guy de, 90,96,103

ll7,166

Farr, Florence,75,I37

femininity,5 feminist literature,4

studies, 1 Florence Farr,137 French Revolution, 36 Freud, Sigmund, 50, 104, 167 Galsworthy, John,25 Gaskell, Elizabeth, 47,94 Ruth, 94,95

GBS, 27, 29,31,118, 138 Gilman, Charlotte Perkins, 4, 41, 42,55 Grand, Sarah, 1,7 , 16,42,43,97 , 98,156,157,167

x

181

Mill, John Stuart, 5,6,23,37,47, 49,50, 51,52,53, 54, 55, 57, 82, 98, 105, 133, 16g, t7 173

l,

172,

On The Subjection of Women,5, 6, 23, 49, 50, 51, 171, 172

Milton, John,54

misogynist, 2,135,161

Morris, May,76

Mrs Warren's Profes s ion prostitution,T , 47 ,90,91,92, 93,96,170, ll2 nafure of woman, 5,23 new woman,l,2,3, 5,7,8, 11,14, 16, 17, 18, 38, 60, 6I,70, 74, 96,97,98, 100, 101, 102, 103, 104, 106, 114, Il7,

1

10, I Il, 712,

ll3,

l2l, I22,129,130,

136,141, 144, 151,152, 166, 167,168,172,177 Newnham College,92 Nietzsche, Friedrich, 18, 133, 134, 135, 136, 161, 168, r72, 176 Beyond Good and Evil, 134,772 Nightingale, Florence, 4, 5, 41,42, 43,44,45,46, 47, 53, 54, 55, 103, 116, 117, 118, 736, 165, 167,169, 17I,172, 175, 176 Nobel Prize, 30, I37, 168 Osborne, John,25 Pankhurst, Christabel, 27 Pankhurst, Emmeline, 84, 85, 86 Pankhurst, Sylvia, 84, 86, 87, I 68, 173

Patmore, Coventry,43 "The Angel in the House",43 Patterson, Jenny,75 Pinero, Arthur Wing, 24,25,56,

76,90

Pinter, Harold,25 Prince Albert, 43

t82

Index

Index

Major Barbara,25,

Queen Victoria, 43,46

Robert Owen,47

Rousseau,36,37 Schopenhauer, Arthur, 31, 134, 136 Shakespeare, II, 24, 58, 95, 1 13, 133,161,166,175 Taming of the Shrew, Il,16l,

r66

Shaw, Charlotte Payne

(Townshend),70 Shaw, Charlotte Payne Townshend, TT Shaw, George Bernard, I,2, 15, 49 , 63, 7 l, 93 , 761 , 165, 166, 167,169,172 "What I Owe to German Culture", 136 "Why All Women Are Peculiarly Fitted to be Good Voters", 85, 175 Androcles and the Lion,Il3, 137

antivivisectionism, I 1 Arms and the Man,122 Back to Methuselah, 25, 130, 174

Caesar and Cleopatra, 77, 103,

r44

Captain Brassbound's Conversion, 122, 162 Fabian Essays in Socialism,T6

Fanny's First Play, 14, 19, 86, 103,

1 17

, 736, 162,

ll4

l, 103, r20, r37, 140, 157, 17 4 Heartbreak House, 25, 90 iconoclasm, 54 idealization,3, 62, 66 John Bull's Other Island,25, Getting Married, I7,

ll9,

160

7

47 , 67

, 103,

104, 122, 124, 133, 136, 140, 150, 152, 760, 162, 164, 174 Man and Superman,6,7,8, 72, 18, 25, 43, 77, 78, 79, 90, 106, 108, I2l, r22, 124, 125, 126, 128, r29, 132, r33, 134, 137, 140, 143, l5r, 152, 154, 158, 160, 164,767, 170, 171,

lI,

175,177 Millionairess, 123, 160 Misalliance, 6, 12,20, 100, 139, 140,

l4l,

Reality,I40 Millionairess, 25, 7 l, 77, 79,103, 157,175 The Philanderer, 7, 74, 66, 7 5, 77, 78, 97, r00, 103, 1 15, 119, 12I, I22, 130, 140, 150, I52, 17s The Glimpse of The

The Quintessence of lbsenism, 14, 24, 30, 37, 53, 57,59, 63,

93,175,178

The Shewing-Up of Blanco 137 ,

145, 152, 154,

159,162, 166,174,175 moral passion, 3 Mrs Warren's Profession Vivie Warren, T, 12, t4, 15, 17, 19, 47, 67, 7 I, 96, 97, 100,103, l07,rl7,ll9, 134, 139, 744, 146,173, 177

Mrs. Warren's Profession, 1,6, 7,8,9, r0, 14,16,17, 19,40, 7 l, 90, 9r, 93, 94, 95, 97, r02, 103, 107, 109, I11, l14, ll9, r22, 130, 162,165,175 Plays Pleasant,TT Plays Unpleasant, TT , I7 5 Prefaces , 9 , 28, 17 4, 17 5 Press Cuttings , 14, 19 , 86, I 03, 136, r40,175 Pygmalion, 9, 20, 25, 7 6, 7 7, 90, 103, 104, 127, 140, 150, 162 Saint Joan, 15, 19, 25, 47, 48, 57, 67, 8J, 90, 95, 103, 104, 105, I 14, lI8, r22, 127, 160,

167,175,176

ixteen S elf- Ske tc h e s, 7 2, 124 The Common Sense About The

S

War,27 The Fascinating Foundling, 140

Posnet: A Sermon in Crude

Melodrama,95, 140 theatre critique, 67 Too True to be Good,zs,103

vegetarianism, l1 Widowers' Houses, 7, 9, 56, 7 6,

109,119,122 You Never Can Tell, 15,49,71, 117, l2l,130 Shaw, George Can,ll,72 Shaw, Lucinda Elizabeth, 7 I Shelley, Percy Bysshe, 37 , 54,95, 133,170 Sidney Herbert, 46 Stanton, Elizabeth Cady, 50 Stoppard, Tom,25 Strachey, Lytton,42 Stratchey, Lytton Eminent Victorians, 42, 17 6 Suffrage, 19, 84, 85, I7 0, 173 suffragettes, 14, 19,5 1, 86 Taylor, Harriett, 51, 173 Terry, Ellen, 15,76,163 The Cenci Shelley, Percy Bysshe, 90 The Independent Theatre, 24, 56, 93,171 The Madras Hoııse,14 The Shaviana,20,170 The Times,34, 82

183

Turner, JMW, 133 unwomanly woman, 4, 15, 19, 96, 97, 103, 104, 1 10, 114, 115, 116, 117 Vandeleur Lee, 7 l, 7 2, 7 3 Vedanta,3l Victorian, 2, 3, 4, 7, 16, 17, 20, 21, 24, 39 , 41 , 42, 43, 47 , 5r , 52, 55, 57, 59, 62, 63, 66, 7 4, 91, 95, 103, 104, 105, 115, 118, r19, 139, 165, 166, 17 0, 172 morality, 7 , 50,90,91,95,96, l0l,121,133, 148 social problem for women, 8 women,4 Webb, Beatrice, 39, 41, 7 6, 77, 96, 112,

lr7,12l

Webb, Sidney, 39,77,90

Wells, HG, 1, 18,27,76,98,176 Ann Veronica, I Wesker, Arnold,25 Wilde, Oscar, 9,25,157 Lady Windermere's Fan, 90 The Importance of Being Earnest,108,777 will power, 8 Wollstonecraft, Mary, 4, 5, 23, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40, 53, 59, 94, 105,136,170,178 A Vindication of the Rights of Woman, 23, 3 5, 36, 17 0, 17 8 woman question, 3, 5, 6, 15, 16, 20, 26, 29, 34, 42, 50, 5I, 54, 55,56,57 ,58, 59, 62,66, 67, 70, ll2 Woman Question, 3, 4, 7, 97, 168 womanly woman, 5 women's rights movements, 1, 3, 14, 55,84, 85, 87, 113, 135 Woolf, Virginia, 42,43

184

WSPU (Women's Social and Political Union), 84, 85

Index

Yeats, William Butler, 25,27,75, 160

Zetetical Society, 50

l

-t

184

WSPU (Women's Social and Political Union), 84, 85

Index

Yeats, William Butler, 25,27,75, 160

Zetetical Socie,ty, 50

I

İü""

Atalay Gündüz Atalay Gündüz is an assistant professor at the department of English Language and Literatune at Celal Bayar University. He is the vice chair of ühe same depantment and the directon of Centre for the Reasearch and Application of Foneign Languages IYADAMI. He worked as an instructor of English as a foneign language for thirteen years at Ege University where he received his BA, MA and PhD degnees in English Language and Literatune. He also taught at the department of American Culture and 'Literature at lzmir Univensity [2O1G2O11). ln 2OO5 he received a Fulbright seholanship to do nesearch on his PhD dissertation entitled "Turkey and Turks in Bnitish and Ameriean Travel Wniting from 185O to the Present" at The University of Pennsylvania (2OO5-2006]. He neceived another gnant from Turkish Highen Education Council [YOK] for the summer of 2O1 2 and completed his reseanch fon the cunrent book at The Universiğ of Pennsylvania. Dr. Gündüz is interested in companative literature, tnavelwriting' modenn drama and lrish literaüure.

ü

CELAL BAYAR UNTVERSITY

3

o

J

ı

!o

al al

6' o o at

I

ş

o

m3

Men in Peüticoats: Women Ghanacters Bernaı.d shawls Late Vİctonİan and Edwandİan Plays t1 a93.1 91 oı

gs

,

90

ğil o? fo

Ff;

6:. aJ

The central concern of Bernard Shaw's approach to the Woman Ouestion in the late nineüeenth and early twentieth Century is the assumption that any human being needs to fulfill itself in order to lead a self-satisfied and happy life. Shaw was acutely awane of the fact that

women were denied that very basic right upon the presumptions that women had a totally different "naüure'' than men and that they were created to stay at home and mind domestic affairs. Shaw cneates a counten-hegemonic discounse against the patriarchal and misogynist discourse of the late Victorian and Edwardian England. At the heant of Shaw's objection to the dominant discourse of his ena is the generally held belief that women and men are in thein "natıJne" totally diffenent creatures. Shaw defies this artificial and most arbitrary distinction and declanes that he sees women as "men in petticoats" and men as "women without petticoats." He does not assume that thene is any "mystery about woman" instead, he just "observes the world around him." Yet, as a dramatist, Shaw gives voice to various discourses in his plays. Hence, he has been quoted against hirnself on many different and opposing points.

ml[

ö9 tJı , .o J.t

io sil

ı0 o.

to ro al

o o

Ct

0

t. o

J

o

J

o.

D .t o

Atalay Gündüz

o

o cı J

978-975-8628-36-0

0. N

cela! Elayar lJnİversİty Pness Noı oo1 1

İn