Bernard Shaw's Remarkable Religion: A Faith That Fits the Facts

The Organic and the Didactic
5
Major Barbara
Major Barbara provides the first step of Shaw’s journey out of hell into
heaven, out of the despair of impotency to the triumph of Godhead. We
should not expect it to supply a map, for the region is uncharted. It does
show us how we must start, which is task enough, for the first step is as
difficult and terrifying as the exit from the womb. Major Barbara is the
single most complete statement of Shaw’s philosophy and the epitome of
the dramatic method he developed to express that philosophy. It is the
most Shavian of Shaw’s plays. By now he had mastered the technique, first
successfully used in Candida, of presenting a reality both difficult to contemplate
and worthy of respect. His chosen role as “interpreter of life” is
no longer disguised in popular theatrical confectionery but is brought into
the foreground, while the action moves simply where his dramatic imagination
takes him. And for the first time we see evidence of internal conflict
in his dramatic method: a clash between the free narrative of real people
struggling with their circumstances and the need to provide an “interpretation”
of something far below the surface of life as it is consciously lived.
To serve the parable, Shaw put constraints on his characters that we do not
see in any previous play. There are awkward moments when one character
is clearly feeding a line to another, such as the following exchange in the
second act:
cusins. . . . Barbara is quite original in her religion.
undershaft [triumphantly] Aha! Barbara Undershaft would be. Her
inspiration comes from within herself.
cusins. How do you suppose it got there?