Major Barbara
ISBN 9788119303083
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Description

Major Barbara, a typical play by George Bernard Shaw is a social satire in three acts. Shaw mocks the religious hypocrisy and the social norms and dogmas of the contemporary age that still hold enough relevance in the current age.

Major Barbara Undershaft is represented as an officer of the Salvation Army. She becomes disillusioned at the acceptance of funds by her organization from an armaments manufacturer and a whisky distiller. But the disillusionment flakes off when she finally concludes that bringing a message of salvation to people who have enough or more will be more rewarding and unpretentious rather than converting the starving with the lure of bread.

Through Barbara’s initial thinking of the Salvation Army’s acceptance of her father Mr. Undershaft’s money as hypocrisy, Shaw might have attempted to question people’s ideological mindset that charities can only be accepted from ‘morally pure’ sources. The solace to the reader is that any money that benefits the poor will have more practical value rather than no money and sticking to ethical goodness. The quote of a Salvation Army officer, “they would take money from the devil himself and be only too glad to get it out of his hands and into God’s” encourages readers to think and form thoughts and beliefs of their own.

The conflict between social and moral ethics and thus realism and idealism has been brought out effectively in this play by Shaw. We have Mr. Undershaft as the epitome of realism and a staunch believer that poverty is a crime. On the other hand, we find the robust, jolly and energetic Barbara intensely committed to her mission of redeeming mankind.

The play is replete with script displays that carry the unique Shavian techniques of omitting apostrophes from contractions and other punctuation nuances. It also has a didactic introductory essay that tells the readers of the theme of the play.

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