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Oftentimes in literature an author will use his works as a means for the expression of views. It then becomes the job of the reader to find those views and make an attempt to understand them. George Bernard Shaw is a playwright who layered his plays with opinions and social commentary. It is these views that present themselves after a close reading in which the reader feels he has read more than a play. In his classic work Man and Superman Shaw attempts to further his opinions both sublimely and forthrightly. Though many do not appreciate his attempts and criticize his works, the legacy of Shavian writing lives on.
To the everyday reader the play Man and Superman is a dry love story with an interesting third act. To those well versed in Shavian script, it is more than that, much more. The outset of the play contains the most important lines for this is where first impressions are made. Shaw believed that an impression of his characters should hold true throughout the work (Nethercot 96).
The play opens with the upper class Englishman, Roebuck Ramsden, ordering his maid around. With this Shaw already begins to show the class dichotomy he hates so much. On the surface the most important character is the one who never speaks, Mr. Whitefield, the deceased father of Ann Whitefield, the woman who must be married. Ann becomes the vessel Shaw uses to demonstrate his views on the struggle between sexes. She teases poor Octavius or Tavy as the others call him.
The pen name Tavy stems from Anns referring to him as Ricky Ticket Tavy, in a sensually sly, almost devious manner because she knows he loves her. This love Octavius has for Ann becomes a main argument in the play because much of the character interaction branches from this. The real story begins with the death of Anns father and the reading of his will where a shocking revelation is learned. Mr.
Whitefield has named the regale elderly Ramsden as well as the radical youthful Jack Tanner to be the guardian of his two daughters. It comes as a great surprise to all (except Ann) that Tanner has been named a suitor because he has such radical social views. In fact, the mention of his book The Revolutionists Handbook brings disgust and shock to the room it was uttered in. A guardian for Ann is crucial because she holds the wishes of her father up so high. So high that she becomes a slave to them. This power over Ann is thus transferred to her two new guardians.
The next two acts seem somewhat insignificant to the story, but not to the cause of Shaw. The second act demonstrates how desperately in love with Ann Octavius is and the growing realization that he cant have her. It is here that we also begin to see Ann trying to manipulate the reluctant Jack Tanner into marrying her. It is also here that a subplot is formed with Violet and her secret husband Hector. When Violet announces that she is married but wont disclose to whom, a row ensues.
It isnt until later that everyone finds out that the husband is Hector, a friend, and not some disrespectful stranger. Shaw uses this subplot to further demonstrate his distaste for classes because it is Hectors rich father that is preventing Hector from admitting that he is the husband (Bloom 5). Hector and Jack go for a joyride in their cars along with the others in the cast. The third act takes place after Tanner and his chauffer ran away from Ann and the passengers in her car. The reason he fled was because Speaker, his chauffer, had pointed out that Ann intended to make Tanner her husband and not Octavius.
His fleeing brings the play to its most famous and sometimes misunderstood scene, Don Juan in Hell. Jack Tanner meets a group of brigands led by Mendoza who steal from the rich by disabling their cars. Jack listens to Mendoza's stories about life and his social grievances and stays the night with him and his army. The dream sequence that ensues is that of Don Juan in hell who encounters the devil, the woman he loved and her father.
It is here that Shaw criticizes religion and the government the most. Mendoza and Tanner think little of their dream, but to the reader it speaks volumes of the ideas Shaw is trying to express. The fourth and final act of the play is more down to earth and answers most of the questions raised throughout the work. It is in this act that we learn that Ann has been playing with Octavius emotions and has been trying to get Jack Tanner to marry her all along. It was she that chose Jack to be her guardian as the best way to get him to marry her. This is also the act where Hector fesses up to being Violets husband resulting in a quarrel with his father.
Much like the other confrontations in the play this one ends with a conciliatory action, in a way that shows Shaw despises drawn out fighting (Crompton 45). The predictable ending of Jack Tanner wedding Ann leads some to think this a simple comedy, but it is much more than that. The interactions each character has were Shavian ways of mocking society and life itself. Each act holds its own when placed under a microscope, and thats the way Shaw wanted it. Critics such as Louis Kronenberger who feel Shaw to be little more than a garrulous writer condemn much of his antics in writing. However, even Kronenberger admits to the genius that the nefarious third act in hell holds (Kronenberger 22).
Bernard Shaw uses character interactions as his main container when spreading his ideas in his plays. There are many interactions in Man and Superman with each one proving a different point of view of Shaw's, or multiple views of his. There are essentially two themes in this play. One deals with the struggle of the sexes and the other deals with the struggles in society. The predominate theme is that of the sexes because Shaw goes out of his way to mock marriage and the power of both men and women. The struggle of the sexes can be broken down in its simplest terms by the fact that without women there is no life, and without men there is no value (Bentley Bernard Shaw 105).
Shaw writes of the life force in his play as a qualifier for marriage. That the sole purpose in a womans life is to find a husband and create more children, this is the only way life can go on. Shaw's close-minded view of the mans role in life is that men make life worth l...
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