Abstract
Shaw wields the comic weapon of satire in O’Flaherty VC, employing both character trope and text to critique the patriotic and nationalist fervour of the period. He portrays the women in O’Flaherty V.C. as comic, and at times, ironic stereotypes representative of Ireland’s insularity. Chapter 8 investigates that insularity that stymies Irish progress and keeps the women tied to the petty jealousies of town land politics and perpetuating penurious states. It argues that Shaw’s creation of the women’s stock-in-trade performances highlights the chasm between the idealised perception of Mother Ireland and the reality of the harsh poverty of daily life that permeated these ‘flesh and blood’ women’s lives.
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Notes
- 1.
Nelson O’Ceallaigh Ritschel, ‘Irish Politics’ in George Bernard Shaw in Context, ed. Brad Kent (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015), 227.
- 2.
George Bernard Shaw cited in Lucy McDiarmid, ‘The Abbey and the Theatrics of Controversy 1909–1915’ in A Century of Irish Drama: Widening the Stage, ed. Stephen Watt, Eileen Morgan, and Shakir Mustafa (Indiana: Indiana University Press, 2000), 70.
- 3.
See Shaw, Lady Gregory and the Abbey: A Correspondence and a Record, ed. Dan H. Laurence and Nicholas Grene (Britain: Colin Smythe Ltd., 1990), 107.
- 4.
Matthew Nathan cited in Lauren Arrington, ‘The Censorship of O’Flaherty V.C.,’ SHAW:Annual of Bernard Shaw Studies, 28 (2008),89.
- 5.
Christopher Morash, A History of Irish Theatre: 1601–2000 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002), 158.
- 6.
Arrington, ‘The Censorship of O’Flaherty V.C.,’ 90.
- 7.
Arrington, ‘The Censorship of O’Flaherty V.C.,’ 97–99.
- 8.
Peter L. Berger, Redeeming Laughter: The Comic Dimension of Human Experience (Berlin and New York: De Gruyter, 1997), 157.
- 9.
Berger, Redeeming Laughter, 157.
- 10.
Andrew Stott, Comedy: The New Critical Idiom (Oxon: Routledge, 2005), 109.
- 11.
Susanne Colleary, ‘The Savage Eye Sees Far: ‘Militant Irony’ and the Jacobean Corrective in Contemporary Irish Satire’ in For the Sake of Sanity: Doing Things with Humour in Irish Performance, ed. Eric Weitz (Dublin: Carysfort Press, 2014), 208.
- 12.
Andrew Davis, Baggy Pants Comedy: Burlesque and the Oral Tradition (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014), 119.
- 13.
All direct quotations are taken from George Bernard Shaw, O’Flaherty V.C.: A Recruiting Pamphlet https://www.gutenberg.org/files/3484/3484-h/3484-h.htm
- 14.
See George Bernard Shaw, ‘Common Sense Aboutthe War,’ in Current History of the European War, Vol. I – No I (New York: New York Times, December 1914) In the brief preface to his other one-act War play Augustus Does His Bit, Shaw portrays this idea with great comic effect.
- 15.
Shaw made no bones about this sentiment, which is repeated many times in‘Common Sense About the War’and in much of his journalism during the early months of the War.See George Bernard Shaw, ‘Common Sense Aboutthe War,’ and Nelson O’Ceallaigh Ritschel, Bernard Shaw, W.T. Stead, and the New Journalism; Bernard Shaw and his Contemporaries (Switzerland: Springer International Publishing, 2017).
- 16.
I have spoken elsewhere (and am not alone) of the ironic detachment at play in the world of comedy and have linked that sense of ironic detachment to de-familiarisation processes. See Susanne Colleary, The Comic ‘i’: Performance and Identity in Irish Stand-Up Comedy (Hampshire: Palgrave Macmillan, 2015).
- 17.
See T.F. Evans, George Bernard Shaw (Collected Critical Heritage) (Oxon: Routledge, 1997), 29.
- 18.
Bertolt Brecht, cited in Oliver Double and Michael Wilson, ‘Karl Valentin’s Illogical Subversion, Stand-Up Comedy and the Alienation Effect,’ NTQ 20, no.3 (2004),214. In his discussion of ideas of the comic and religious experience, Peter Berger also points to Brecht’s technique of Verfremdung and Eugène Ionesco’s concept of depaysement,which literally means ‘losing one’s country.’ Berger argues that the comic transcends the reality of the familiar world, transforming reality into something strange and unfamiliar; in other words, ‘it relativizes paramount reality.’ See Berger, Redeeming Laughter, 207.
- 19.
Simon Critchley talks of the sensus communis as a Roman concept that was first linked to the idea of humour by the Earl of Shaftsbury in 1709. See Simon Critchley, On Humour, Thinking in Action, ed. Simon Critchley and Robert Kearney (Oxon: Routledge, 2002), 80.
- 20.
Critchley’s formulation does fly in the face somewhat of other theorists who believe that modern relativism has taken the arguments of Shaftsbury (and others) out of their original contexts, using ‘bits and pieces’ of the original in order to celebrate the positive aspects of humour over and above the negative. See Michael Billig, Laughter and Ridicule: Towards a Social Critique of Humour (London: Sage Publications, 2005).
- 21.
Critchley, On Humour, 18.
- 22.
Critchley, On Humour, 18–90, 90.
- 23.
A point Shaw also made in the 1907 ‘Preface for Politicians,’ the preface for John Bull’s Other Island (1904).
- 24.
James Joyce quoted in The Irish Mind: Exploring Intellectual Traditions, ed. Richard Kearney (Dublin: Wolfhound Press, 1985), 10.
- 25.
The essay was written for the New Statesman in October 1914. Shaw was also involved in the creation of the periodical.
- 26.
Nicholas Grene, ‘Writers in the DIB: George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950),’Royal Irish Academy (2015), accessed August 3, 2015,https://www.ria.ie/research/dib/writers-in-the-dib%2D%2Dgeorge-bernard-shaw-(1856-1950.aspx
- 27.
The subtitle was added in 1930 for the authorised version of the play; see Arrington, ‘The Censorship of O’Flaherty V.C.,’ 103.
- 28.
Arrington also argues that ‘the Abbey Theatre’s state of financial crisis, brought on by the war, […] prevented the theatre’s directors from risking the production.’ See Arrington, ‘The Censorship of O’Flaherty V.C.,’ 85.
- 29.
See George Bernard Shaw, ‘Common Sense Aboutthe War.’
- 30.
Declan Kiberd is discussing John Bull’s Other Island in this instance. See Declan Kiberd, Inventing Ireland, The Literature of the Modern Nation (London: Vintage, 1996), 52.
- 31.
Kiberd, Inventing Ireland, 242.
- 32.
Berger, Redeeming Laughter, 158.
- 33.
Stott, Comedy, 109.
- 34.
Christoper Innes cited in Clare Wallace, Suspect Cultures: Narrative, Identity & Citation in 1990sNew Drama (Czech Republic: Litteraria Pragensia, 2006), 92.
- 35.
Kiberd, Inventing Ireland, 63.
- 36.
R.F. Foster, Modern Ireland: 1600–1972 (London: Penguin, 1989),471.
- 37.
George Bernard Shaw, Prologue, O’Flaherty V.C.: A Recruiting Pamphlet https://www.gutenberg.org/files/3484/3484-h/3484-h.htm
- 38.
Foster, Modern Ireland,472.
- 39.
Declan Kiberd, Inventing Ireland, 239.
References
Arrington, Lauren. 2008. The Censorship of O’Flaherty V.C. SHAW: Annual of Bernard Shaw Studies 28: 85–106.
Berger, L. Peter. 1997. Redeeming Laughter: The Comic Dimension of Human Experience. Berlin/New York: De Gruyter.
Billig, Michael. 2005. Laughter and Ridicule: Towards a Social Critique of Humour. London: Sage Publications.
Colleary, Susanne. 2014. The Savage Eye Sees Far: ‘Militant Irony’ and the Jacobean Corrective in Contemporary Irish Satire. In For the Sake of Sanity: Doing Things with Humour in Irish Performance, ed. Eric Weitz. Dublin: Carysfort.
———. 2015. The Comic ‘I’: Performance and Identity in Irish Stand-Up Comedy. Hampshire: Palgrave Macmillan.
Crtichley, Simon. 2002. In On Humour, Thinking in Action, ed. Simon Critchley and Robert Kearney. Oxon: Routledge.
Davis, Andrew. 2014. Baggy Pants Comedy: Burlesque and the Oral Tradition. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
Double, Oliver, and Michael Wilson. 2004. Karl Valentin’s Illogical Subversion: Stand-Up Comedy and Alienation Effect. NTQ 20 (3): 203–215.
Evans, T.F.1997. George Bernard Shaw (Collected Critical Heritage).Oxon: Routledge.
Foster, R.F. 1989. Modern Ireland: 1600–1972. London: Penguin.
Grene, Nicholas. 2015. Writers in the DIB: George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950). In Royal Irish Academy. https://dib.cambridge.org/viewReadPage.do?articleId=a8004. Accessed 3 Aug 2015.
Kiberd, Declan. 1996. Inventing Ireland: The Literature of the Modern Nation. London: Vintage.
McDiarmid, Lucy. 2000. The Abbey and the Theatrics of Controversy 1909–1915. In A Century of Irish Drama: Widening the Stage, ed. Stephen Watt, Eileen Morgan, and Shakir Mustafa. Indiana: Indiana University Press.
Morash, Christopher. 2002. A History of Irish Theatre: 1601–2000. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
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Colleary, S. (2020). O’Flaherty V.C.: Satire as Shavian Agenda. In: McNamara, A., O’Ceallaigh Ritschel, N. (eds) Bernard Shaw and the Making of Modern Ireland. Bernard Shaw and His Contemporaries. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-42113-7_8
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