Quotes from work
Major Barbara

Major Barbara

Major Barbara is a three-act English play by George Bernard Shaw, written and premiered in 1905 and first published in 1907. The story concerns an idealistic young woman, Barbara Undershaft, who is engaged in helping the poor as a Major in the Salvation Army in London. For many years, Barbara and her siblings have been estranged from their father, Andrew Undershaft, who now reappears as a rich and successful munitions maker. Undershaft, the father, gives money to the Salvation Army, which offends Major Barbara, who does not want to be connected to his "tainted" wealth. However, the father argues that poverty is a worse problem than munitions, and claims that he is doing more to help society by giving his workers jobs and a steady income than Major Barbara is doing to help them by giving them bread and soup.The play script reprises several typical "Shavian" moves in lacking Apostrophes on contractions and other punctuation, by having a didactic introductory essay explaining the play's themes, and by bending some rules of play scripting for literary purposes; for example, two characters are listed as "The Woman" and "The Man" before Shaw gives them names, for dramatic effect. As well, lines in dialect English are written phonetically .


George Bernard Shaw photo

“You have learnt something. That always feels at first as if you had lost something.”

Act III
Source: 1900s, Major Barbara (1905)

George Bernard Shaw photo
George Bernard Shaw photo
George Bernard Shaw photo
George Bernard Shaw photo

Similar authors

George Bernard Shaw photo
George Bernard Shaw 413
Irish playwright 1856–1950
Samuel Beckett photo
Samuel Beckett 122
Irish novelist, playwright, and poet
W.B. Yeats photo
W.B. Yeats 255
Irish poet and playwright
Seamus Heaney photo
Seamus Heaney 29
Irish poet, playwright, translator, lecturer
John Galsworthy photo
John Galsworthy 48
English novelist and playwright
Tennessee Williams photo
Tennessee Williams 139
American playwright
Eugene O'Neill photo
Eugene O'Neill 36
American playwright, and Nobel laureate in Literature
Marcel Pagnol photo
Marcel Pagnol 9
novelist, playwright and filmmaker from France
Maurice Maeterlinck photo
Maurice Maeterlinck 21
Belgian playwright, poet, and essayist
Harold Pinter photo
Harold Pinter 25
playwright from England