Major Barbara (Penguin Classics)

I brought this for my required reading in an upper level Economics course and I was thoroughly surprised by how much I actually enjoyed reading it. It's a quick and easy read with a lot of humor. There will be clear favorites among the characters although some of them you will ask yourself why you like them so much. On paper Undershaft is more of an antagonist than anything else but you will find yourself liking him anyways. All in all the themes and issues presented by Shaw's characters are done brilliantly and it's worth more than just one read.

This play discusses an issue that is very timely. What do we do to address the problem of poverty? It is also a bit of a period pieceon Victorian England society. Well worth reading. For the real literature and sociology/economics buff, read the opening essay. Religiousissues are also dealt with in an interesting way.

Major Barbara is a key player in her local chapter of the Salvation Army, but she really has a lot to deal with as the daughter of a major arms manufacturer and billionaire. Can she save the soul of her wayward father, as well as the other souls under her care? Or will her father show her that there is another way to life, even in a factory of death? At what price is salvation?

The Penguin Classics '01 paperback edition is laden with typographic errors. The spacing between individual letters is inconsistent on numerous occasions, which can be rather jarring to the eyes when "it" becomes "i t" whereas the rest of the line is densely packed. The typesetter even got the most brilliant idea by turning "flourish" into "∫'tourish". Although I enjoyed reading the play, my experience was marred by these misprints.

Great book. very pleased with this transaction

Interesting play, but not a masterpiece in my opinion

I wonder what audiences thought after seeing Major Barbara for the first time in 1905. Shaw’s message was always in the forefront for me as I read through this slim play. But of course I had the benefit of the Irish playwright’s lengthy preface, which more or less insists on the prominence of the play’s message over its value as entertainment(GBS doesn’t really acknowledge the needs of his paying audience at all, interestingly enough, but perhaps not ironically given his message), but I’d have to imagine Major Barbara’s initial audiences hadn’t this helpful resource at their disposal for use as a roadmap. Coming at this play, or rather having it come at you cold must have been quite an interesting experience. Briefly stated, this play is a conversion story centered around a Salvation Army worker named Barbara, her scholar fiancé, and her rich, munitions-dealing father. Who, whom, and to what, you ask? Well, naturally, the conversion in question is to Shaw’s own political ideas. Shaw’s own preface(in the penguin edition) will elaborate in case you’re unfamiliar with them. In abbreviated form: Shaw believes some people simply don’t have enough money to live on, while others have far too much; and that the only real social crime is poverty. As a committed Fabian Society member Shaw was remarkably hard-headed and fact-focused in his quest to transform England into a socialist utopia sometime soonish. Can one be a materialist and a Utopian? Shaw seems to have thought so. Revolution was superannuated in favor of substantive reform, detailed city planning, and pragmatic democracy. Ideals of a purely qualitative beauty failed to impress him. By providing a sustainable income to all, not only would poverty be relieved, government would render most crime extinct—for those recalcitrant enough to keep to old, anti-social habits GBS could be very hard headed indeed, explicitly advocating after a failure of cajolery a speedy execution for persistent violent offenders. Crime wouldn’t suffer the only demise after an equitable distribution of pounds, Shaw insisted. Religion would be substantially reduced—or at least the need to seek and submit to it in order to provide for one’s basic needs. Bribing an impoverished human into Christianity held an inherent abhorrence for Shaw. Prayers in exchange for the possession of bread moved the social crime of poverty out of its real life circumstances. For Shaw, the design of switching the victim out for a sinner performed a self-serving deceit of the worst sort. This common ill earned Shaw’s harsh derision as the bribers were often notoriously well fed and subsidized, though perhaps of earnest intentions. Accepting money with intent of doing good wasn’t necessarily wrong, but buying the poor off to convert them to, say, Christianity was. A human being has an obligation to be useful to his society, but society has as equal a responsibility to make sure that every human has enough money to live. Baldly stated, this sounds fairly concrete in application. However, in consequence, proper intentions are narrowed by Shaw to an alarming degree. Not only is rendering an adequate supply of money to each person a moral imperative, it becomes the only appropriate imperative. Charity encouraged based on lesser motives earns only mockery from Shaw. Ruskin, Morris, and Kropotkin are castigated in Major Barbara’s preface as aesthetes who merely want to improve the look of their neighborhood and neighbors through socialism. All Idealism appears to be inexorably connected to sinister shenanigans for the Fabian Shaw, yet demanding a leveling of a given society’s pool of money rather smells of economic justice, which is rather idealistic no matter how hard-headed and factual you might present yourself as you espouse it. Shaw is interested in saving souls, but his salvation boasts of the creation of a single enlightened middle class that faces up to its overall social obligations. Now, after all this, does the “conversion” in Major Barbara work out? I’m inclined to have my own doubts. Obviously the playwright wanted his audience to leave his story with a feeling of optimism. A man as intelligent as Shaw must’ve had a ample serving of both, however, but he likely felt that one must try to build the best society one can for those about it with as much realistic chance of success as possible. Otherwise, one might as well move in next door to Ruskin, become a national celebrity, and write light comedies...

Not an entirely accurate bio in the preface to the book, and does not include the G.B.S. prologue found in other editions. I love the play itself, but buy a different edition.

Shaw writes of an Edwardian Britain in which the saintly qualities of the central character are complicated by the fact that she is of noble birth and supported by her estranged father's munitions business. Enter an impoverished greek scholar with flexible scruples, and the scenario is complete and romance flourishes as the plot extends to include the two widely diverse families of her home life and that of the Salvation Army shelter in the East End of London.I had seen the 1940 film version of this story before reading the play, but found myself understanding the longer philosophical speeches better in the written form, so gained new enjoyment from Shaw's(sometimes rather long-winded)writing.Twenty first century readers should not be put off by the writers Victorian style, there is much food for thought in the underlying messages of this play.

This play, although written around 1905 is still a subject for talking. Would your charity accept donations from an arm's manufacture or many others?

Ideal copy

One of my favorite Shaw plays. Enjoyed re reading it.

Great book