OF MORAL DECAY AND SPIRITUAL BANKRUPTCY IN ‘MAJOR BARBARA’ “ Our first duty, to which every other consideration should be sacrificed, is not to be poor.”This is the inimitable George Bernard Shaw( GBS) in the preface to one of his most popular, thought-provoking and shocking plays: Major Barbara .He further adds that poverty is evil and that it is a crime. An important issue that emerges from the play – apart from the fact that poverty is a crime and that it is an evil is that – to ensure a poverty free life: stoop to any level. And morality and ethics and salvation and fair play be damned.
And so may be damned spirituality and religion. Here is a play in which the Devil himself is raised from hell and placed in heaven. If tainted money is to be used for providing succour to the deprived and the diseased – then so be it! And let the devils( Bodgers and Undershafts) get the chance to ventilate their guilt through their charities. Very much like the philandering husband presenting his wife with expensive gifts. To raise the level of awareness of his audience to this issue – GBS uses a variety of techniques: characterisation, dialogues, motifs, conflicts, imagery, costuming etc Apart from the diametrically opposite stands taken by Major Barbara( who has joined the Salvation Army ) and her father Mr Andrew Undershaft, who is the owner of the factories of munitions and gunpowder and cannons – the victory in the end is of Mr. Undershaft.
Though both admire each other, Undershaft excites abhorrence. Such is his worship of pelf and power. “ To be wealthy, “ says Undershaft, “ is with me a point of honour for which I’m prepared to kill at the risk of my own life.” Undershaft’s motto and gospel can be described in one word: UNASHAMED! Money to him represents health, strength, honour, generosity and beauty as conspicuously and undeniably as the want of it represents illness, weakness, disgrace, meanness and ugliness. In Act III he tears apart the argument of his son Stephen:” You can’t tell me the bursting stain of a man under temptation.” Of Barbara: In your salvation shelter I saw poverty, misery, cold and hunger. You gave them bread and treacle and dream of heaven.
I give from thirty shillings a week to twelve thousand a year. They find their own dreams: but I look after the drainage. Indeed a powerful play!