ANALYSIS OF GEORGE BERNARD SHAW’S PLAYS

Abstract

George Bernard Shaw is a noteworthy name in English history who has contributed to the history with his plays and other writings. Drama for Shaw was an activity that could be used as a moral agent as through his dramas, he helped people in terms of solving moral issues. Moreover, he discussed different moral problems in his plays to help the people of society to consider the issue seriously. The issues that he highlighted in his plays are marriage and equal rights for men and women, prostitution and its reasons, relationships and many other social issues. Most of his plays are instructional as they ponder over some social issue being prevalent in the society. According to Shaw, comedy is the best way to deliver even the harsh realities of the society, so he developed comedy dramas mostly along with philosophical, romantic and other kinds of works, in which he revealed different aspects and truths concerning a problem of society with the help of characters of the dramas (Carpenter 1969). As far as the form of Shaw’s drama is concerned, Shaw develops his dramas against Aristotelian ideology in terms of form of drama. The dramas by George Bernard Shaw usually have a well-structured characterization and the plot is secondary ( Berst 1973). Major importance is given to plot according to Aristotelian ideology concerning development of a drama. In this paper, George Bernard Shaw’s three dramas are taken into consideration, which are ‘Pygmalion’, ‘Mrs. Warren’s Profession’ and ‘Widowers’ Houses’. These dramas are considered in this article to depict G.B Shaw’s concept of drama.