The Social Conscience of the Thirties

Abstract

If Shaw’s problem plays and dialectical drama of ideas have thus far survived the test of time, it is because, as we noted in the previous chapter, he is preeminently the artist: a special kind of artist, it is true, one who sought to reform society by writing witty, high-spirited satire. He is a trenchant realist who, without ever abandoning his role as social prophet, composed sparkling comedies that underscored the relativity of moral values. If his plays are largely talking plays he deliberately set out to make them so, but then Shavian dialogue is unlike any other talk that had been heard on the stage in his time; intensely dynamic, it exploits all the available resources of irony, paradox, and epigrammatic wit to achieve its intended effect. It is evident, however, that Shaw, despite the urgency, as he conceived it, of the task he imposed on himself, did not expect that his plays alone, when produced and then published, would be instrumental in initiating immediate reforms or eventually bring about the realization of the devoutly wished-for social ideal. The writer with a social message designed to combat and perhaps eradicate the social evils of his age generally knows what he is doing; though he is surely aware of the limitations of the medium he is using, his aim is to enlighten and thus convert the mind of his public. That is the least he can hope to accomplish through the ministry of his art, and it is a great deal.