Major Barbara as a Play of Discussion of Ideas

Major Barbara is a play of discussion of ideas. It aims at promoting the idea that our thoughts must be helpful in understanding the basic nature of truth. As a play of idea Major Barbara instruct us to change our abstract idealism with the touch and twist of realism. According to Bernard Shaw life reveals its beauty and grandeur only when we cast aside idealism and embrace the reality that stands face to face before us.

According to Bernard Shaw idealism twins us away from reality. Idealism carries us away from actualities and eventualities. To fall in love with idealism is to put life in the hell of ignorance and ugliness. So far people have been thinking that idealism helps us to identify the essential beauty of life. Idealism has, hitherto, been taken as the alchemy of enlightenment. Idealism has ruled over the panorama of life for a long time. To enlighten people it was supposed to be a major fool.

But Bernard Shaw is critical of this idealistic line of thinking. According to him, the idealistic trend in thinking prevents us from knowing the actual nature of reality. To comprehend the actual nature of the problem, it is necessary to stop flying in the empty sky of empty idealism. It is necessary to stand on the ground of reality to understand the objective nature of social problems.

According to Shaw idealism makes us ignorant whereas as realism enlightens us. Then Shaw propounds the option to choose spiritual idealism or to choose realism. To choose realism is to enlighten ourselves so that we can better grasp the actual nature of the problem. In the play Major Barbara, Barbara, the protagonist of the play, upheld the view that the poor can be helped and changed through the pious Christian virtues like patience, sincerity, sense of sacrifice and humbleness. She maintains that poverty is the result of spiritual ignorance. Hence, by acquiring spiritual knowledge a poor man/woman can uplift himself/herself. Barbara undertook, in the salvation center, the tough job to save the soul of the poor by the agency of the Christian ideals. It seems she embarked on the risky adventure of teaching the empty belly about the value of salvation. She did not care whether the hungry stomach truly appreciated her spiritually moving preaching or not. She was proudly convinced that the empty belly can better grasp the complicated spiritual matter. This pattern of conservative Christian idealism symbolized by Barbara is severely attacked by Bernard Shaw. Barbara detests evils. Andrew loves evils because, according to him, it is an evil which can teach us something about the good. Andrew is of the opinion that the evils must not be detested, rather it should be mastered.

Barbara is afraid of crimes like murder, rape, theft, etc., but Andrew undershaft takes all those so-called crimes as simple disturbances in the established order of the established society. To Andrew, poverty is the greatest crime, it is the greatest evil. The primary duty of any conscious citizen is, according to Andrew undershaft, to slay the monster of poverty. It impairs the whole world.

Barbara wants to solve the problem of poverty by creating spiritual knowledge, and by spreading the light of Christian idealism. Andrew wants to solve the problem of poverty by giving the employment and job to the jobless.

In this play of idea George Bernard Shaw wants to establish the fact that poverty is the greatest crime, that it can be solved by earning money. Spiritual idealism can't be a practically productive response to the crime of poverty. Money is the ultimate response to the question of poverty. Andrew is the sort of man who can say yes to any violence and bloodshed if such violent acts bring sufficient money to murder the monster of poverty. In the fever pitch of his argument Andrew justifies his industry for enabling him to kill the giant of abject poverty which once nearly swallowed him. Thus, this play promotes the idea that the religion of Money, Moloch and Materialism is far more useful and superior to the religion of god.

Major Barbara Study Center

Barbara as Defeated Idealism in Bernard Shaw's Major Barbara

Andrew Undershaft as a Mouthpiece of Bernard Shaw in Major Barbara