G. B. SHAW’S ANDROGYNOUS WOMEN
A Reading from Indian Perspective
Keywords:
Androgyny, Cosmic Force of Nature, George Bernard Shaw, Life Force, Shaw’s WomenAbstract
Some of the women characters of George Bernard Shaw are a blend of heterogeneous elements, which finally culminate in androgyny. Shaw’s creative world is full of strong, self-complacent women, who take androgynous position instead of exchanging places with men. His heroines overturn customs and emphatically demand for their status as human beings. It is interesting to note that Shaw departed from the Victorian standards of morality and presented woman as a manifestation of ‘Life Force’ (presented in plays such as, Candida, Back to Methuselah; and in ”The New Theology”, a sermon delivered in 1907 in London) which carries echoes of the ‘Cosmic Force of Nature’ as found in the Indian philosophical tradition. ‘Androgyny’ in Indian tradition is highly plural and conceptually complex. The ungendered ‘Brahman’, ‘PurushaPrakrti’, ‘Siva-Sakti’, and ‘Ardhanarisvara’ are different concepts from different ancient Indian scritpures that signify Wholeness, completion, Unity, androgyny. Shaw firmly believed in elimination of social, economic and political differences between sexes and strived for bringing about a state of social unity in which principles of distributive social justice are lived to the core by each and all members of the society. With this vision, he provided full spectrum of experiences and feelings to his women characters. The Shavian women come out of the confines of gendered boundaries and move toward plurality by taking androgynous position. The paper examines some of the women
References
Adrienne Rich, Diving into the Wreck: Poems 1971-1972, New York: WW Norton and Company Inc., 1973.
Mircea Eliade, Myths, Dreams and Mysteries, New York: Harper and Row, 1967, 174-175.
David J. Kalupahana, The Principles of Buddhist Psychology, Delhi: Indian Books Centre, 1992, 22-37.
Ruth Vanita, ”The Self Is Not Gendered: Sulabha’s Debate with King Janaka,” NWSA Journal 15, 2 (2003), 76, (2 November 2015).
Rita M. Gross, Buddhism after Patriarchy: A Feminist History, Analysis, and Reconstruction of Buddhism, New York: State University of New York Press, 1993, 67-68.
Mary Eagleton, Feminist Literary Criticism, London: Longman, 1991, 29.
T. S. Eliot, ”The Metaphysical Poets,” in Selected Essays 1917-1932, 3rd ed., London: Faber & Faber, 1999, 287.
Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, trans., H. M. Parshley, Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1987, 37-40.
Dan H. Laurence, ed., Bernard Shaw: Collected Letters 1926-1950, vol. 4, London: Max Reinhardt, 1988, 305.
Gareth Griffith, Socialism and Superior Brains: The Political Thought of Bernard Shaw, London: Routledge, 1993, 161.
David Edgar, ”Introduction” in Plays Unpleasant, George Bernard Shaw, ed., Dan H. Laurence, London: Penguin Books, 2000, xi.
Christopher Innes, ed., The Cambridge Companion to George Bernard Shaw, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004, 6.
Barbara Bellow Watson, A Shavian Guide to the Intelligent Woman, London: Chatto and Windus, 1964, 14.
M. H. Abrams, et al. eds., Norton Anthology of English Literature, vol. 2, New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 2006, 1056.
George Bernard Shaw, The Quintessence of Ibsenism, London: Constable & Co. 1913, 32-33.
John Stuart Mill, The Subjection of Women, London: Longmans, Green, Reader, and Dyer, 1869, 177.
George Bernard Shaw, Candida, ed., S. Sengupta, New Delhi: Surjeet Publications, 1980, 20.
George Bernard Shaw, George Bernard Shaw: Collected Articles, Lectures, Essays and Letters: Thoughts and Studies from the Renowned Dramaturge and Author of Mrs. Warren's Profession, Arms and the Man and Saint Joan, Google Books Edition, 2015, <https://books.google.co. in/books?id=dVooCQAAQBAJ&pg=PT420&lpg=PT420&dq=the+new +theology+by+g+b+shaw&source=bl&ots=YxDq6rFJD4&sig=gLLF_s Awkmr6KnVbvLOAXAk15OE&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwi9wtXt2 4zQAhWKPo8KHa67DnwQ6AEIODAF#v=onepage&q=the%20new% 20theology&f=false> (02 November 2015).
Ajit Mookerjee and Madhu Khanna, The Tantric Way: Art, Science, Ritual, Boston: New York Graphic Society, 1977, 15.
Dan H. Laurence, ed., The Bodley Head Bernard Shaw: Collected Plays with Their Prefaces, vol. 6, London: Max Reinhardt, The Bodley Head, 1970-74, 35.
The Annual of Bernard Shaw Studies, 14: 1992: Shaw and the Last Hundred Years, ed. Bernard F. Dukore, University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1994, 67-81.
George Bernard Shaw, Saint Joan, Project Gutenberg of Australia, 2002, 92 <http://faculty.smu.edu/bwheeler/joan_of_arc/ olr/07_ saintjoan_gbshaw.pdf> (2.11.2015).
George Bernard Shaw, Major Barbara, Sandroid, 85. <http://www.sandroid.org/GutenMark/wasftp.GutenMark/Marked Texts/pmbrb10_mjbrb10.pdf> (2.11.2015).
George Bernard Shaw, Misalliance, Fairfield: 1st World LibraryLiterary Studies, 2004, 139.
George Bernard Shaw, Man and Superman, ed. S. Sengupta, New Delhi: Surjeet Publications, 2000, 18.
George Bernard Shaw, Mrs. Warren’s Profession, in Bernard Shaw: Complete Plays with Prefaces, vols. I-IV, New York: Dodd, Mead and Company, 1962, 65.
Dan H. Laurence, ed., The Bodley Head Bernard Shaw: Collected Plays with Their Prefaces, vol. 1, London: Max Reinhardt, The Bodley Head, 1970-74, 314.
George Bernard Shaw, Arms and the Man: An Anti-Romantic Comedy in Three Acts, ed. A. C. Ward, Hyderabad: Orient Longman Ltd., 1995, 60.
George Bernard Shaw, Back to Methuselah, Portland: The Floating Press, 2010, 548.
C. B. Purdon, A Guide to the Plays of Bernard Shaw, London: Methuen, 1963, 270.
S. Radhakrishnan, ed., The Principal Upaniṣads, New York: Harper and Brothers Publishers, 1953, 734.
Dan H. Laurence, ed., Bernard Shaw: Platform and Pulpit, New York: Hill and Wang, 1961, 174.
