The Influence and Hidden Agenda behind Mrs. Warren's Profession
...f Mrs. Warren's reconciliation with her university-educated daughter Vivie both structurally and circumstantially, and portraying Vivie's decision to make an absolute break from her mother because living idly on her wealth would make her complicit with the reprehensible exploitation that propelled her mother into prostitution in the first place” (Davis 45). “Though Victorian morality demanded in the theater that a prostitute either be a villain or be virtuous at heart and merely weak-willed, thus sentimentalizing her, Shaw presents Mrs. Warren as neither: she is created solely to reveal an end-product of society’s guilt. And that guilt grows out of society’s greed for the material” (Laurence 42).Public performances of the play were long prohibited by British censors (Abrams 1810). Although legal public performance of the play was not established until 1926, two showings of the play had been successful, one in 1902 and one in 1905 (Davis 45). Perhaps because, for Victorians, prostitution was a crucial, unmentionable, and politically heated matter. Shaw was indeed very cautious in how he worded dialogue, but instead of trying to justify Mrs. Warren's choices or sensationalize the outcome of her infamy, he rather calls attention to the similarities between prostitution and other types of business speculations, with the consequences of poor pay and high unemployment. “He condemns the economic system where women find their best (and perhaps only) avenue to riches (and perhaps survival) through their sexuality” (Davis 46). Although the most apparent social issue of Shaw chose to expose was prostitution, Shaw used his characters to represent certain members of or other pertinent issues facing the Victorian society. In the play each act also focuses on different issues, Act II discusses the social causes of prostitution, Act III about its economics, and Act IV focuses upon the psychological aspect. Vivie insists on learning why her mother did not give up the business as Liz did. Mrs. Warren gives reasons and excuses such as; she could not possibly hide her former profession from people, she would be bored, she is suited to her profession and to no other, since others would work at her profession even if she quit, no harm is done, and she enjoys making money. The final discussion in the play reveals to the audience that even though they have many differences, Vivie is a lot like her mother. “She is independent, must work at her own profession, and would be bored by a life of idleness. Mrs. Warren is basically a conventional woman who, until forced to do so, feared to mention her unmentionable profession to her daughter; Vivie is a prude, unable to speak aloud the name of her mother's profession” (Dukore 76-77). Vivie Warren can be said to represent the capable executive middle class Fabians Shaw believed were needed for bringing about social change (Davis 47). Vivie also represented the “New Woman” of the 1890’s, an independent and educated woman, succeeding on her own will. Although many see Vivie’s final decision as a contradiction to life, Shaw is content to take a pragmatic view of women’s search for self-identity, his concentration remains focused on motivation (Laurence 43). The character of Vivie Warren can be said to be “a rebel of Victorian pretensions, strong, determined, and apart, as all Shaw’s great women will be” (Laurence 44). In contrast, Mrs. Warren can be seen as a symbol of several issues. For one, Shaw saw prostitution as a primarily economic social problem which he discussed in relation to wider issues such as women's work and earnings. Instead of focusing on the difficulties of reclaiming prostitutes or women's experiences of the streets, he focused on the question of the “White Slave Trade” or “Traffic”, the abduction or deception of women forced to work in brothels and prostitute in order to survive and earn income (Liggins 1). Shaw did not create the character Mrs. Warren to signify a prostitute as a helpless victim; he rather chose to stress the economic issues which drove women to choose this type of business. Shaw declared in his 1902 Preface to his play, 'No normal woman would be a professional prostitute if she could better herself by being respectable' (179), hence the Fabian argument developed in Mrs. Warren's key speeches (Liggins 1). Shaw also used Mrs. Warren to represent the economic hardships for women. In Mrs. Warren’s Profession, Shaw’s condemnation is directed not at prostitutes but at the social system. “It was crucial to Shaw that the play contain no conscious miscreant on whom audiences could pin blame and thus absolve themselves of complicity, for Shaw’s fundamental message was that ALL members of society are blameworthy and must, accordingly, suffer their consciences to be stricken before leaving the playhouse” (Laurence 42). Like Vivie in Act III, the audience must ‘‘feel among the damned already.’’ To Shaw, involvement of all members of society in the social crime was unavoidable. Both women represent the need for women’s rights and the education of women. Although most all characters symbolize a view of Shaw’s, the character of Sir George Croft, Mrs. Warren’s business partner, epitomizes the capitalistic society that Shaw so readily disapproved of. “Because Shaw makes the worker and the capitalist the same person, he "blurs the antagonism of workers and capitalists and the inevitable class struggles between them"(Dukore 263). Croft represents a social hypocrisy, the exploitation of women suffering from poverty and the hands that gain from their misfortune. Many men in the Victorian society were gaining profit from the prostitution of their wives. According to Dan Laurence, the luxurious super payment of whores was related directly to the Victorian social code of behavior created and dictated by the male of the species to serve his domestic and social convenience and to gratify his desire, abetted by laws that gave him total control of his wife’s person— and her fortune (Laurence 41). Shaw used the character Croft to display these men who through the “vastness of prostitution gained an international venture for profit, like any other form of commerce” (Laurence 39). Mrs. Warren’s Profession makes the association between prostitution, ca...