Women Between Two Worlds: Shaw's Contradictory Female Characters PDF

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Bergische Universität Wuppertal Anglistik/Amerikanistik WS 2018/19 – George Bernard Shaw and Modern Political Discourse PD Dr. Tilman Höss Women Between Two Worlds: Shaw’s Contradictory Female Characters Aline Kossmann Miozzo Caetano Farias 1666153 [email protected] 5. Semester ANG-FG-C2 b – ...

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Women Between Two Worlds: Shaw's Contradictory Female Characters Aline Kossmann

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Bergische Universität Wuppertal Anglistik/Amerikanistik WS 2018/19 – George Bernard Shaw and Modern Political Discourse PD Dr. Tilman Höss

Women Between Two Worlds: Shaw’s Contradictory Female Characters

Aline Kossmann Miozzo Caetano Farias 1666153 [email protected] 5. Semester ANG-FG-C2 b – 4 LP (MAP) 21.03.2019

Table of Contents 1. Introduction ............................................................................................................................ 1 2. George Bernard Shaw’s Feminism, the New Woman and traditional literary types ............. 2 2.1 Shaw as a feminist writer.................................................................................................. 2 2.2 The New Woman .............................................................................................................. 3 2.3 Traditional literary types: temptress, mother and goddess ............................................... 4 3. Mrs Warren’s Profession ....................................................................................................... 5 3.1 Vivie Warren as the New Woman and the fight against traditional gender roles ............ 5 3.2 Kitty Warren and Social Criticism ................................................................................... 7 4. Man and Superman ................................................................................................................ 9 4.1 Ann Whitefield – a multifaceted character ....................................................................... 9 4.2 The Life Force and Gender Roles................................................................................... 10 5. Conclusion ............................................................................................................................ 11

1. Introduction George Bernard Shaw is known as one of the most revolutionary playwrights of the 19th and 20th centuries. His works full of social criticism were certainly ahead of his time and were therefore outrageous to a great part of the public. However, this did not prevent Shaw from becoming a highly acclaimed playwright whose plays are still read and performed in different parts of the globe today. Some of the most notable features of the author’s work are his disruptive views on gender relations and femininity, and his unorthodox female characters, which brought him into prominence as a feminist name in drama. Nevertheless, although the women in Shaw’s plays are undeniably much more liberated than the ideal Victorian woman, his work is not completely free from the values of the period. While George Bernard Shaw’s female characters are far from reflecting traditional notions of womanhood in the Victorian age, they cannot be taken for fully emancipated and modern women either. The women depicted by the author stand somewhere between traditional and modern values, creating unique and elaborated female characters. While these women present some features of Victorian ideal and traditional literary types, they are also closely related to the figure of the modern woman in the fight for equality. Therefore, the female characters in the author’s plays are not plain, one-dimensional descriptions of the typical Victorian lady, but rather mostly complex and often paradoxical personae. In this essay, we will examine Shaw’s opinions on femininity and gender roles and discuss how they are reflected in the construction of his female characters. Moreover, we will analyze the contradictions that arise in the author’s portrayal of women, and discuss how the values and literary tradition of the playwright’s time might have influenced his representation of them. In order to do so, we will explore two major plays by George Bernard Shaw – Mrs Warren’s Profession and Man and Superman –, and will focus on their female protagonists. These plays were chosen for the clear contrasts observed in and between the women in them, their personalities and roles.

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2. George Bernard Shaw’s Feminism, the New Woman and traditional literary types 2.1 Shaw as a feminist writer Shaw deeply disagreed with the way women had been seen and treated during the 19th and 20th centuries. In his essay The Quintessence of Ibsenism, published in 1891, he criticizes the view of women as inferior to men, stating that “[…] it is not surprising that our society, being directly dominated by men, comes to regard Woman, not as an end in herself like Man, but solely as a means of ministering to his appetite. The ideal wife is one who does everything that the ideal husband likes, and nothing else. Now to treat a person as a means instead of an end is to deny that person’s right to live. And to be treated as a means to such an end as sexual intercourse with those who deny one’s right to live is insufferable to any human being.” (19) The playwright fiercely defended gender equality and spoke against the traditional notion that women are built for domestic life. He argued that “if we have come to think that the nursery and the kitchen are the natural sphere of a woman, we have done so exactly as English children come to think that a cage is the natural sphere of a parrot - because they have never seen one anywhere else,” (Shaw, The Quintessence of Ibsenism 21), condemning the unfounded assumption that women should fulfill the roles of housewife and mother. Nonetheless, although Shaw’s political statements about women opposed the conventional expectation of female servility and the simple view of women as child-bearers, they often contrast with the rather traditional treatment he occasionally gives them in his plays (Adams 17). Frequently, it is possible to identify a tendency in the playwright to distinguish between feminine and masculine tasks and to separate his characters according to traditional gender roles. Although, as mentioned by Crane, “Shaw consistently took up the cause of woman who was expected to embrace her role as an inferior dependent being confined to child bearing and housekeeping” (23), this division is evident in some of his works such as Man and Superman, which will be discussed later on. Notwithstanding, Crane also considers that Bernard Shaw was aware that women have the same intellectual and artistic capabilities than men and are mostly inhibited by social and not biological factors (150), a stance which coincides with his opinion in The Quintessence of Ibsenism.

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Perhaps Shaw’s feminism is most apparent in his creation of modern and strong-willed female characters, which are often working or financially independent women with a strong resemblance with the so called New Woman. His reproduction of more traditional notions, however, is more subtle, although not less present, and was noted by several scholars in the playwright’s consistent reproduction of conventional literary types in his plays, among other factors. Both these aspects will be explained more thoroughly in sections 2.2 and 2.3 below.

2.2 The New Woman Shaw often portrayed the figure of the New Woman, a feminist ideal that started in the 19th century and “represents the aspirations of middle-class women to forge roles for themselves within society as independent thinkers who were financially self-sufficient” (Wilson 59). However, more than a real person or a group, the term New Woman served as a “way of naming, and thus controlling, a range of ongoing disruptions in the social understanding of gender” (Powell 77). It was obviously a very polemic concept from the moment it emerged, since it was created during a time when women were often not even considered to have free will. Up until that point, women had been “idealized entirely through their abrogation of self” (Wilson 59), i.e. they were expected to be self-sacrificing, always putting their duties as mothers and wives before them. Consequently, female independence was seen as a threat to the institution of marriage (Sargent 7), which was then the foundation of the family. Powell points out that the New Woman was not well received because “she reopened for discussion some deeply held assumptions about what it meant to be a man or woman.” (77) Moreover, the idea of women defying what was taken to be nature’s order challenged traditional moral values, something which seemed even more dangerous to British society in a moment when Britain’s imperial supremacy was at risk (Sargent 8-9). Hence, many artists, journalists and writers who opposed the notion of a New Woman started satirizing the figure (Wilson 60) by portraying it as “masculine in dress and manners” (Adams 21) and as engaging exclusively in conventionally male activities such as smoking cigars or reading, while neglecting other aspects of their lives seen as more feminine, such as family life. Even progressive men who were supportive of gender equality showed mixed feelings towards

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the New Woman (Powell 77). Some of Shaw’s female characters, for example, share similarities with this stereotype. One of the most notable is Vivie Warren, in Mrs. Warren’s Profession, whose correspondences with the New Woman’s caricature will be analyzed in more detail in 3.1. Notwithstanding, what might have caused relatively liberal men like Shaw to react rather unexpectedly towards the philosophy of the New Woman was not necessarily the changes related exclusively to the female behavior, but the fact that it required a change in the behavior of men (Powell 94). Naturally, the threat gender equality represented to the male power and privilege acquired through gender polarization made most men uncomfortable.

2.3 Traditional literary types: temptress, mother and goddess Although Shaw was openly against stereotyping women, Adams identifies three other literary types in the author’s plays: temptress, mother and goddess (17). These traditional female roles are prevalent throughout Western literature (Adams 22) and certainly most of the playwright’s main female characters shows correlations to one or more of them. It is possible that George Bernard Shaw’s rigid role definition is a result of the literary tradition in which he was inevitably immersed, which means that although his female characters were different from the average Victorian woman, they were constructed in the molds the author was familiar with. Adams explains each of the three character types as follows. The temptress is, in Western tradition, a fascinating but evil woman who creates chaos in the world around her. She is often associated with animal ferocity, a characteristic that can be clearly observed in Shaw’s work (Adams 18). She is the femme fatale (Adams 18), a woman who manipulates and corrupts the ones close to her, especially men. Eve, described in the Bible as the one who induced Adam to sin, and Pandora, responsible for the release of all the evils of humanity in Greek mythology, are classic examples of this type. The mother type is the woman represented as the giver and nurturer of life, although she can also have a very protective and controlling character. Eve is also an example of this type, being the mother of humanity according to Christianity. The mother is also a fundamental type in Bernard Shaw’s drama and the clearest examples of mother-women in the plays that will be analyzed in this essay are found in Man and Superman, where the concept of the Life Force is

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responsible for the mother instincts of the female characters. The mother-woman is often merged with the figure of the goddess, creating a kind of super-mother. The goddess represents power but also purity, sanctity and self-denial (Adams 22), and is frequently seen as responsible for the future of humanity. By examining the female characters in the following plays, we will discuss what kinds of women are being portrayed in George Bernard Shaw’s work and how they fit into the three literary types listed above. Moreover, we will analyze how they relate to – or differ from – the playwright’s expressed opinions on gender and womanhood, and examine their role in the character construction in Mrs Warren’s Profession and Man and Superman.

3. Mrs Warren’s Profession Mrs Warren’s Profession is a play centered on the mother-daughter relationship between Vivie and Kitty Warren, and the involvement of the latter with organized prostitution. Although it was written in 1893, because of its taboo subject matter, the play could not be performed until 1902 due to governmental censorship. Both protagonists in Mrs Warren’s Profession can be considered liberated modern women, although in different ways. Vivie Warren is an example of the new working woman, and is therefore strong and outspoken, does not take orders, and makes herself economically independent at the end of the play. Mrs. Warren, on the other hand, initially appears to be more adapted to society’s expectations of women. However, one soon learns that she has long challenged those expectations by having a strong sense of self-respect and taking control of her own life. Nevertheless, both characters often contradict themselves in their notions of womanhood and independence. For this reason and because of the different ways the characters decide to confront traditional values, Vivie and Kitty Warren require a separate and deeper analysis.

3.1 Vivie Warren as the New Woman and the fight against traditional gender roles Vivie Warren is one of George Bernard Shaw’s most noteworthy representations of the New Woman. Already in the beginning of the play, the character is seen as the opposite of the

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Victorian woman: she is not interested in the romantic view of the world and of interpersonal relations, and is a very practical, self-sufficient and confident woman. Nonetheless, as mentioned in 2.2, this emancipated side of Vivie’s character is sometimes stereotyped. One of the many instances when this caricaturesque side of Vivie Warren can be observed is in her own description of herself in page 37 in “I like working and getting paid for it. When I’m tired of working, I like a comfortable chair, a cigar, a little whisky, and a novel with a good detective story in it.” Moreover, not only her opinions but also her dress and her manners are masculinized, giving her more similarities to a caricature than portraying her as a modern woman rejecting typical female roles. Although the author’s intention might not have been the satirization of the image of the New Woman, he often emphasizes what were considered more masculine characteristics in her, making the character resemble the satires commonly produced by critics at the time (Adams 22). Notwithstanding, Vivie Warren still presents some degree of attachment to Victorian values. One example is the way she reacts to the fact her mother had been in the prostitution business. Vivie is extremely judgmental when she first finds out Mrs. Warren had been a prostitute, although after her mother educates her on the hardships of being a poor woman, she becomes more understanding. What is surprising, however, is that in the end it is not Mrs. Warren’s early career as a prostitute that makes Vivie break away from her, but rather the fact that she continues working as a procuress when she no longer needs the money (Sargent 16). Vivie Warren shows to be willing to understand a poor girl’s reason for selling her body, and when she confronts Crofts in the end of Act III, mentioning “how helpless nine out of ten young girls would be in the hands of [his] and [her] mother” (85), we notice her aversion is directed towards the exploiters and not the prostitutes themselves. Here the author speaks through Vivie, accusing the social system instead of the prostitutes (Laurence 41), something that will be even more evident in Kitty’s lines. Nevertheless, while Vivie still clings to some Victorian values concerning women, that does not apply to her ideas on gender roles, both in her case and in her view of her mother. Kitty Warren’s taking over the traditional role of the father by providing for her daughter while outsourcing the work of raising her, for example, never bothered Vivie, except perhaps for the fact that they did not develop a strong emotional bond (Wilson 60-61). This is also evident on

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Vivie’s personal and professional aspirations; she swears never to get married and wishes to become a working woman instead. According to Wilson, “as a new woman, Vivie strives for independence and so refuses the normative standards of middle-class femininity, which placed a premium on women being mothers who selflessly forfeited their own needs to meet those of their husbands and children.” (57) This is an essential aspect of the feminist movement, and the opposition to these standards has been one of the pillars of the fight for female emancipation since its very beginning. In the end of the play, Vivie still displays some final acts of rebellion against conservative norms. After having sent Frank and Praed out of her office, she has an argument with Mrs. Warren, who demands she fulfills her role as a daughter, to which Vivie answers, “I don’t want a mother; and I don’t want a husband. I have spared neither Frank nor myself in sending him about his business. Do you think I will spare you?” (103) Vivie’s attitude shows how wideranging her rejection of the traditional female role is: she does not only dismiss motherhood and marriage, she also refuses to fulfill the role of the daughter.

3.2 Kitty Warren and Social Criticism Like her daughter, Kitty Warren is also torn between different standards. She is discreet about being a brothel owner and having a child outside of marriage (by calling herself Mrs. Warren while in England), and desperately tries to fit into the role of the mother by trying to assert her maternal authority over Vivie, who most of the time disregards it. However, it is not long before it becomes evident that Mrs. Warren will not conform to all of society’s expectations. The first sign noted is with regard to her physical appearance. When she first comes into sight, Mrs. Warren is obviously “unwilling to capitulate fully to the conventions of middle-class decorum in terms of dress” (Wilson 61), since she is described as “showily dressed in a brilliant hat and a gay blouse fitting tightly over her bust and flanked by fashionable sleeves. Rather spoilt and domineering, and decidedly vulgar, but, on the whole, a genial and fairly presentable old blackguard of a woman.” (40) Although her manner of dressing might also be influenced by the years she has worked in her profession, once we learn that Mrs. Warren has a clear

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understanding of social norms, there is no doubt she has consciously chosen to ignore specific rules in order to express herself through clothing. Like Vivie, Kitty Warren presents some elements of the New Woman, since she is outspoken, spontaneous and a woman who has made herself financially independent. Nevertheless, the most remarkable way Mrs. Warren challenges Victorian notions of feminism is through the awareness of her condition as a woman. For her, prostitution was a way of gaining control over herself and her body in a world where not many options were available for women, a fact she laments saying “It can’t be right [...] that there shouldn’t be better opportunities for women. I stick to that: it’s wrong.”(68) Although prostitutes are in a position where they have to submit to the will of men, the options available for women of lower classes are much more humiliating to Kitty Warren, since she considers it impossible to “keep [one’s] self-respect in such starvation and slavery.“ (69) Nonetheless, she knows what is expected...