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摘 要

萧伯纳是继莎士比亚之后英国又一位伟大的戏剧家。他创作了一部知名的作品---戏剧《华伦夫人的职业》，至今仍有独特的研究价值。国内外众多的学者从多个角度对该作品进行了广泛的研究。本文旨在结合女权主义理论，探讨萧伯纳在《华伦夫人的职业》中塑造的两位人物形象（华伦夫人与薇薇），找出她们之间的共同点与差异。希望以此来丰富对《华伦夫人的职业》这部戏剧的研究。

一方面，两位人物有一些共同点：她们的命运都很悲惨---华伦夫人与薇薇都是父权制社会的受害者；她们对于当时的社会都有着一种反叛精神。另一方面，本文也试着找出两位人物的不同点，主要表现在她们的成长环境、穿衣风格、言行举止和对于婚姻的态度上。华伦夫人成长环境恶劣，举止优雅，却将婚姻看作改变自己社会地位的工具。薇薇成长环境优越，言行“粗鲁”，却追寻纯粹的爱情与婚姻。本文从女权主义视角对比分析剧中两位人物反应了在男权社会女性的反叛精神，及维多利亚时代的伪善风尚最大的挑战。

最后，作者希望该论文能够启发学者们从新的角度研究《华伦夫人的职业》，帮助读者领略语言大师萧伯纳的文学风采，并能为现代女性在追求独立自我的道路上点燃一盏启明灯。

关键词：《华伦夫人的职业》 女权主义理论 相同点 不同点

1. Introduction

• 1. Research background

Widely acknowledged as the most productive dramatist since Shakespeare, George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950) had created a vast array of thought-provoking works which, to a large extent, were aimed at unveiling numerous severe social problems and advocating women’s pursuit of freedom and independence. These greatest works had performed an indispensable role in British literature and given a name to Shaw as the father of modern drama who was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature for the “demonstration of idealism and humanitarian” in his works in 1925.

Shaw was not a man of noble birth but he was hard-working, industrious and strong-willed. Owing to his self-education, he amassed a great deal of knowledge and wisdom. It was universally acknowledged that George Bernard Shaw was a celebrated realistic writer for his prominent contributions, plays, which were appreciably affected by Ibsen during his lifetime. In1890, He lectured on Ibsen’s works and made a great number of splendid comments, composing a famous essay The Quintessence of Ibsenism during the following year. He was strongly against Oscar Wilde’s aesthetic view “art for art’s sake”, so his drama could show his great passion for social problems.

Despite the fact that Mrs. Warren’s Profession was written by George Bernard Shaw in 1894, it was prevented from production until 1902 at London’s New Lyric Club. Fortunately, it was performed for the first time in New Heaven of America in 1905. The play centered on Mrs. Warren. Forced by economic reality, she became a prostitute and later run several brothels. She raised her daughter, Vivie, and sent her to Cambridge University for higher education. At first, Vivie found Mrs. Warren’s profession and forgave her due to her tragic childhood because Mrs. Warren promised to give up her profession. In fact, she did not do what she promised, so Vivie felt disappointed and decided to leave Mrs. Warren forever. Shaw was so concerned about social problems that his worries were expected to be seen in his wonderful plays, Mrs. Warren’s Profession. Shaw wrote in Plays and Unpleasant (1898), Mrs. Warren’s Profession was written to draw attention to the truth that prostitution was caused, not by female depravity and male licentiousness, but simply by underpaying, undervaluing and overworking. Women were so

shameful that the poorest of them were forced to resort to prostitution. No normal woman would be a professional prostitute if she could better herself by being respectable, nor marry for money if she could afford to marry for love.

Mrs. Warren’s Profession was composed by George Bernard Shaw during Victorian era which was a golden period for the British Empire. There was no doubt that Shaw’s play, Mrs. Warren Profession, was deeply influenced by core values. The bourgeoisie also created some views of women differing from before. “Angles in house” was the perfect women’s image in their mind and they wanted women to become that type. Those were expected to meet some characteristics: elegance, purity, obedience.

1.2 Need of the study

As the main technique used in Mrs. Warren’s Profession, feminist theory was essential for us to have a thorough observation of characters, Shaw’s views on women and social morality in Victorian era. Not only did George Bernard Shaw’s play Mrs. Warren’s Profession comment scathingly on the hypocrisy and the “fashionable morality” of the ruling class, but also revealed the deep-rooted cause of women’s destiny and showed great sympathy to these pitiful women. As a result, it was essential to gain an in-depth understanding of its theme as well as some achievements to literature’s gratitude as a language master and satirist with the help of feminism.

Shaw was so concerned about social problems and abominable situations that he created innumerable social plays. Then a feministic interpretation of George Bernard Shaw’s could indicate the theme of this play and appreciate his literary attainments. However, there were a few related researches about Mrs. Warren’s Profession from the perspective of feminism to find some distinctive features of main characters in spite of the fact that numerous scholars had paid attention to the analysis of the themes of Mrs. Warren’s Profession. Therefore, there is no exaggeration in saying that it is vital to conduct a feminist interpretation of George Bernard Shaw’s Mrs. Warren’s Profession, which is bound to have an ever-lasting effect on the study of Shaw and his works.

• 1. Layout of the thesis

The present thesis consists of five chapters. Chapter One gives an introduction of the study

which includes the research background, the need of the study, and the layout of the thesis. Following this introduction, Chapter Two reviews relevant literature and research, such as, the origin and development of feminism, previous studies on Mrs. Warren’s Profession and Victorian era, which motivate and generate the topic addressed in the thesis. However, gaps in previous studies are subsequently identified and the research topic is also raised. It is contended that Mrs. Warren and her daughter, Vivie, share some similarities and differences in their living environments, attitudes toward marriage, and appearance in Chapter Three, the most important part of the thesis. Conclusions and implications from an analysis of the research are presented in Chapter Four.

2. Literature Review

2.1 Feminism

The first generation of western feminism started from the second half of 19^th century and ended in the early 20^th century. At the beginning, women focused attention on bettering their employment, education, politics as well as family status. Then they strived for suffrage in politics. A great number of works appeared during these period, for example, Henrik Ibsen’s A Doll’s House and Leo Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina. This period also witnessed the International Women’s Day and the Equal Pay Campaign led by Clara Zetkin.

The second period of western feminism, that is Modern feminism, ranged from the early 20^th century to 1960s. The feminism was mirrored by the May storm in France. All men fought against enemies in the battlefield while women went out of home and applied for vacant employments during the Second World War. It proved that women could do what all men were able to do; however, when the war ended, men came back from the battlefield and they would return to positions which had been occupied by women. The phenomenon made people considerably angry, which lead to women’s opposition. Some of them advanced a convincing slogan “refuse to go home, refuse to do mother.” Simone de Beauvoir’s The Second Sex laid a solid foundation for women’s uprising at this time. It was praised in “Bible” by western women. This book provided people with a great deal of data to unveil people inferior status and also gave women some suggestions to gain independence and liberation.

The third generation of western feminism also referred to Postmodern Feminism which derived from 1970s and had been developing until today. Various version of feminism appeared in these time, for example, the Third Feminism, Eco-feminism, Lesbian Feminism and Postmodern Feminism. There were a lot of internal disputes in feminism and it also needed integrating and improving.

The concept of feminism (Zhang Chunhui 2013) derives from feminist movement in western countries. Feminism can be defined as a complicated system of theory, practice and ideology including creed that all male and female are born equal. Considering the irreplaceable

mission of feminists to equalize men and women, they have been devoting their lives to eradicating bias against women in terms of economy, politics, marriage and employment. What feminism distinguishes from feminine is in that feminism negates “full of feminity” highly praised by male chauvinist society. In spite of partly agreement, feminism teems with signs against tradition. Feminism contains various meanings including the early feminist drives, social struggles for more political rights than before and critical constructional theory research on law, education. To put it in a nutshell, based on and motivated by some activities of women, feminism is a comprehensive definition of social theories and political movements. Feminism plays a significant role in judging social relations, the friendship between men and women in particular.

A feministic interpretation in Mrs. Warren’s Profession supplies an exemplary role, the New Women, with the long-lasting oppressed women. George Bernard Shaw focused much attention on the miserable condition of women and attempted to provide a brand-new way for women out of tragedies. The deep-rooted reason for women’s disasters was that they were underpaid, undervalued, and overworked. George Bernard Shaw pictured the image of a New Women who were expected to be independent, self-esteemed, and self- reliable.

Feminist theory (He Chengzhou 1997) which combined the “transformational” spirit of feminism with literary criticism happened in the 1960s. It was aimed at awakening women’s awareness to object to the male-dominated society and their lower-level status. A lot of scholars made every effort to seek evidence to support women’s oppression and center on re-composing women’s experiences. Thus, some women writers took pseudonyms when publishing these far-reaching works. Feminist theory is given the definition by other scholar quite in another way---feminist theory is a new literature criticism theory that reveals the essence of patriarchy in the civilization of human being by analyzing female’s image in male-dominated text and conducting researches over feminist literary creation from the perspective of feminism. It requires that people be supposed to abolish current sexual system, reestablish female’s position and then reach the goal of abolishing male-centered culture.

As the main technique used in Mrs. Warren’s Profession, feminist literary criticism is essential for us to have a thorough observation of characters, Shaw’s views on women and social morality in Victorian era. The deeply entrenched bias against women leads to numerous unimpressive facts that women have no power in education, politics, and employment as well.

Women living in a patriarchy culture, the male-dominated society put women into the lower-level status. Feminism favors women’s rights, but it does not support that women are superior to men. In other words, it wants to achieve a balance between the status of men and women, that is, the equality. As a result, feminism advocated by people aims at improving women’s status and ensuring women’s rights.

2.2 Previous studies on Mrs. Warren’s Profession

Mrs. Warren’s Profession had been subject to criticism for almost a century. Many critics treated Mrs. Warren’s Profession as a mirror reflecting Shaw’s mind. The Chinese version of Shaw’s plays, for example, Plays Unpleasant emerged in 1920s. George Bernard Shaw’s plays had been translated into Chinese for half a century. According to statistics of Foreign Literary Thesis Index (1979) which was compiled by Henan Normal University, it was estimated that approximately 88 published books and articles focused on the study of George Bernard Shaw. Most scholars centered on two aspects: characters and thematic analysis.

Some scholars are zealous to analyze characters, two heroines, Mrs. Warren and Vivie in particular. Wang Xingwei(2009) attempted to make a quantitative turn-taking analysis for George Bernard Shaw’s masterpiece Mrs. Warren’s Profession, hoping to reveal the power relation among the characters and their personalities within the framework of conservation analysis. It was a considerably brand-new angle to appreciate the fantastic drama. However, he did not explore in-depth relevant causes and effect; in consequence, his interpretation appeared superficial to a large extent. Zhang Chunhui (2012) claimed that Mrs. Warren’s Profession was a fantastic drama in George Bernard Shaw’s early life and Mrs. Warren was both a mild mother of high self-esteem and a greedy person. Zhang Chunhui (2013) also demonstrated that George Bernard Shaw was concerned about women’s tragedy and successful in reshaping two women’s images: a New woman and a Fallen woman. He also attempted to proclaim that Mrs. Warren struggled for living and became victim to a cruel patriarchal society. Some scholars analyzed characters in terms of external factors while others deployed the opposite ones---internal factors. Xu Xingfang (2014) epitomized Vivie as a New Women who was independent and strongly rebelled against traditional society. It was the first time for George Bernard Shaw to picture a

heroine.

Others pay attention to the analysis of the themes of Mrs. Warren’s Profession. Zeng Nianchang (2002) thought highly of Mrs. Warren’s image as a clue to trace back to early European feminist culture which played an irreplaceable role in the history of human civilization. Petra Dierkes and Thrun (2006) proved that Mrs. Warren’s Profession put two controversial topics on the public stage: prostitution and incest. Instead of condemning the individual as a scapegoat for moral hypocrisy, the drama criticized the ideology, economy, male-dominated society, and the deeply entrenched prejudice against women in Victorian era. Zhang Mingai (2008) made a comparative analysis of Major Barbara and Mrs. Warren’s Profession mainly centering on George Bernard Shaw’s outlook on society from these plays. George Bernard Shaw firmly believed that poverty resulted from the unjust society and was the cause of society. He applauded the revolution of violence as a means to transform the society. Song Wenlin (2013) pointed out the “profession” made by Mrs. Warren was not only an employment but also had some thought-provoking implications, that is, an accusation of the extreme oppression and the cruel exploitation of women in capitalist society. Shaw was sympathetic about women’s miserable destiny in Victorian age. He adopted the word in the title which kept readers in suspense and made the criticism more profound. Xie Jiangnan (2014) reflected George Bernard Shaw’s opinions that the moral hypocrisy in the public and private life of middle class in Victorian era criticized by modern British writers for years hindered the individual freedom and the sound development of society. Thus, audiences and readers discerned the virtual inhumanity and hypocrisy in Victorian morality.

3. Mrs. Warren’s Profession: A Feminist Interpretation

Shaw was so concerned about social problems and abominable situations that he created innumerable social plays. He advocated women’s liberation and independence and attached great importance to women’s role in the development of society. He showed great sympathy for women’s tragic destiny. Then a feministic interpretation of George Bernard Shaw’s could indicate the theme of this play and appreciate his literary attainments. Mrs. Warren’s Profession was performed at last, after a delay of about eight years. Once performed, the play sparked a heated debate that prostitution was caused, not by female depravity and male licentiousness, but by underpaying, undervaluing and over working. As is known to all, feminism, one of the most important thinking in literature, had exerted great influence on Bernard Shaw’s writing. Consequently, a feminist perspective of the drama regarded as one of Shaw’s masterpieces was worth studying in order to have a thorough understanding of Shaw’s works. Mrs. Warren and her daughter, Vivie, were two main characters in the drama and they shared some similarities and differences deserving our attention.

3.1 Similarities

3.1.1 Destiny

Both Mrs. Warren and Vivie are victims of the capitalist society in that their lives are tragic. For Mrs. Warren, she has no choice but takes prostitution as an employment in order to make a living. It is a position that is a shame for a normal woman in this period. As a result, she hides the secrecy for fear that her daughter will know it. Unfortunately, Vivie knows it and decides to leave her mother, which is quite tragic for a mother. In Act 4, Vivie sends her month allowance back to her mother’s credit and says that she will support herself with her own knowledge. Mrs. Warren sheds tears and begs Vivie’s pardon and she is deeply hurt by Vivie’s indifference towards her affectionate intention. Her daughter neither understands this nor concerns herself about it, as seems to be a catastrophe for a mother. Mrs. Warren loses her daughter forever.

On the other hand, Vivie seems to get everything she wants during her life. Actually, her life

is also a tragedy to some extent and meanwhile she is the victim of the male-centered society. She receives higher education in Cambridge University. Most of people admire her for her good luck. However, in act1, she says: “I hardly know my mother. My mother has lived in Brussels or Vienna and never let me go to her. I only see her when she visits England for a few days. I don’t complain: it’s been very pleasant; (Shaw, 1894:20)’’ Actually, she does complain and feel it is not so pleasant for she is craving for love from her mother, unknown father, and other relatives. She asks her mother some information about her father and their relatives. What’s more, she gives up her lovers, Frank, due to her hatred toward the existing society. She just wants to be absorbed in work so as to leave the disgusting world. Both of them have tragic destiny and lose their lovers.

3.1.2 Rebellion to society

Both Mrs. Warren and Vivie show contempt for the evil patriarchal society but they differ in their attitudes toward marriage which will be analyzed in other parts of the thesis. Mrs. Warren argues that the hypocrisy of the world makes her sick. At first, Mrs. Warren goes to a bar and works fourteen hours a day serving drinks and washing glasses for four shillings. She is still hungry and cold while her sister, Liz, has a long fur cloak with a lot of sovereigns in her purse through prostitution. Mrs. Warren firmly believes that it is quite ridiculous: a woman suffers from starvation and coldness by hard work while others can live a decent life by prostitution despised by people in Victorian era. It is the abominable patriarchal society that causes her tragedy as prostitution.

Vivie is contemptuous for the male dominated society for she represents a new image---a new woman. She wears futuristic clothes, behaves like a man to fight against so called tradition accepted by people during that period and is totally different from other women or fair lady. In Shaw’s (Shaw 16) original wording, it goes as follows: “She proffers her hand and takes his with a resolute and hearty grip.” Therefore both of them hate and challenge the horrible male-dominated society and long for independence and freedom.

3.2 Differences of Mrs. Warren and Vivie

Differences can distinguish one character from another and make it difficult for people to forget their characteristics. By finding out some differences between two characters, writer attempts to mold two representative figures, that is, a Fallen Woman and a New Woman. Shaw is

sympathetic about Mrs. Warren’s abominable living environment and her profession as prostitution to make a living. Vivie, a New Women, is given encouragement and support for fighting against the evil male-dominated society by Shaw. The discussion of differences will be analyzed in terms of living environment, appearance, and view of marriage.

3.2.1Living environment

Mrs. Warren and Vivie grow up in different environment. To be more specific, Mrs. Warren, a symbolic figure living at the bottom of society, is a penniless girl and has to work as a waitress in small bars. She is pitiful because she has to choose prostitution discriminated by people in Victorian era as a tool for making a living. The deep-rooted reason for her alternative is that she has a horrible living environment. Mrs. Warren’s mother is a widow and has a fried-fish shop down Mint, and keeps her and four daughters out of it. Two other sisters were half-sisters: one of them works in a whitelead factory twelve hours a day for nine shillings a week until she dies of lead poisoning. The other married a Government laborer in Deptford victualling yard, and keeps his room and the three children tidy on eight shillings a week---until he takes to drink. Compared with their tragedies, another sister, Liz, has a decent life by means of prostitution. The contrast gives her a hint that a girl at the bottom of society can either die in suffering as ”an in house” or live with decency as a prostitution.

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