Major Barbara

George Bernard Shaw's Major Barbara focuses on the family of aristocratic Lady Britomart Undershaft and her estranged husband Andrew, a millionaire armaments manufacturer. Their daughters Sarah and Barbara are both engaged to be married, and Lady Britomart decides to ask Andrew for monetary support. Barbara is a Major in the Salvation Army, and agrees to let her father visit the mission in the East End of London where she works. In exchange, she agrees to visit his munitions factory. The conflict between Barbara's philanthropic idealism and her father's hard-headed capitalism clash when he decides he wants to fund the Salvation Army. Shaw's comedy, as always, delves into political and social issues of the period, and provides a roster of finely- and humorously-drawn characters.

the other cheek, would make me a bankrupt. My morality--my religion--must have a place for cannons and torpedoes in it.

STEPHEN [coldly--almost sullenly] You speak as if there were half a dozen moralities and religions to choose from, instead of one true morality and one true religion.

UNDERSHAFT. For me there is only one true morality; but it might not fit you, as you do not manufacture aerial battleships. There is only one true morality for every man; but every man has not the same true morality.

LOMAX [overtaxed] Would you mind saying that again? I didn't quite follow it.

CUSINS. It's quite simple. As Euripides says, one man's meat is another man's poison morally as well as physically.

UNDERSHAFT. Precisely.

LOMAX. Oh, that. Yes, yes, yes. True. True.

STEPHEN. In other words, some men are honest and some are scoundrels.

BARBARA. Bosh. There are no scoundrels.

UNDERSHAFT. Indeed? Are there any good men?

BARBARA. No. Not one. There are neither good men nor scoundrels: there are just children of one Father; and the sooner they stop calling one another names the better. You needn't talk to me: I know them. I've had scores of them through my hands: scoundrels, criminals, infidels, philanthropists, missionaries, county councillors, all sorts. They're all just the same sort of sinner; and there's the same salvation ready for them all.

UNDERSHAFT. May I ask have you ever saved a maker of cannons?

BARBARA. No. Will you let me try?

UNDERSHAFT. Well, I will make a bargain with you. If I go to see you to-morrow in your Salvation Shelter, will you come the day after to see me in my canno

I could read every line by Andrew Undershaft, the exceedingly wealthy arms manufacturer who is one of the main characters in this play, over and over again without tiring of them. But if I never had to re-read or re-hear another one of the cockney-infused lines by the poorer characters in this play

Major Barbara a pre-WWI play (1905) by George Bernard Shaw is essentially a kind of battle of wits between a father, Undershaft, who is an obscenely wealthy weapons-maker and his estranged daughter, Barbara, who is a Major in the Salvation Army. Dad, after several years, has come home and everyone r

Read this at uni and saw various productions of this drama. I never get tired of George Bernard Shaw. He holds up common prejudices and social norms to ridicule, then shows us a better way to think and believe. Quite the snake charmer, was Shaw, but he kept us laughing while he tried to reform us!

George Bernard Shaw

Major Barbara

George Bernard Shaw

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