Hoeveler, Diane

English

epublications@Marquette

Marquette Universitye-Publications@MarquetteEnglish Faculty Research and Publications English, Department of1-1-1979Shaw’s Vision of God in Major BarbaraDiane HoevelerMarquette University, diane.hoeveler@marquette.eduPublished version. The Independent Shavian, Vol. 17, (1979): 16-18. Publisher Link. © 1979 NewYork Shavians. Used with permission.Shaw's Vision of God in Major Barbara By Diane Long Hoeveler Shaw once remarked. "Never believe in a God that you cannot impron upon," and, indeed, that sentiment forms the basis of Major Barbara. for iii drama outlines the creation, transformation, and recreation of Shaw's notion,d "God." Undershaft and Lady Britomart, the old gods, represent Wi materialistic world their strength has created. but they gradually are replace: by their chosen heirs, Cusins and Barbara, who in their turn will form a ne~ version of humanity as God. We may see Major Barbara, then. as a pivo\t drama in which Shaw translates his philosophical views into the more acces~ ble and universal language of religious symbols. Shaw's conception ~f th.e LIII Force is still essentially non-anthropomorphic, but it is now embodIed m \hi main characters. Lady Britomart and Undershaft, Barbara and Cusins: Major Barbara is. then. a sort of revision of the Bible, the gospel written at cording to Shaw's religious views. In his creation of Undershaft, Barbara, ant Cusins, Shaw rewrites the Old and New Testaments in order to present ~ humanized deity, humanity as divine. The old covenant. Lady Britomart ant Undershaft, are rejected and reborn as Barbara and Cusins. the promise Of~1 new covenant. Many of Shaw's critics have pointed out his debts to both BlaLl and Shelley. One of the most striking similarities. however. is the concept ofder ty that Shaw shares with both Blake and Shelley. That is. all three write;.;~~ dorse a vision of man as God and God as man; humanity's goal is to recogruze.1i divinity through a restoration of the imagination and a rounion of the masculilJf and feminine principles. Blake and Shelley, therefore. both presented tbf godhead as androgynous. the union of Albion and Jerusalem. Prometheus a~ Asia. Shaw follows this pattern in Major Barbara. and later made his belief~ an androgynous deily explicit when he wrote to Dame Laurentia McLachIan:~1 devoutly insist that the God head must contain the Mother as well as Vlt Father." At the beginning of Act II. Undershaft says to Cusins, "J am a millionaire; yOC are a poet; Barbara is a savior of souls. What have we three to do with the corn-man mob of slaves and idolators?" The drama. structurally and thematically centers on the identities of the three main characters as spiritual principles-Although it has been claimed thai the three main characters form a sort of Sha' vian Superman at the end of the play. the emphasis throughout the draID!, reveals that it is Barbara and Cusins who will form the new deity. Undershaf, functions as a sort of instructor, an old way who, because his time has passed must give way to Barbara and Cusins. ]n his introduction to the film version. Shaw tells his audience that his drawa is a "PARABLE." and he mnKes this explicil when in Act I Barbara and her [ather exchange challenges to visil each other's places of work. Barbara tell! her father that the Salvation Army shelter is "In vVest Ham. At the sign of thE Cro~s." Undershafl replies in like manner that his cannon factory is "w POflvale Sl. Andrews. At Iho sign of the Sword." This language reveals that tbe struggle in the play is between the cross and the sword, nol so much Christianitl nn.d .we.r, but the two systems of belief that Shaw saw as foes to his religion: spml divorced from body and body divorced from spirit. Shaw's religion, likl Eli an t: s r ( i Blake's, insisted on the complete interdependence of spirit and body, intellect and imagination, male and female. ' Undershaft quite blatantly represents the strength of the body and he func-tions throughout the drama as both "God" and the "devil," an Old Testament Nobodaddy, and the spirit of Darwinism let loose in the commercial world. He is the appropria te leader during a time of his tory domina ted by the growth of in-dustrialism. He assures his family that his motto might be identical to the Salva-tion Army's: Blood and Fire, for his religion "must have a place for cannons and torpedoes in it." But a new era of history has begun, an era that does not need to be concerned simply with the most basic of needs. Barbara and Cusins are the more appropriate leaders for this new age, an age in which spiritual needs would not have to be sacrificed for bodily ones. Shaw presents his belief in spiritual evolution in Barbara, the embodiment of traditional Christianity, although her religious beliefs contain a strong degree of spiritual Lamarckianism. In Act I Barbara's original Christianity allows her to remark, "There are neither good men nor scoundrels: there are just children of one Father .... Theyre all just the. same sort of sinner; and theres the same salvation ready fur them all." Blake's aphorism "One law for the lion and the ox is oppression" comes to mind, and this truth must be embraced before Barbara can gain the spiritual wisdom she evidences in Act III. But even before that final scene, Barbara reveals a spiritual sophistication in her wooing of Bill Walker's soul. She wants to save him, not only for heaven, but for happiness and produc-tivity in this world. She exhorts him to "Come with us, Bill. To brave manhuod on earth and eternal glory in heaven." If Barbara is spirit and love, Cusins is her complement, embodying the in-tellect and will. He has been traditionally viewed as a sort of synthesis of Bar· bara's idealism and Undershaft's realism. But Cusins is not simply a synthesis; rather, he is the spiritual complement of Barbara, the true son of and heir to the godhead. With appropriate irony. when Undershaft first meets his family he mistakes Cusins for his son. Indeed, Cusins and Undershaft have much in com-mon, particularly their tolerant attitude toward the relative merits of all systems of belief. Just as Undershaft believes in money and gunpowder yet tells Barbara that he is a mystic, so does Cusins confess that he is "8 collector of religions; and the curious thing is that I find I can believe them all." He further admits to Undershaft that he participates in the Salvation Army because he sees if as "the true worship of Dionysos." Cusin's religion. like Barbara's, embraces the divinity that is inherent in humanity. Cusins describes his love for Barbara in religious terms: "Dionysos and all the others are in herself. I adored what was divine in her." Barbara and CUBins also share a religion that is an amalgamation of several systems of belief. Cusins tries to explain this to Undershaft when he remarks that. "The power Barbara wields her-the power that wields Barbara herself-is not Calvinism, not Presbyterianism. not Methodism .... Barbara is quite original in her religion." Because Undershaft has been able to recognize this quality in his daughter. he has decided on Barbara as his heir: "I shall hand on my torch to my daughter. She shall make my converts and preach my gospel. ... money and gunpowder. Freedom and power. Command of life and command of death." But Barbara is incomplete in herself: she needs a consort and Cusins fulfills that role by "renouncing" his birth and becoming Undershaft's "son" and heir and Barbara's husband. Barbara and Cusins, the new deity of this world. do not preach Undershaft'! gospel. at least not as it has been preached by him. They will not preside oven Darwinian struggle for the most basic and soulless of existences. When Under· shaft insists that the cannon works should provide Brms "to all men who offer an honest price for them. without respect of people or principles," Cusinl r repudiates this attitude by claiming. "I shall sell cannons to whom I please .... 1 11 have more power than you. more will." Barbara and Cusins do have mo~ e "will." more of the Life Force because they represent H new union of spirit and body. Undershaft. as the spokesman for physical Evolution. manages to win Bar· 1 bara and Cusins to their new mission by appealing to both the spirit and thl body. To Barbara he exclaims. "Try your hand on my men: their souls arl hungry because their bodies arc full." To Cusins he says. "Come and make ex-plosives with me. Whatever can blow men up can blow society up .... Dare you make war on war?" The final scene in Act II, the cause of much debate in the criticism of the play. depicts Barbara and Cusins establishing that new androgynous godhead. Bar· bara. as feminine principle, represents the spirit, while Cusins, the masculine. embodies will and intellect. Together they form Shaw's conception of God, th~\ is. redeemed and enlightened humanity. Barbara no longer shirks the ~ah.d claims of the body in preference to the spirit. She now understands that "hfe IS all one," as does Cusins. who recognizes that "all power is spiritual. You ca.~ot have power for good without having power for evil too." Shaw's religious VISIon is strikingly similar to Blake's belief that life has to be a marriage of spirit and body, good and evil. heaven and hell. Cusins and Barbara realize this when Cusins asks. "Then the way of life lies through the factory of death?" and Bar-bara replies, "Yes, through the raising of hell to heaven and of man to God. through the unveiling of an external light in the VaHey of The Shadow." Bar-bara and Cusins embody "man" as "God" and thoir mission is to raise the hell of their world. with its poverty. violence, and class distinctions, to the heavens of the future. When Cusins tells Undershaft that Barbara has accepted her mis-sion, he also remarks that "She has gone right up into the skies." This ascen-sion. Barbara's final imagistic association with Christ, is symbolic, for we knoW thot the new religion does not ollow for an escape from the world. but instead an embrace and transformation of it. The spiril has become reconciled to the body and the new religion of the twen-tieth century has therefore become, according to Shaw. a viable system of belier. In his preface to the play Shaw remarked. "Creeds must become intellec-tually honest. At present there is not a single credible established religion in the world. That is perhaps the most stupendous fact in the whole world-situation." Th.at {~C\ motiv~ted the composition or Major Barbaro, a comedy of sorts. but prtmaflly a serIOus allempt to outline the spiritual past and future needs of humanity. (Professor Hoeveler leaches English at the University of Louisville {Kentucky~J 

Shaw’s Vision of God in \u3cem\u3eMajor Barbara\u3c/em\u3e

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Shaw’s Vision of God in \u3cem\u3eMajor Barbara\u3c/em\u3e

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