Born in 1856 on 33 Synge Street, Dublin was a boy by the name of George Bernard Shaw. At an early age Shaw had trouble finding his place within society, which started with his disliking of his name George and preferred to be called ‘Sonny’. Shaw also began to struggle finding his place within society, which ultimately lead to his literary career. Sonny suffered a dreadful death due to kidney failure on November 2, 1950. Apparent throughout all of Shaw’s works are his specific literary themes, styles, and techniques.
His themes include: Poverty, troubled relations, struggling to find a place withinsociety, hypocrisy, radical rationalism, gender discrimination, disillusionment, drama, realism, naturalism, and sociology economic problems amongst society. Embedded within these themes are his techniques and styles, including: socialism, allusion, life, ibsenic realism, and usingplaywrights to convey modern issues.
Growing up with a poverty engrained family caused Shaw to formulate many beliefs and feelings that would eventually influence his works. The son of a drunk, failed, corn merchant and a professional singer was one of three children (Mazer 1-4).
His mother also had to construct piano lessons in order for their family to pay for their expenses. George’s thoughts on his poverty were first shown through his writing: An Autobiography 1856-1898 (edited by Stanley Weintraub, 1970) (Merriman 10-18). According to Merriman, Shaw portrayed his poverty as humiliating not only through his autobiography (10-18). Poverty helped Shaw appreciate the natural world more and he never took things for granted, for example: during the summertime he would go to the countryside and felt peaceful there, in these moments he would develop his inner imagination which would later be shown through many of his works (Merriman 10-18)However, poverty affected Shaw in negative ways causing him to dislike school(Stewart and Weintraub 9), oppose punishment systems(Tejvan 6-8), and he had to deal with his father who became a drunk and causing Shaw to face adversity at a very young age.
Continuing to struggle within his place in society, George’s mom had abandoned him and his family on his sixteenth birthday (Mazer 5-7). Only at the age of 21 his sister Agnes died due to tuberculosis (Merriman 4-para. 2). All of these horrible things caused Shaw to retreat to the library. Here, he began to immerse himself within the studies of George Byron and William Blake (Merriman 6-7 para. 2). His difficulties with his mother and father along with studying then works of Byron and Blake influenced Shaw to write plays that included parent-child relationship issues (Mazer 8-9). One of the plays that included this theme was Misalliance, where a family has guests over and the daughter of the family likes a boy that was invited but the mother won’t accept it. This early play led Shaw to expand his ideas and lead him to start his literary career as a novelist.
His early career as a playwright and novelist consisted of noticeable styles portrayed through his works. One of which was displayed in the novel, Immaturity(1879). This was the first instance were Shaw tried using fiction as a style, and he did this by proclaiming his immaturity through this semi autobiographical novel. However, It did not work out as he had planned because all of the publishers from London would not accept his work (Stewart and Weintraub para. 3). George would not accept his failure at making fiction novels, so he decided to make four more, consequently they all failed concluding with An Unfinished Novel(1958) when he realized fiction was not working for him (Stewart and Weintraub para. 3).
Nearing the end of the decade, Shaw decided to shift his themes and techniques to a focus around Fabian Society. During this era George found himself as a socialist, and he belonged to a middle-class order that wanted to change the English culture through peace (Stewart and Weintraub para. 4 (39-44). Shaw accomplished this through two works: As an Editor of Fabian Essay in Socialism (1889) and Book Reviews in the Pall Mall Gazette (1885-1888)(Stewart and Weintraub para. 4 44-48). George Shaw started to shift again out of the political realm and produced, Plays Pleasant and Unpleasant (1898).
Throughout these fascinating plays, George incorporates the theme of hypocrisy. The two main plays that that display this theme are Widower’s Houses and Mrs. Warren’s Profession (Frenz 13-20). However, Shaw incorporated hypocrisy as a minor theme in the novel Pygmalion one of his most well known works, as well. It becomes apparent through the wealthy class in Britain, where people in this class believe they are better than the rest of society (Azizmohammadi and Tayari 6-8). This theme is also shown through a religious sense in Major Barbara(1905). Shaw develops this idea of Crosstianity over the course of this play, where everything goes arie and the characters are not allowed to express what they believe. The idea of hypocrisy is also shown throughout this play where salvation can only be granted through politics and not through individual thoughts (Frenz 26-29). The play, Major Barbara(1905) was the start of a new chapter for Shaw.
A few years later, Shaw already had shifted from a fiction novelist to a focus on politics. After focusing on the political works, George formed a play known as Cæsar and Cleopatra(1901). Throughout this play Shaw makes use of allusions by relating them to this play about history to modern times(Frenz 33-36). This technique is shown in the play when Shaw describes how a wealthy home in Egypt’s main city, Alexandria is related to a wealthy home in British society today. Through his excitement and expanding on politics Shaw formed an interesting theme in the play, From Man and Superman(1903).
This play portrays two themes of happiness in the face of creation and radical rationalism. The theme of happiness in creation is shown when there are issues between the creator and females (Weintraub and Stewart Para. 8). In From Man and Superman(1903) Shaw says, “Criminals do not die by the hands of the law. They die by the hands of other men.”(George Bernard Shaw). This quote relates to Shaw’s theme of radical rationalism by showing how the law should not be the only thing that has authority, but people should also govern the world with their own ideas and beliefs.
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