The Contending Forces of Money, Power, and Salvation in George Bernard Shaw''s Major Barbara

• Main Authors: Sheng-wen Huang, 黃聖文
• Other Authors: Yi-jen Lee
• Format: Others
• Language: en_US
• Published: 2010
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/31970432748136045622

碩士 === 國立中正大學 === 比較文學所 === 98 === This thesis analyzes the contending forces of money, power, and salvation in George Bernard Shaw’s Major Barbara. The materialistic ammunition entrepreneur, Undershaft, who is portrayed as Mammon in the New Testament and Dionysus in the mythology, represents wild money. His daughter, Barbara, represents the requisite power for spiritual salvation. Barbara works for the Salvation Army, but is disillusioned and indignantly leaves the Salvation Army after seeing it receive the unrighteous money from both his father and Bodger the distiller. However, after visiting her father’s munitions factory, Barbara is impressed by its organization and thus converted into accepting Undershaft’s doctrines. Barbara’s fiancé, Cusins, a scholar of Greek, represents the intellectual power. Undershaft also overcome Cusins’s moral conscience and declares Cusins to be his heir to the munitions factory. With the force of money, embodied by Undershaft, conquers the forces of intellectual power and spiritual salvation, the thesis argues that the East Enders (the proletariat) cannot reach true salvation in Major Barbara. Even salvation may seem purchasable at first, it is no more than the material aspect. Although both Undershaft and Shaw propose socialism, the thesis, however, discusses how Shaw through his witty sarcastic language artfully conveys his irony toward the contending forces of supreme wealth, profound philosophy, and the ultimate spiritual salvation.