Chapter 5
Conclusions
Despite the popularity of melodrama mostly impersonalized by the rigid
Victorian codes of conducts that overtook the English society and British drama
during the nineteenth century, Shaw’s theatrical creation of realistic “drama of
discussion” asserts progressive social and political movements of Feminism with
varying degrees of intensity. I have chosen three notable Shavian heroines: Vivie
Warren, Candida and Joan, to examine their “unwomanly” convictions imposed by
feminist ideals to free themselves from gender limitation and social conventions
generally regarded as natural for women, and to their feminist values.
Mrs. Warren’s Profession is decidedly scandalous in its criticism on the
economics of prostitution and its dramatization of the leading female character, Vivie
Warren, who embodies the most extreme New Woman ideals. The playwright
questions Victorian morality and social conventions illustrated in the play, assuming
that prostitution and marriage are the choices for suppressed women due to
economical reasons. Mrs. Warren makes her point on the analogy between being a
prostitute and a wife as women’s choices provided by men for survival. Considering
prostitution as an occupational option for poor women to gain money from men,
marriage is, in a way, a choice for women to make a living from financial support and
protection provided by their husbands. However, the society justifies prostitution as
immoral, but the conventional marriage for women is morally accepted as women’s
duty that should be fulfilled. Shaw suggests that women can have an opportunity to
choose other career choices and an independent way of living if they can have
equality in education and social status, to do exactly like what men do. The
playwright’s idea about equality for women agrees with the feminist concept of “New
Woman”, which focuses on being an unconventional woman. Therefore, Shaw inputs
all extreme personalities of New Woman into the character of Vivie Warren totally
opposed to the conventional woman. The New Woman qualifications can be found in
Vivie’s elite education, masculine strength, appearance, outfit and preferable lifestyle
with her liberated thoughts about refusing to be a wife for her suitors or be an
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obedient daughter for her mother. The playwright characterizes other male characters
weak and corrupted in contrast with the active and straightforward female characters
to underline New Woman ideals of Vivie and Mrs. Warren. The playwright expects to
shock his audience with the unconventional women’s radical attitudes to abandon the
conventional women’s roles considered as morally good for independence and
equality.
The theme of marriage has been explored further in Candida. The play
attacks the false ideas about womanliness. The playwright views the conflict of love
triangle as a revelation of free will, not a plight for women to overcome the ideals of
womanliness established by patriarchy, as an image of conventional “angel in the
house” and object of desire. Unlike “New Woman” Vivie, Candida is a caring wife
and mother for her family. Male characters, Rev. Morell and young Marchbanks are
impressed by Candida’s attractive “womanly” appearance and manners that fulfill
men’s desire. However, Candida does not become a submissive woman to serve men,
as an “angel in the house” wife and mother for her husband and a desirable lover for
the young poet. On the contrary, Candida manipulates male characters to follow her
orders or do what she wants by using her charms on them. The choosing scene
between Candida, Morell and Marchbanks in Candida illustrates the unconventional
love triangle between two men and a woman. Instead of being chosen, Candida
becomes the one who makes a choice to stay with her beloved husband because she
thinks that he needs her love and protection. With a confidence in her authority and
independent mind, Candida takes the conventional male role of the protector of the
family. Candida is a modern woman who has an unconventional attitude towards
marriage. It is not necessary for modern women to be confined in domesticity with the
duty of a homemaker, a wife or a mother for her family. They realize that women
have freedom to make a decision whether they want to live in a domestic life or not.
The feminist concept of “New Woman” and the unconventional ideal of
womanliness are brought to develop in Saint Joan. Shaw turned from creating
fictional female characters to depicting a historical figure of the legendary Joan of
Arc, whose story had been elevated and romanticized by many historians and authors.
Putting the legend into a realistic standpoint, Shaw portrays Joan of Arc as a spiritual
heroine and a “New Woman”, who sees warfare as a virtuous pursuit of noble
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individual. With the Hundred Years War as its background, Joan the Maid sees that
her country is in need of a superior leader that will save people and the kingdom from
England’s invasion at the time of great suffering and desperation. Besides, the
medieval society of France was strictly dictated by the Catholic Church and
empowered feudal noblemen. Joan acts as a social reformist who is unaware of her
progressive feminist convictions in the medieval society. Shaw dramatizes how Joan
exercises her individual wills and insists on her conscience claimed by Joan as her
divine calling, which becomes the basis of her evolutionary thoughts and behaviors.
Joan’s unconventional ideals can be observed from her desirable career of a warrior,
rational dress of armor and a sword when she led a French troop to defeat England,
and her rebellious thoughts against the authority of the Church and feudalism. Shaw
defies Joan’s irregularity as a genius in term of a superior human being with a
vanguard revisionary; “a genius is a person who, seeing farther and probing deeper
than other people, has a different set of ethical valuations from theirs, and has energy
enough to give effect to this extra vision and its valuations in whatever manner best
suits his or her specific talent”(Shaw, 1924). Shaw’s Saint Joan responded to the
modern audience’s concern with making a choice by depicting the character of Joan
as an individual who willingly makes definite choice and upholds her theological
belief even though it is opposed to the conventionality.
Shaw’s “drama of discussion” enables his heroines to demonstrate the
possibility of their feminist convictions associated with themes of marriage,
motherhood and womanliness once considered as woman’s nature. Although New
Womanish Vivie has achieved equality and independence, she becomes Shaw’s most
extreme feminist character because she has adopted male values, desiring a masculine
lifestyle and a suitable career that provides financial independence for a living in the
capitalist society. In Mrs. Warren’s Profession, Shaw dramatizes all male characters
as a foil to the leading female characters, Vivie and Mrs. Warren, to expose their
unconventional attitudes towards the subject of marriage that the “New Woman”
characters see it as “a degrading arrangement by which a woman sells herself” to a
man straightforwardly linked to the economics of prostitution (Innes, 1998, p. 78).
Both Vivie and Mrs. Warren do not give an importance on marriage by refusing the
proposals offered from their suitors. Mrs. Warren’s denial to reveal the identity of
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Vivie’s true father underlines her capability of an “unwomanly woman”, who yearns
for freedom and power instead of being a passive wife governed by male characters.
Besides the declination of conventional marriage for women, the playwright also
questions whether it is necessary for New Woman to break free from all kinds of
familial bonding, even parent-child relationship to be independent from the
conventional woman roles. To be a successful and independent career woman, Mrs.
Warren has abandoned her daughter for years to work abroad, whilst Vivie decides to
leave her mother to pursue a career life of her own like her mother did. Vivie does not
see her decision as an act of revenge or being an ungrateful child to her mother, but to
be faithful to her “New Woman” values.
On the contrary with Mrs. Warren’s Profession, Shaw considers the topic
of marriage in Candida as the play’s major theme by depicting the heroine, Candida,
with an image of a “womanly woman”. Candida is praised by other characters for her
beautiful appearance, motherly manners and passionate devotions to domesticity as an
ideal wife and mother to her family. However, she finally reveals her unconventional
attitude towards the traditional marriage once believed that the couples were bounded
together with a matrimonial knot for life, with a wife as an inferior partner. Shaw
presents a role reversal by making Candida superior partner and her husband, Morell
an inferior one in their relationship. The love triangular between Candida, Morell and
young Marchbanks leads the heroine to make a crucial decision, “choosing” one of
them that offer the best bid to win her affection. Candida embraces the power to make
a choice by her own will to give herself to “the weaker of the two”. The male
characters’ ideals of womanliness: the “angel in the house” woman for Morell and
poetically romantic woman for Marchbanks, are disillusioned by Candida’s
undermining being trapped to the realm of the household and sexual. Although
Candida is portrayed as domestic but she does not see that a married life is a
confinement of women or being a wife is inferior to men, but an equal position, even
higher, to their couple. Candida considers her duty of a homemaker as the protector of
her husband, not a conventional submissive and obedient wife. Candida’s strength,
intelligence and liberated feelings make her a unique figure of a conventional woman
with feminist values that dominate the male characters’ assumptions on womanliness.
The final “choosing” scene allows the heroine to argue the Victorian ideal imposed on
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women roles as a self-sacrifice wife and mother, and to introduce her definition of
womanliness as an alternative choice of living made by free will.
The figure of unconventional woman with exceptional strength, intelligence
and free will is significantly used in Saint Joan to examine the playwright’s
theological belief related to the social interests and modern philosophy as an
alternative branch of religion. Based on the story of Joan of Arc, the heroine becomes
the most effective representative of Shaw’s feminist woman in history as a social
reformist personified by his modern philosophy of “Creative Evolution”. Shaw
believes that the “Life Force” will be evolved by special individuals whose new
different ideas inspired people to improve their status quos towards a progress. By
representing the historical figure of Joan of Arc with realistic element, Shaw views
Joan as an individual who embodies unconventional revisionary against the existing
social orders. The playwright represents the life and death of Joan the Maid based on
historical facts: eliminating romantic elements imposed on Joan in previous literary
works. The play illustrates how the social orders, the Catholic Church and feudalism,
see a special individual like Joan as a threat to their powers in which she must be
suppressed and terminated from the society. Shaw dramatizes Joan’s trial scene to
make the audience feel sympathy for the heroine getting through an ordeal of the
wicked inquisition directed by male characters that represent the authorities of
patriarchy. Shaw presents the trial scene objectively to reveal “the nature of Joan’s
belief, although within the bounds of the Catholic Church, had a distinctly secular
aspect that emphasized individual conscience and would turn into the more
democratic Protestantism, which would seriously challenge the feudal social structure
of the time” (Abbotson, 2003, p. 208).
Although the wicked male characters are positioned on the opposing side to
innocent Joan, her flaws can be observed from the lengthy dialogues between Joan
and other male characters discussing about the circumstances. Realistically, Joan’s
bluntness, ignorance, unconventional manners and thoughts, and the ambition to
challenge the authority are the major cause of her tragic end but, the audience will
appreciate Joan’s rebellion against the charge of heresy from the Church, sacrificing a
life for her strong belief in individual conscience, being an unconventional woman
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with her own judgment, which primarily comes before the orders from the Church
officials.
At this point, Joan becomes Shaw’s strongest and most effective feminist
heroine that her feminist ideals and actions making a change in the society. Her
persecution does not only reveal women oppressions from the patriarchal orders, but
also the revelation of a special individual whose revolutionary notions can improve
the lives of people in the society and move it forward to a progress for humanity. The
feminist elements in the characterization of Vivie and Candida are subjectively and
used for their own benefits. The selected “unwomanly” heroines demonstrate the
development of Shaw’s characterization of leading female characters in his plays.
Unlike conventional Victorian women, Vivie is portrayed as masculine for her
exceptional physical strength and interests in outdoor activities as much as her passion
for an independent career life. The fundamental New Woman ideals of Vivie reappear
in Joan’s androgynous personalities: she prefers rational masculine costume, pursues
a career of warrior and refuses to be oppressed by feudalism and Christianity. While
feminist Vivie and Joan are characterized as masculine New Women, feminist
Candida is presented differently with conventional feminine elements.
Shaw’s different portrayals of feminist female characters suggest that the
ideals of Feminism can be initiated by both traditional and modern women to liberate
themselves from all limitations. Vivie, Candida and Joan affirm their feminist values
and rely on their conscience rather than being controlled by the social conventions.
Shaw wishes the audience to recognize the potential revolutionary viewpoints
bestowed on modern women that lead to social reformation. The feminist convictions
will allow these modern women to emancipate from male oppressions through the
social conventions, and also to initiate independence and equality for women. Shaw
depicts the real woman from working class who is unaware of her revolutionary
viewpoints to demonstrate how women will be able to emancipate from the inequality
and restrictions that the patriarchal society had placed on her gender as a more
effective example of feminist figure than using the educated, middle-class women that
side with male values. Vivie adopts the male role of a financial provider in the career
world whilst Candida assumes the paternalistic role of the protector of the family.
Shavian heroines in Mrs. Warren’s Profession, Candida and Saint Joan offer different
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representations of the possibilities of modern women to forge a better society by
gaining equality in career opportunity, marriage and recognition as human being from
the society.
As a Fabian and feminist, Shaw sees that feminist movements are
compatible with fundamental ideas of Socialism based on the equality for people and
social reformation. Aiming to eliminate the anarchy of rigid social conventions and
capitalism which had dictated Victorian society, Shaw brought the new social and
political ideas to “discuss” artistically in his dramatic invention of “Discussion Plays”.
The problematic social subjects are dramatized into comic situations that allow the
playwright to differentiate his characters’ ideal positions and make arguments about
their notions about the morality, social and aesthetic values or even theological beliefs
through didactic dialogues. The characterization of Shavian heroines represents
Shaw’s position of a realist whose progressive ideas are introduced to debate with
other false idealist and common philistine characters with his art of polemics. The
ultimate goal of Shavian comedies is giving the audience both pleasure and selfrecognition from the plays’ comic situations, witty dialogues, and unconventional
characterization. Moreover, the unrealistic epilogue of Saint Joan, an assembly of the
characters from different time schemes stylistically presented in the play becomes
Shaw’s innovative theatrical creation introduced for Modern drama.
To study Shaw’s social, political and moral aspects, the female protagonists
of Mrs. Warren’s Profession, Candida and Saint Joan are vivid samples of feminist
figures that transcend their conventional women roles and embrace new ideals of
Feminism and Socialism believed by the playwright as a key for social reformation.
The characterization of the heroines of the selected plays assumes obvious political
importance of the playwright, espousing the social concerns feminism: stereotypical
female roles, conventional marriage, repressed female sexuality as women
oppressions through social hierarchies, class and gender struggles caused by
capitalism. Shavian comedies and his didactic dialogues are satires of bourgeois
values, moral and social conventions of Victorian society. The theatrical
inventiveness of Shavian discussion dramas and unconventional heroines suggests a
possibility of women emancipation from Victorian conventionality that prevent
people to achieve an ideal equal society. Shaw imposes his social, political, aesthetic
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and theological values into these heroines against Victorian conventions, moralities
and ideals dramatized in his realistic theatre to evoke the audience’s thoughts,
conscience and awareness for a progress of humanity.