Essay on "Play on One Hand, Shaw"

Essay 4 pages (1128 words) Sources: 0 Style: MLA

[EXCERPT] . . . .

Play

On one hand, Shaw's play "Mrs. Warren's Profession" has generally been recognized as a critic by the author of the woman's condition in society at that point in time and the fact that the incapacity of society to include and accommodate women sometimes made them resort to prostitution as a way in which they could manage their existence. However, despite this perspective, there is also a differently balanced way that one can look at things and see the play as an award to women who, despite being obviously undervalued at that moment, managed to find and resort to solutions which allow them to have a reasonable existence.

One of my first arguments in this sense is the fact that the female characters in this play are very strong ones. First, one obviously needs to discuss Mrs. Warren, who is introduced in the first act of the play as "rather spoilt and domineering, and decidedly vulgar, but, on the whole, a genial and fairly presentable old blackguard of a woman" (Act 1). The description for Mrs. Warren that Shaw uses here is important in presenting, from the moment of the introduction of the character in the play, what the author things about Mrs. Warren and, on a larger and more encompassing framework, of the women's condition in society.

As such, his feelings seem to combine contempt with pity and admiration. From a contempt point-of-view, she is decidedly vulgar, as well as spoilt and domineering. All these tend to be and can be seen by the reader as not necessarily characteristics that society has imposed on the woman, but rather characteristics that come with her as an individual. For this reason, these will not help in arguing why Mrs. Warren is used to show how women are ignored in society: this are not things that Mrs. Warren has had to adopt in order to better adapt to society.

From an admiration point-of-view, she is also genial and fairly presentable.

However, this is also something that hides the way that women are looked at in Shaw's times: Mrs. Warren has no other characteristics to show for, except for the fact that she is genial and fairly presentable, at least not at first glance. A woman defines herself in society primarily through her outside and physical characteristics rather than by any other traits.

At first, the author is keen to underline Mrs. Warren's profession from a subtle contempt point-of-view. Her dialogues with prudish daughter Vivie are a way by which the reader can understand some of the contempt of society towards what Mrs. Warren has done and is doing for a living, namely, at present, turning prostitution into a business from which she is drawing her living income. Vivie is well brought up and sees all this through the eyes of the Victorian society: contempt, desire to turn one's eyes away and not acknowledge the truth etc. However, the reader begins to understand that this is just the premise of later discussions and that the underlying issue that Shaw wants to bring out is not necessarily the way that Mrs. Warren is gaining her living, but the hypocrisy that surrounds the Victorian society. Through this, as pointed out in the paper's thesis, he has admiration through the way that women, despite the society's (or, in fact, with its help)

Here is Sir John Croft, one of the… READ MORE

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