Mrs. Warren’s Profession is one of three plays that feature in George Bernard Shaw’s collection titled “Plays Unpleasant”, each of which Shaw indicated “force the spectator to face unpleasant facts”. Shaw was an early advocate of feminism, so he wrote Mrs. Warren’s Profession to highlight the capitalist and chauvinist society and challenge how people view the role of women within society. The play takes a critical look at the male double standard and how women are objectified. Victorian society created a rigid outline where the roles of women and men were clearly defined. Through the use of characterisation Shaw manages to emphasise the controversies that affected Victorian society; this is achieved mainly through the relationship of Kitty Warren and her daughter Vivie. The plays themes and motivations led to the Lord Chamberlain’s decision to ban the play on the grounds of its frank discussion and portrayal of prostitution. Shaw claimed that no respectable women who could earn a decent wage would become whores and no woman would marry for money if she could marry for love.
Kitty Warren epitomises this very idea in her conversation with Vivie;
Why shouldn’t I have done it? The house in Brussels was real high-class; a much better place for a woman to be in than the factory where Anne Jane got poisoned. None of our girls were ever treated as I was treated in the scullery of that temperance place, or at the Waterloo bar, or at home. Would you have had me stay in them and become a worn-out old drudge before I was forty? (Mrs. Warren's Profession.ii.248)
Shaw manages to recognise the importance of the female role model; the four male characters within the play appear only to satellite the two female leads. Kitty Warren not only occ...
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...Greco, Stephen. "Vivie Warren's Profession: a New Look at "Mrs. Warren's Profession" The Shaw Review 10.3 (1968): 93-99. Print.
Laurence, Dan H. "Victorians Unveiled: Some Thoughts on Mrs Warren's Profession." SHAW The Annual of Bernard Shaw Studies 24.1 (2004): 38-45. Project MUSE. Web. 24 Feb. 2011.
"Mrs. Warrens Profession." Mrs. Warren's Proffesion. Ed. Michael Lupu. The Guthrie Theater. Web. 24 Feb. 2011. .
Powell, Kerry (2004). The Cambridge companion to Victorian and Edwardian theatre. Cambridge University Press. p. 229. http://books.google.com/books?id=ICi7QY_VSA8C&pg=PA229.
Shaw, Bernard, and Dan H. Laurence. "Mrs. Warren's Profession." Plays Unpleasant. London: Penguin, 2000. 181-286. Print.
Susan Glaspell was an American playwright, novelist, journalist, and actress. She married in 1903 to a novelist, poet, and playwright George Cram Cook. In 1915 with other actors, writers, and artists they founded Provincetown Players a group that had six seasons in New York City between 1916-1923. She is known to have composed nine novels, fifteen plays, over fifty short stories, and one biography. She was a pioneering feminist writer and America’s first import and modern female playwright. She wrote the one act play “Trifles” for the Provincetown Players was later adapted into the short shorty “A Jury of Her Peers” in 1917. A comparison in Susan Glaspell’s “Trifles” and “A Jury of Her Peers” changes the titles, unfinished worked, and
A work of literature often subtlety alludes to a situation in society that the author finds particularly significant. Susan Glaspell incorporates social commentary into her play Trifles. By doing so, she highlights the gender stratification that exists even in the most basic interactions and presents a way to use this social barrier to an acceptable end. Despite being written almost a century before present day, Glaspell’s findings and resulting solution are still valid in a modern context. Trifles demonstrates the roles of men and women in their everyday behaviour and interaction. The women use their ascribed positions to accomplish what the men cannot and have the ability to deliberately choose not to help the men with their newfound knowledge.
The character analysis of Mary Anne Bell in comparison and contrast to Martha and Elroy Berdahl implores the audience to consider the idea that gender is not inherent.
When the play was set in 1912, women had lacked empowerment and rights, while men had a higher status in society, despite women had no important role in society. By using Priestley’s Inspector Calls we can identify how women were portrayed in the early 20th century. Priestley has explored this in a variety of ways, by customizing the different types of female character to show an insight on how they have viewed upon the world and importantly on how they were treated differently based on several factors like class, money, and age. For an instance, Priestley uses traditional women and transitional women to contrast their lifestyle when it was set in the Edwardian Era.
In 1917 when "A Jury Of Her Peers" was written, women were the homemakers. Although Mrs. Peters and Mrs. Hale fit the domest...
In today’s society, women are empowered, independent, and have freedom on their parts to live their life freely. This is definitely a positive aspect of the modern day society, however, this may not be how it always was. Travelling back in time, to the Red Hook community of Brooklyn, circa 1950s, we are able to see the societal expectations of a women at the time through Arthur Miller’s A View from the Bridge. The two female characters, Catherine and Beatrice, play crucial roles in the play and are essential to the tragic storyline of Eddie and his downfall. However, Arthur Miller has skillfully been able to show the lives and societal expectations of the women at the time, and to portray how women should not be treated. Both Catherine and Beatrice face different particular issues, but in the end are treated similarly as women. First, we shall look at Catherine and Beatrice and their individual parts in the story. After this, the portrayal of women and femininity in Red Hook at that time will be explored in reference to Catherine and Beatrice.
...g out of traditional teachings of the domestic sphere and understanding the complex workings of the world. Vivie ceaselessly and independently follows her own vision of what is right, and while it may baffle and offend some, she cannot be persuaded to violate her own code. Vivie’s final separation from all that she knew before – her mother, Frank, even her old home – is perhaps the most telling signal of her independence. She has fully abandoned the domestic sphere and its obligations, and instead focuses on work. The debate over whether Vivie’s move is an appropriate one for women is still being held today over working mothers, but the move was even more radical then. One thing is certain, though – the challenges New Women like Vivie presented to Victorian society laid the foundation that generations of women have built on in pursuit of their unconventional dreams.
As a Victorian woman of the 20th century, the housewife had to manage her family’s
Breit, Harvey. Shirley Jackson. The New York Times June 26, 1949, 15. Rpt. in Modern American Literature, Vol. II. Ed. Dorothy Nyren Curley et al. New York: Continuum, 1989.
Jonson, Ben. Epicoene, or The Silent Woman. Ed. L. A. Beauline. Lincoln: U of Nebraska, 1966.
Susan Glaspell uses literary elements that show the readers the feminist theme in the play. The use of characters in this play really shows the feminist theme the most. Men in this play clearly demonstrates how men wer...
...ve been suffering mental abuse by their husband. This play presents the voice of feminism and tries to illustrate that the power of women is slightly different, but can be strong enough to influence the male dominated society. Although all women are being oppressed in the patriarchal society at that time, Glaspell uses this play as a feminist glory in a witty way to win over men. Mrs. Hale and Mrs. Peters solve the crime by reflecting on Minnie Wright’s unhappy marriage that leads her to murdering. Using the relationship between female and male characters throughout the play, Glaspell speaks up to emphasize how the patriarchal society underestimated women’s rights and restricted women’s desires.
Russell Brown, J. 1995. The Oxford Illustrated History of the Theatre. 3rd ed. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
The play, A Raisin in the Sun, has a very strong view of feminism in the 1960’s. The way that the females are portrayed and talked to in this play is not only an example of how the relationship between a man and a woman in society is unequal, but reflects a particular patriarchal ideology. Throughout this play, as the characters strive to achieve their dreams, the relationships that we see can be seen as feminist and as sexual stereotypes.
“The treatment of women in ‘Trifles’”, a web site that analyzes the demeanor of women throughout the play, states “ The women are betrayed as if they are second class citizens with nothing more important to think about, except to take care of the medial household chores like cooking, cleaning, and sewing.