GEORGE BERNARD SHAW (1856-1950)
Mrs. Warren's Profession (1898)

The Woman Question, Politics (Socialism vs Capitalism), and Aesthetics

1. Some facts...[handout]

2. Defining and Shifting Political Positions
Act I (Cottage Garden, Haslemere, Surrey):
1749-50/1814 the New Woman, the Fallen Woman and
(a) the Gentleman Aesthete
(b) the Capitalist/Sexual Predator
(c) the Good-for-nothing Opportunist
(d) the Hypocritical Man-of-the-Cloth

Act II: (Cottage Interior)
1764/1829; 1766/1831; 1767-68/1832-33: The New Woman and the Fallen Woman

Act III: (Rectory Garden, Haslemere)
--A socialist's view of Victorian marriage
(a) The New Woman and her first suitor (Frank)
(b) The New Woman and the Capitalist Predator
1762/1827, 1777/1842: Marriage as a financial transaction

Act IV: (Chancery Lane, London)
--1780/1845 and 1783 The New Woman, the Opportunist, and the Aesthete
--1789/1855 Mother and Daughter; Feminist Capitalism?

The bottom line? A critique of Industrial Capitalism; its exploitation of women and workers; its use of respectable Establishment order to mask hypocrisy; the impossibility of escaping complicity in its ethical flaws.

You decide: is Vivie a feelingless automaton, heroic, ethically compromised by the benefits
she has received from corrupt economics, or is she in some measure all of these by the end of the play?