Introduction

INTRODUCTION

Art is not created in a vacuum, it is the work not simply of a

person, but of an author fixed in time and space, answering to a

community of which he is an important,[...] articulate part[....]

(Five Approaches 123)*

Drama as a work of art is characteristic of the temperament of people amidst whom it has its origin and development. It represents their processes of thought, their cultural aspirations, their values of life, spiritual and material. Though human nature is more or less the same everywhere, it is very largely influenced by its religious and cultural background, by its social environment and also by such physical condition as political and climatic.

Therefore, drama, as picture of life has a dual function, that of reflecting those elements of life which are universal, and embodying within itself these values and aspirations which are typical of its people.

No account of modern drama can be complete without a consideration of the contribution of Shaw. Shaw is a peculiar mixture of

Ibsen and Wycherley. His aim is very serious and analytical and he cloaks that seriousness of purpose with a gaiety and wit which has already been equalled in any time. In the history of the English drama, Shaw occupies a position perhaps second only to that of Shakespeare. He dominated the

English theatre for over sixty years and his influence, name and fame were

* Joseph Gibaldi. MLA Handbook for Writers of Research Papers (6th edn., 1977 New Delhi: Affiliated East West Press Ltd., 2004) is followed for documentation of sources .

2 all pervasive. He built up his own theatre, “theatre of ideas”. Nicholas Grene in Bernard Shaw : A Critical View affirms that

Without the contribution of Irishmen there would be scarcely be a single major comedy in English between 1700 and 1900. Farquhar, Goldsmith, Sheridan, Wilde-the Irish monopoly in eighteenth and nineteenth century comedy is remarkable (1).

These Irish English comedies have much in common. They have what

London audience wanted but with a lyrical qualities or a cut of satire.

Shaw in many ways fits easily on to the end of this series

Farquhar, Goldsmith, Sheridan, Wilde [....] The style, the

paradoxes, the wit restate him obviously to Wilde [....] He might

use this Irish persona, his reputation for cynical iconoclasm, but

he would use if to more pointed purpose than the Farquhars,

Sheridans and Wildes. Shaw was not just out to conquer London

but to change London. (Grene 2)

Modern Tamil drama exhibited many trends and tendencies in the late forties. Realism played a significant role in modern Tamil drama. Anna in his dramas, novels, and short stories deals with the problems of life in a realistic way and offers solutions to the vexed and complicated problems confronting the society. During Anna’s period, the modern drama dealing with problems of life has become far more intellectual than ever it was before and gives us plenty of food for thought. That period was mainly for social problems. The problem play became essentially the drama of disillusion, for it stripped life of false sentiment and revealed the ugliness and squalor that lay beneath the false glitter of superficial life.

Problem play is a fairly recent dramatic type which was popularised by the great Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen. In a problem play, the situation of the protagonist is so rendered as to indicate that it represents a contemporary sociological problem. Often the dramatist manages by the use of a spokesman in the play or the evolution of the plot or both to indicate that he favours a solution to the problem which is at odds with prevailing opinion. The issue may be one of the inadequate scopes allowed to a woman in the middle class nineteenth century family as that of in Ibsen’s A Doll’s

House or of the morality of prostitution regarded as a typical economical phenomenon in a capitalist society as in Profession . One of the problem plays is the discussion play in which the social issue is not incorporated into a plot, but expounded in the dramatic give and take of sustained debate among the characters as in Superman and in Barbara.

The problem play was an experiment in the art of drama and it derived its force from its contempt of false romantic ideals and mere commercial ventures. The problem play was sometimes identified with frank propaganda due mainly to Shaw who favoured free serious discussion over social questions in plays and who himself spared no occasion for advocating the problem play. The problem play dealt with some important social problems seriously. It came to advocate the rights of individuals against overwhelming social forces. It also gave equality to women and aimed at ending the dual code of morality for men and women. Questions of economic and social importance were taken up. Shaw’s were the first full length problem plays evidently dedicated to the task of removing certain evils from the society.

Discussion scenes on capitalism and slum-landlordism in Houses and on causes of prostitution in Profession were carefully planned and placed by

Shaw. In the analysis of a few important prose plays and discussion of a few points, Shaw’s real greatness lay in his strikingly fresh approach to his subjects and a felicity of style which was greatly original and indecisive and thought proving. Vivie, Candida, Gloria and Grace were all drawn in the

Ibsen model. Shaw in his long preface to the published edition of Profession echoed Ibsen’s ideas on the question of dual morality. Shaw’s female characters are embodiments of types in society who act and speak not for their genuine impulses as human creatures but under the stress of social convention of the times. Their passions, desires, and ambitions are all guided by their desire to conform to the established social values. Their personalities do not evolve from within but are shaped by stress from outside.

Houses and Profession had no dominant male character. In both these plays the role of social forces has been so overwhelming that characters act more like puppets than as individuals possessed of a will of their own.

Sartorious and Trench in Houses are both involved in capitalist intrigue. The

Philanderer also has no outstanding male figures. Conflict in Profession is divided between the mother and the daughter. Following Ibsen, contemporary English dramatists improved on women characters and not on male ones. Shaw showed considerable boldness in expressing the basic revolt by an individual’s inner-self against society. He endeavoured to scrutinise old decadent ideas, deal values, which haunt us like ghosts. Ideas are embodied in the characters in the very texture of their being and when

5 they issue from them they sound temperamentally. The problem play became a precious human document presenting a living picture of human experience sometimes in an artistic and sometimes in the spirit of a propagandist. Hence, the problem play has become a dire necessity as the situations and the conditions of the society prompted it.

The problem playwrights exposed cant and hypocrisy, pulled down old idols from their high pedestals and debunked the ruling gods. The dramatists of that period did not merely paint the phenomena of life and character; they desired to reveal the sordid realities that lurked behind the sacred ideals and romantic commonplaces cherished and upheld middle class society. Anna’s painstaking effort in popularising the ethics of the

Dravidian Movement and various social reforms enriched the Tamil literature. Anna took up the social responsibilities of eliminating casteism and communalism and attaining egalitarian society. It is so obvious in his writings, social revolution acquired priority over political and economic reforms. Anna found the humanistic concept advanced and practised by his contemporaries as the strong base for the reorganisation and renaissance of the Tamil society. He fought a fierce and relentless battle for the causes that were utmost important to his people. Anna with his spontaneous flow, inimitable style, awe-inspiring alliterations, flowery language, devastating arguments, lucid presentation, superb marshalling of facts, packing punch in well chosen epithets and felicitous expression, attempted to give Tamil stage a new identity as that of Irish Theatres of Revolt.

Shaw’s family originally came from Scotland, but his Irish birth and childhood found a strong influence on his whole outlook. The Protestant

Anglo-Irish were a narrow class surrounded by Catholics who regarded everything English as foreign, and Shaw lived long enough in Ireland to look at the English people with the eyes of an outside critic who saw many weaknesses and absurdities unnoticed by Englishmen. Shaw was by birth and by nature an outsider. He was an Irishman among Englishmen, just as he had been, in Dublin, a protestant among Catholics. His writings have the note of arrogance and self-righteousness.

From his unsuccessful father and his uncle, he inherited his Shavian sense of fun and anti-climax and his superficial blasphemy, from his mother a deep love and knowledge of music with which his keen interest in the spoken and written language, was to improve his most enduring love and one of the greatest influences on his works. This helped him compose very fine rhythmic prose in his later career as a playwright. He was also entertained in London Society as a singer.

Shaw did not get on well in school, but read widely. He had a deal of first rate music. When he was fifteen, he left school and became a clerk in an office. The National Gallery of Ireland provided him with good company. He stayed in the office for more than four years, until he decided to give up his job and to go to London in order to become an artist.

In London, Shaw became an unwelcome burden to his mother. The occasional back writing or free-lance journalism that he did brought him very little, but while dependent on the slender income of his mother for keeping his body and soul together, Shaw frequented every kind of society that called itself modern, joined in debates, gave lectures to public in street corners, and the same time, read deeply.

Shaw had started writing at the age of 16, criticism and reviews for Irish newspapers and magazines. Shaw as a prolific writer has been universally accepted as a versatile dramatist. During the period 1879 to 1883, he produced as many as five novels all of which were however rejected by the publishers to whom he submitted them. As a novelist, Shaw was a failure. After dropping fiction, Shaw became an art critic, a drama critic and a music critic. He was for sometime an art critic to The World, music critic to The Star and finally a critic of plays for The Saturday Review. His critical essays always express the most revolutionary school of thought and have not lost their arresting quality even after a century. About this, time he came in contact with Sidney Webb in The Zetetical Society, a discussion club. The association launched upon him the extraordinary career of an orator, and with grim persistency, he became a master of the platform. Over a period of 12 years, from 1883 to 1895, he spoke anywhere and everywhere. Shaw’s many sided versatility had brought him into lime light by now. For over years, till 1894, he wrote for The World on the role of music in everyday life. Shaw first became a follower of the new ideas through an encounter with Henry George. From George’s book Progress and Poverty, Shaw soon progressed to Marx’s Das Capital.

Shaw formed as association with James Lecky who was an authority on music and musical instruments. He took him to a debating society called

The Zetetical Society, the word ‘Zetetical’ means seeking, presumably for the truth. Here, Shaw made his maiden speech. It was at the society that he met Sidney James Webb, with Sidney Oliver. Later on, these three became close friends and exercised a considerable influence on the world and a profound influence on British affairs. It was in 1802 in the reading room of the British Museum, that Shaw first read Karl Marx whose writings were to influence him deeply. R.J.Kaufmann in “Introduction” to G.B.Shaw :

A Collection of Critical Essays says :

George Bernard Shaw is a regiment in himself. He lived so long,

wrote so much, talked so endlessly and so dismayingly well,

embraced so many careers, and invented so many gospels, it is no

wonder lesser men have sometimes tired of his relentless

brilliance(1).

By his writings and pungent comments, during his long life, Shaw probably did more than the scientist to alert the thinking of mankind. As the last of eminent Victorians, he was one of the intellectual leaders who broke down many of the taboos and useless traditions of the 19 th century. Plays which made people think brought him fame and glory. With plays came the famous prefaces, written in biting vigorous prose, in which Shaw dissected and debated most of the social and economic problems of the day.

In September 1884 he joined The Fabian Society which aimed at spreading and popularising socialistic ideas. There were some prominent members like H.G. Wells and Sidney Webb. In 1884 there was a turning point in the life of Shaw when he attended a lecture by the celebrated

American economist, Henry George, and at once became deeply interested in Economics. On reading Marx, he turned to be a socialist and became an active member in The Fabian Society, the same year. The Fabians believed in a gradual change-over from Capitalism to Socialism by a slow but steady progress. It should be remembered in this connection that in later life, Shaw wore his socialism rather loosely and lost his belief that any progress could be achieved by Acts of Parliament alone. But his connection with The

Fabian Society was an important factor in his dramatic career.

The Fabians were opposed to the Marxist idea of the class struggle.

They appealed not only to the workers but to all men whom they could persuade that their aims were just and reasonable. In spite of their small members, they had a powerful influence on the growing labour movement in

England and supplied many of its future leaders. With Beatrice and Sidney

Webb, Shaw founded The Fabian Society a socialist and political organisation dedicated to transforming Britain into a socialist state not by revolution but by systematic progressive legislation, bolstered by persuasion and mass education. Shaw lectured for The Fabian Society and wrote pamphlets on the progressive arts, including the The Perfect Wagnerite, and interpretation of Richard Wagner’s Ring Cycle. His The Quintessence of

Ibsenism, was based on series of lectures about the progressive Norwegian playwright, Henrik Ibsen.

In the early years, Shaw faced a lot of hostile criticism. He was denounced as a pampheleter devoid of dramatic faculty. He had to imitate and emulate the example of Shakespeare. He learned English history from the plays of Shakespeare and the novels of Scott. He was saturated with the works of Bunyan, Shelley and Dickens. Like the Elizabethan and Jacobean dramatists, Shaw tried all dramatic devices. He gave concessions to popular taste. His plays invariably deal with ideas. He introduced the plays of ideas. His plays are for the thinking man. In place of physical passion, he introduced the conflict of thought and belief. Through discussion, wit, humour and militant dialogue, he gave the audience a sustained aesthetic pleasure.

At the time, when Shaw came to the English stage, English drama was slowly struggling to rise from the torpor into which it had fallen during the Victorian age. It was during this transitional period of the English drama that Shaw burst upon the scene almost with a clap of thunder. The very first play of Shaw showed that the drama of ideas had come into life and its future existence was assured. Shaw’s ruthless iconoclasm, biting satire and intellectual sharpness combined with his dazzling wit and love of the paradox and the fantastic at once showed that a new and highly original genius, though perhaps a little perverted, had come into the field of drama.

Realism and rationalism had come to have their abiding hold on the English stage. Shaw, thus widened the scope of the English drama. Shaw is a believer in didactic art. He does not mince matters in this respect. He in his preface to Pygmalion writes

Art should never be didactic. It goes to prove my contention that

great art can never be anything else. (Ward, A.C. : xi)

His place, therefore, should not be judged on the score of pure art. And it is also true that the moralist and the satirist in him often overpower and eclipse the artist. In the course of his 94 years, the Irish-born critic, dramatist and polemicist, Shaw, took up a variety of causes and careers, achieving notoriety in most of them, excellence in some, and genius-albeit gradually and never less than controversially in the one he modestly referred to as his “trade”. Shaw the playwright, simultaneously smitten with the stage and incensed by the “tomfoolery” that passed for dramatic writing in his age, undertook its reform, creating an astonishingly diverse body of work (more than 30 major plays) whose intellectual rigour, comic sophistication, moral complexity, toothsome language and sheer theatrical savvy gave rise to a new word, Shavian, to describe the writer, his work, or anyone who ardently admires the same.

Shaw brought to his plays drollery and love of contrariness that marked his critical writing (he was an art, music and theater critic before he was a playwright), his public speaking career (he was famous the world over for his oratorical skills), and even his letter writing (by some estimates, he wrote ten letters every day of his adult life). He was a socialist, a teetotaler, a vegetarian, and a freethinker who approached all forms of received wisdom with the utmost skepticism. He cultivated his reputation as a high-profile punster and pundit, referring in the third-person to “G.B.S.” the celebrated reformer and gadfly who could be counted on to rail wittily against a variety of social, economic, political and cultural ills.

Commentators note that Shaw’s major dramatic works are infused with his social, economic, and political concerns, particularly his criticism of the inequalities and injustices of late Victorian capitalism. He is also credited with creating the serious farce, a dramatic genre that inverts

12 melodramatic conventions and utilises comedy to promote serious views on public policy, social institutions, and morality. In his work, Shaw strove to peel away the romantic and false layers in order to reveal the realities of middle and lower class life. Completed in 1892, his first play, Widowers’

Houses, exposes the hypocrisy of slum landlords who derive their income from the ruthless exploitation of the poor. In his next play, The Philanderer, which was written in 1893 but not produced until 1905, Shaw explores his recurring interest in the concept of sexual equality, contending that social pressures and artificial social structures result in sexual discrimination.

Mrs.Warren’s Profession (written 1893; produced 1902) is a scathing indictment of a capitalist system that does not allow women equal opportunities for decent wages and fulfilling work. When Mrs. Warren is exposed as a prostitute, she justifies her personal choice as a matter of economics. Viewed as a conventional drama-comedy, Candida (written

1894; produced 1897) chronicles the triangle of a husband, wife, and immature, idealistic young poet. In his John Bull’s Other Island (1904)

Shaw focuses on the issues of Irish self-rule and Anglo-Irish relations. The play garnered attention for Shaw’s reversal of stereotypes: the comic

Irishman became wise and the wise Englishman became comic.

Originally written in 1901-1902, Man and Superman (produced

1905) is considered a turning point in Shaw’s dramatic career. The play is often described as a comedy of manners in which a confident and resourceful woman seduces a reluctant man - the reverse of the Don Juan myth, which figures prominently in the story, subtitled A Comedy and a

Philosophy, the play also addresses several controversial and pressing social and philosophical issues, including theories of evolution and religion.

Major Barbara (1905) utilises comedy to explore the dehumanising consequences of poverty and unemployment. The protagonist of the play,

Barbara, rejects her position in the Salvation Army.

Although Shaw described Pygmalion (written 1912; produced 1913) a didactic play about phonetics, commentators viewed the play as a comedy about love and class. The play chronicles the story of a lower class cockney flower peddler who is trained by a priggish professor, Henry Higgins, to be a lady. It is regarded as Shaw’s most popular play, and has been performed countless times all over the world. Written and performed in 1923, his acclaimed drama Saint Joan chronicles the life of the legendary religious martyr Joan of Arc, whose canonization in 1920 inspired Shaw’s play. Joan is portrayed as a nationalist rebel who struggles against the establishment at the risk of her own life. In the preface to the play, he finds parallels between medieval France and early twentieth century Ireland and condemns English tyranny as cruel and unjust. However, his major plays are: Widower’s

Houses (1892), The Philanderer (1893), Mrs.Warren’s Profession (1893)

Arms and the Man (1894) Candida (1894) You Never Can Tell (1895) The

Devil’s Disciple (1896) Caesar and Cleopatra (1898) Captain

Brassbound’s Conversion (1899) The Admirable Bashville , or Constancy

Unrewarded (1901) Man and Superman (1903) How She Lied to Her

Husband (1904) John Bull’s Other Island (1904) Major Barbara (1905)

The Doctor’s Dilemma (1906), Getting Married (1908) Misalliance (1910)

The Dark Lady of the Sonnets (1910) Androcles and the Lion (1912)

Pygmalion (1913) Heartbreak House (1916) Saint Joan (Nobel Prize

Winner) (1923) The Apple Cart (1929) Too Good to be True (1932) a political extravaganza The Millionairess (1936).

This great dramatic and literary stalwart, who dominated the English scene for over half a century annexed the Nobel Prize for literature in 1925.

Shaw did not write dramas for the sake of drama or entertainment only. He did not believe in the maxim of art for art’s sake. He believed in giving ideas to the society through the medium of his art. His plays are rich in content of ideas. This quality of Shaw’s plays has influenced not only the playwrights of England but also the continent. In fact, his plays are of two kinds.

a) Plays with simple and straight-forward story.

b) Plays that unfold intellectual actions and ideas.

It is the plays of the latter type that are called the dramas of ideas in the eyes of Shaw. Shaw did not think himself as an ordinary playwright. He thought that he was sent to this world to give new ideas.

Shaw has been a great influence on his age. His lengthy Prefaces, his elaborate introductions to the characters, his meticulous stage directions, his zest for social reform, all give to Shaw a uniqueness and an unparalleled position in the British drama. Shaw, the dramatist, the artist-philosopher is the innovator of the play of ideas and most of his plays survive as artistic creations with relevance and immediacy to every age. Shaw uses his plays as means of public thinking on the ideological conflicts of his day.

Shaw wrote a lengthy preface dealing with the problems and issues with which a particular play dealt. The prefaces are written in lucid prose.

Since they were a part of Shaw’s propaganda for his ideas, they are generally written in an emphatic style. But normally they explain the purpose of his plays and are lucid expositions of current problems. Each play is an exposition of some social problem or some issue relating to the welfare of society in general or of some segment of society. Shaw is a thinker as well as a dramatist. In each play, he struggles relentlessly to find a solution to the problem. Each play has a preface in which Shaw discusses the particular problem or the issue so as not to leave his readers and critics in any doubt as to what he has to say in the play itself. Every preface is a study, in detail and at great length, of the problem which constitutes the theme of a particular play. However, it must also be pointed out that, while every play by Shaw is very interesting and almost engrossing, the preface is a highly intellectual discussion which interests very few readers.

Shaw wrote his Prefaces to open men’s minds, to convince and convert them to his own point of view, to puncture a host of social institutions and beliefs, and with this end in view he disdains none of the tricks of the debater. He could not exercise all his intellectual powers fully in the plays, so he uses his prefaces for further elucidation and exposition.

Shaw protests against the unpatriotic habit of his critics who conclude hastily that he has borrowed his views from Schopenhauer,

Nietzsche, Ibsen, Strindberg, Tolstoy and some other European philosophers and authors. Shaw points out that the truth is that he is familiar

16 with the works of very few European writers and has not read many of them. Shaw was a playwright with a purpose and so he felt that he must explain to the readers his views on the problems posed in his plays. These could not be expressed in detail in the body of the play and so he expressed them in separate prefaces. These look like pamphlets containing his ideas on the various social, political, economic, religious and biological problems of his day. He wants to hit hard at his opponents. The tone is that of a man who is perfectly convinced about what he is saying and who is certain that any reasonable man would be convinced by his arguments. The arguments are highly intellectual. Generally, in the preface, he discusses various aspects of the problem which is presented in the play. But normally, his prefaces are essays independent of the plays.

The prefaces take various forms. Usually they are in the form of an essay. But the preface to Man and Superman is in the form of a letter to a former friend. In the preface to On the Rocks there is a play within the preface. When he has to discuss a serious subject like creative evolution in the preface to Back to Methuselah, he begins by describing some experience of his own in a lighter vein.

Whatever might be the approach, the purpose of Shaw was always to propagate his ideas through the prefaces. His ideas about marriage, prostitution, war, love, capitalism, socialism, kingship and democracy, medicine and vivisection, religious persecution and creative evolution in short his views on all problems which were current in the first half of the twentieth century are discussed in the various prefaces.

From the beginning of his artistic life Shaw was strongly influenced by non-English and non-literary forces. As far as literature and, particularly, the drama were concerned, he owed more to Ibsen than to any Englishman not as a model to imitate but as a challenge to meet Ibsen. Nevertheless it may fairly be said that Shaw grew into a greater artist than Ibsen because he had something new and constructive to put into the place of society which both dramatists criticized so effectively. In all his finest works, he is deeply concerned with great problems the state of the world and of society, the means to its improvement, its final destiny.

A number of foreign influences did much to bring about a revival of drama in the 20 th century. Most important of these influences was that of the Norwegian dramatist, Henrik Ibsen, whose work became known in England about 1890 and gave an enormous impetus to the realist movement, to the deeper study of character, and to a subtler conception of plot and character presentation. More than any other, Ibsen may claim credit for extending the scope of the modern dramatist. No doubt, Ibsen’s influence was rather late in coming to England, but with passing of time his treatment of themes, his technicalities and his methodologies came to be fully accepted, and a new spirit and a new enthusiasm overtook the English drama in the early years of the 20 th century. It was Ibsen’s influence which established the drama of ideas as the popular drama of the early twentieth century. It was clear that the future lay with this type of drama.

It was not until the nineties, when the influence of Ibsen was making itself strongly felt and Shaw produced his first plays, that the necessary impetus was there to use the serious drama for a consideration of social, domestic, or personal problems. A period so keenly aware of social

18 problems was an admirable time for the rise of the drama of ideas and the theme of drama became the problems of religion of youth and age, of labour and capital. In the history of the naturalistic drama, Ibsen and then Shaw, Galsworthy and Granville Barker were of paramount importance and they did much to create a tradition of natural dialogue.

The influence of Ibsen on Shaw is well known as what Shaw rightly detected in Ibsen was a radical belief platform. For Shaw, Ibsen was the realist who at last enabled the theatre to escape from the rapid and meaningless talents which had dominated it for so long. In The Quintessence of Ibsenism he explains the unorthodox use he makes of the terms realist and idealist. The idealist is the man who creates self-deceiving myths to make tolerable, the reality of life which he could not otherwise endure. The realist insists on the liberation of the human will from the artificial constraints of idealism which he rejects as deadening and unread. He is prepared to face life objectively without the narcotics of the ideal. What Shaw admired in Ibsen was his seriousness as an artist, his anti- idealistic stance, and the dialectic structure of his works. Shaw may be said to have taken Ibsen as his model when he began to write plays himself. Colin Wilson in Bernard Shaw admits that

Half of Shaw’s greatness is symbolized by his love of Mozart. In Mozart, for all his depth, there are no self-conscious explorations of the tortured, and for all his vision, it never overwhelms the listener as it with a sudden and startling revelation(246).

Shaw was influenced by many great scholars, intellectuals, philosophers, writers and visionaries. Apart from the socialist writers, Shaw was mainly influenced by Percy Bysshe Shelley, Charles Dickens and

Samuel Butler; from Shelley and Dickens his passion for reforming the world, and from Butler, his views on evolution and his skeptical attitude toward the society of his day. Shaw’s personality was so complex and intricate that varied and even contradictory accounts have been given of it. Shaw could be gauged from the variety of his literary works. Shaw himself did much to create his own particular image, and built up his public personality. Before he appeared before the British people as a dramatist, he had imposed his personality on them by means of debates, lectures, writings and the like that everybody recognised his plays as those of G.B.S.

Shaw’s personality was a unique combination of the gay and the serious, so much so that the people could not make up their minds whether to mark him as a clown or a philosopher. He was a comedian with a serious purpose, a humorist with a tragic cry at his heart. His seriousness, his consistency his gaiety and his wit were to some extent inherited from a mother who never made a joke in her life and a father who never could resist one.

By nature, Shaw was a tireless crusader for social justice and righteousness. He was an artist as well as a propagandist for the intellectual enlightenment of the people. He was a zealous missionary and social reform was his mission. He tried to liberate his age from hypocrisy, mental sloth, social apathy, superstition, sentimentalism, collective selfishness, and all the static ideas which have not been consciously subjected to the tests of real life and honest thought. Shaw was a ruthless critic but he criticised in the most charming and pleasant manner. In his personal life, Shaw was a man of simple habits, who shunned luxury of every kind, and for whom the best

20 recreation was work. To Shaw, the meaning of life was incessant work and his work was a joy to him. Shaw possessed a dominating personality which will be remembered even after his plays have been forgotten, and he will always be known as the most outstanding figure of his times. His idea of

Utopia was expounded in Back to Methuselah, a paradise of Ancients who spend their days in thought and despite the butterfly young who engage in the active work of artistic creation and science.

Shaw was a socialist and a Fabian. He had the Shavian concept of society and believed in socialism. Throughout his life, he preached and professed socialism. He clamoured for political and economic freedom and social and economic equality. Along with being a socialist, he was a protagonist of individual liberty. No doubt, he was very sharp in criticizing the fallacies of his age. He thought that socialism was the solution to the drawbacks of the society, but his socialism was not dogmatic.

Erik. H. Erikson in Biographic G.B.S. (70) on George Bernard Shaw (20) admits that Shaw called himself “a born communist” (24).

His concept of socialism was also inflected by his theory of evolution or Creative Evolution. He thought that nothing was perfect. Everything underwent a process of continuous change and evolution which ultimately led to perfection. He does not seem to be very much in favour of quick change or a revolution. On the other hand, he believed in democratic procedure of life. He thought that socialism could be brought in by a process of legislations that aimed at bringing about equality in the society and reducing the gaps between the rich and the poor. As he grew in age, he

21 realized that acts of parliament could not usher any socialism. He thought

“good men and women could” go a long way in bringing about socialism. In other words, he had become a believer in individualism along with socialism.

Shaw was a Shavian. Shavianism implies realism and a realistic approach of different subjects. Shaw has treated all the subjects in a realistic manner. His standard of realism was different from the traditional standard of realism. He shows things not as they are but as they should be. In doing so, he has only tried to present things in the colour of his own didactic philosophy of realism. He has, no doubt, exposed the appalling conditions of the society, but also tried to show the direction in which they should go.

In Arms and the Man and like other plays, he presents the picture of contemporary age with all its anomalies and oddities. Violent physical action or intense emotional disturbance than confliction is often lacking in the Shavian drama.

Shaw was a moralist and propagandist. In his several other plays, Shaw dealt with the various social problems. Slum landlords, prostitution, marriage convectors, the medical profession, social prejudices, the romanticised soldier are some of the themes that passed through the microscope of his rationalism. The dramatist’s dissatisfaction with the orthodox views on matrimony and the status of women is clearly revealed. Shaw attacks the economic system of society in its greatest and most popular institution - marriage. Marriage is founded on a sexual contract between man and woman and the economic slavery of the latter.

Shaw’s plays are designed to serve as vehicles for his ideas, as he explores every known problem, social, moral, political and religious in his plays. The idea and Shaw’s witty observations relegate plot and character into a secondary position, but quite often his situations are full of drama and suspense, the dialogue is witty and realistic and some of his characters are highly interesting.

Even though Shaw’s plays centre round themes of contemporary interest and expose social problems there are plays reflecting a philosophical and religious thought content. Man and Superman reveals Shaw’s prophetic vision of a better world with men of a different mental and moral strength. His concept of life force symbolises creative energy and a quest for a nobler life. Back to Methuselah reflects the deeply felt religious feeling of Shaw for creative evolution. Major Barbara reveals his firm faith in doing one’s own work as an act of faith in God. Saint Joan shows how human judgement errs in differentiating between a heretic and a saint. It deals with martyrdom as the noblest form of human endeavour.

Shaw considers his history plays like Caesar and Cleopatra as fully documented chronicle plays whereas his political plays like The Apple Cart reveal a political cartoonist’s vision of public life where he presents the trial of strength between King Magnus and his ministers over the royal prerogatives. It includes the discussion of the democratic setup and exposes the divorce between Kingly powers and the functioning of the government.

Despite his socialistic beliefs, Shaw makes Undershaft in Major Barbara the industrialist, propagate his views on money and gun powder lucidly and

23 pervasively. Barbara, the Salvation Army Major, his daughter can only realise that good deeds have to end on money and all its comforting allurements. Similarly, in Philanderer, the protagonist has his own settled views on flirtations. Bluntschli, the chocolate cream soldier in Arms finds greater sense in running away from the battle where the enemy is too strong for the baffle.

Shaw’s unpleasant plays are concerned with sex and social economics. The Widowers’ Houses (1892) appears to be all social economics with little sex. It deals with slum-landlordism, municipal jobbery, and the pecuniary and matrimonial ties between them and the peasant people with ‘independent’ income who imagine that such sordid matters do not touch their own lives. The play is an economic treatise in a dramatic form. The characters represent hypocrites and humbugs. The play proved to be a failure although it gave a shock to the public because it dealt with the evils of slum landlordism. Shaw won at least sufficient notoriety which served as publicity to him.

In Caesar and Cleopatra Shaw gives a new type of historical drama in which historical sketches were treated from an entirely modern angle. In

Shaw’s play, Caesar stands for a humanistic approach, Cleopatra represents unfamed natural passion. His The Man of Destiny deals with Napoleon. It is about the dispatches to be brought to him by the Lieutenant. The Lieutenant is cheated by a youngman who pretends to be his chosen friend. In fact, the

Youth is a lady disguised in that manner.

The lady comes to the hotel where Napoleon is staying and seeks an interview with him. Napoleon is shrewd enough to realise that the lady has the dispatches. He demands them and the lady tries to discomfit Napoleon by alluding to a letter written by a married woman to her lover without the knowledge of her husband. Apparently, she hints at the compromising situation where Napoleon gets promotion through his wife’s seduction of the director Barras. She says that the ambitious husband knows her through and through, knows she has lied to him about her age, her income, her social position, about everything that silly women lie about, knows that she is incapable of fidelity to any principle or person.

This is the ladies’ revenge against Napoleon and he calls her a detestable woman. When finally Napoleon asks the lady to take the letters for which she has fought so well, she refuses to take them. Napoleon affirms that he can conquer his enemies without the aid of spies. He puts the Lieutenant to a fiery trial of finding the young man who has deceived him. The Lieutenant appeals to the lady for information about her brother. She says that he will be there in a quarter of an hour, apparently she herself will appear disguised as a youth. The lady is supposed to be a witch, but Napoleon knows the game. Only the Lieutenant is fooled.

The most serious criticism levelled against Shaw’s plays is that his characters are his mouthpieces. They exist because he has something serious to say through them. They have no individuality of their own. There is also a contention that Shaw is not a dramatist but a preacher and a satirist.

The Philanderer (1893) is a satire on the pseudo-Ibsenites and their attitude towards women. It depicts the new woman. The concept New

Woman suggests the awakening of a woman’s self into a new realisation of

25 her place and position in family and society. Woman’s individuality asserts her rights as a human being and is determined to fight for equal right in all possible walks of life. It results out of her questioning of marriage and her determination to escape from the restriction of house wife. It makes a woman think that she is capable of leading a self sufficient, single and fulfilling life. She stands in opposition to patriarchal society which dominates and negates her role as a woman. The new woman voices a note of dissent and resents to be stiffled under the oppressive restrictions. She does not want to be a stereo type in the male gendered hegemony. She aspires to be liberated with socio legal rights and so on. In fact she does not want to be a submissive sufferer.

Later, this new woman concept becomes a feminist way in relation to

Shaw and Anna’s works. One can find that their women are marginalised and they become suppressive sufferers but they may not be considered feminists / radical feminists. They are soft and discuss matters related to their role in the society as they are soft, docile, impressive and seem to be rationalists. Dr. Paramore is a young strenuous physician, who has discovered a new disease, and is delighted when he finds people suffering from it and cast down to despair when he finds that it does not exist. In other words, it is a sharp exposure of the dangers of ‘idealism’, the sacrifice of people to principles. He points out that excessive idealism exists nowhere so much as in the realm of physical science. The scientist seems to be more concerned about sickness than about the sick man. This theme of

Dr.Paramore’s disease is at once a most farcical philosophic thing in the play.

Mrs. Warren’s Profession (1893) is a play on prostitution. But it could not be put upon the stage because of the objections raised by

J.T.Green and Lord Chamberlain. It is concerned with a coarse mother and a cold daughter. The mother drives the ordinary and dirty trade of harlotry.

The daughter does not know till the end of the atrocious origin of all her own comfort and refinement. The daughter, when the discovery is made, freezes up into an iceberg of contempt, which is indeed a very womanly thing to do so. The mother explodes into pulverizing cynicism which is also very womanly. The dialogue is drastic and sweeping. The daughter says, the trade is loathsome. The mother answers that she loathes it herself; that every healthy person does loathe the trade by which she lives. Undoubtedly, the upshot is that a brothel is a miserable business and a brothel-keeper a miserable woman. The whole dramatic art of Shaw is in the literal sense of the word, tragi-comic. On account of the theme of the play, it was banned by the censor of plays and aroused a storm of protest from several quarters.

Mrs. Warren like her sister came out of a slum and became a prostitute and prospered exceedingly. Her sister, Lizzy, who does not appear in the play, collected so much money out of it that she has retired to a cathedral city to live in the odour of sanctity. Mrs. Warren becomes the

Managing Director of a chain of hotel-brothels, scattered about Europe and one of her directors is Sir George Crofts, a country gentleman. She keeps her only daughter Vivie, who had been educated in good schools and at

Cambridge, ignorant of the source of her income. Vivie insists on her right about knowing the name of her lover Frank Gardner that her father is the vicar of the parish and implies that they are half sister and brother. However,

27 there is a hint at the end of the play that the vicar, who had been a scallywag in his youth, is not her father, though he could have been. Vivie revolts and frees herself both from her mother and her lover. She is a modern and independent-minded woman. She is entirely unromantic, a woman almost certain to live in perpetual virginity. She is the sort of the woman Shaw professed to admire, though none of the women with whom he philandered, was in the least like her.

Arms is based on Dryden’s first line of Virgil’s Aeneid (Anna virumque cano). Bluntschli tells the army-adoring heroine frankly that she is a humbug and she, after a moment’s reflection, appears to agree with him. The play is like nearly all Shaw’s plays, the dialogue of a conversion.

By the end of it, the young lady has lost all her military illusions and admires this mercenary soldier not because he faces guns, but because he faces facts. He has no illusions about war, places the naked truth about it when he happens to seek shelter in Raina’s bedchamber one night from the ruthless shooting of the Bulgarians. Raina is shown to be a girl, full of romantic illusions about love and war. Her love for Sergius is on the front.

She is longingly waiting for his return when in almost romantic conditions, she finds a Swiss officer, Bluntschli, seeking shelter in her bedroom. He has no illusions about war and love and he tries to shatter those of Raina through a series of shocks. He tells her that soldiering is not a heroic profession. It is a coward’s art of attacking mercilessly when you are strong and the enemy is weak. He thinks that carrying food in the battlefield is more important than carrying catridge and that the best thing a soldier can do is to save his life. When Sergius, the glory of a soldier, returns, he finds

28 it difficult to keep up the air of higher love. He is disillusioned with the way of fighting a battle. While he is flirting with Louka, he is seen by Raina.

Bluntschli, absent in Act II again makes his appearance in the third. He impresses Raina’s father with his capability and efficiency. He also brings to completion Raina’s process of disillusionment. She breaks off with

Sergius and decides to marry Bluntschli, her ‘chocolate-cream soldier’.

In Candida (1895), Shaw attacks the economic system of society. He takes its most popular institution-marriage. James Morell is respected in society as a highly cultured man. He is an ideal husband and devoted to his wife. One day, he learns that he treats his wife like a slave as there is no love between them. Eugene Marchbanks, the poet, falls in love with

Candida. He is Morell’s rival and a fitting contrast to him. He thinks that real love cannot exist amidst drudgery and jealousy. He himself is not jealous. Candida rejects him. She decides to live with her husband. But this does not make a poet jealous. But he is firm in his belief that Morell does not deserve Candida. Eugene knows that Candida is not happy. He wants to make her happy. Candida is given the chance to choose between the poet and her husband. She opts for the latter.

The Devil’s Disciple (1896) is located in New Hampshire, in a wilderness of forests and mountains through which Burgoyne leads his army to Boston, and from that city down the Hudson to Albany. Incidentally,

Burgoyne is dramatised as leading a campaign of brutality and terror, which is bearing false witness against the deal because, as it happened, ‘gentleman

Johnny’ Burgoyne was especially careful to respect the rights of civilians.

The evil genius of the play is an American mother of Puritan stock who has won “a large reputation for piety” by making herself as disagreeable as possible. Her son, Dick, hero of the action, is a never-do-well who escapes the maternal tyranny and hypocrisy by running away to become a smuggler, an outcast, a willing disciple of the devil.

One of Burgoyne’s victims is a clergyman, condemned to be hanged because he has warned American rebels of the British approach. Dick makes use of an old stage-trick to enter into the jail and take the clergyman’s place.

He is being led out to death when he is saved from the gallows by another stage-trick. The moral of the play is dramatized in the final scene, when it is proposed that Dick shall take the clergyman’s place in the pulpit also, because only a disciple of the devil knows how to preach true religion.

In Caesar and Cleopatra (1898), Shaw deals with a man who is the master of his mind and the conceiver of ideas which he manipulates for his own purposes. Shaw’s Caesar is quite different from the Caesar of

Shakespeare, arrogant and ambitious and yet bestriding “the narrow world like a Colossus”. His Cleopatra, too, is not the Cleopatra of Shakespeare, the epitome of the eternal and irresistible feminine. It is a puritanical play based on war against romance and heroism. In this play, Shaw has produced a play of artistic creation in the portrait of Caesar. Caesar is a Shavian hero. The play opens with Caesar, in whom evolutionary instinct is active and who feels that his genius has been constricted by the profession of a warrior, standing before Sphinx. He meets Cleopatra, a girl of sixteen, trying to escape the invading Romans. She is the typical school-girl, impulsive,

30 highly strung and giggly. She believes that Romans have long noses, and ivory tusks and little tails, and seven arms with a hundred arrows in each; and they live on human flesh.

Cleopatra has the instinctive cruelty of a child and talks of poisoning slaves and cutting off her brother’s head. Caesar, who has weakness for women, is amused and fascinated by Cleopatra. He takes Cleopatra to his palace, reveals his identity and compels her to give up her childishness and to assume her position as a queen. He is quite practical. In the second Act,

Caesar is seen demanding money from Ptolemy. In the Third Act, one can see Caesar besieged on the island of Phareahes. Cleopatra, hidden in a roll of bedding, is carried to Caesar. In the later Acts, Achilles is defeated and

Ptolemy is killed. Cleopatra is the undisputed queen and Caesar departs with the promise of sending Antony to Egypt again.

Man and Superman is a matured work of Shaw, where woman is indicated as Nature’s contrivance for perpetuating its achievement and Man as woman’s contrivance for fulfilling Nature’s behest, that the superman should be born to replace the existing feverish selfish little cold of ailments and grievances.

In John Bull’s Other Island (1904), Shaw is directing his satire at the conventional Englishman, who is never so silly or sentimental, when he sees silliness and sentiment in the Irishman. Broadbent, the hero of the play, is an Englishman, who believes that he brings reason in treating the

Irishmen, whereas in truth they are all smiling at his illusions.

Major Barbara (1905) deals with the paradoxical situation where the attempts of the Salvation Army to remedy social evils can only be continued through the charity of those whose money-getting has caused those evils.

The play reveals the materialistic pessimism of Shaw. Here he depicts poverty as the epitome of all vices. Here the dramatist shows that even the noblest enthusiasm of the girl who becomes a Salvation Army officer fails under the brute money power of her father who is a modern capitalist. The political philosophy of Major Barbara is essentially Marxist. The main theme of the play is “the wickedness of curable poverty”.

The First Act introduces the readers to a domineering mother, Lady Britomart. She has been living away from her husband. Andrew Undershaft, her husband, also appears. But he does not recognise his children. Then the readers come across Major Barbara, their elder daughter and a Major in the Salvation Army, Sarah, their younger daughter, Stephen, their son, a correct young man, Charles Lomax, a brainless suitor of Sarah and Adolchus Cusins, a professor of Greek, engaged to Barbara. Barbara wants to save the soul of her father and he wants to convert her to his philosophy of “money and gun-power”. Major Barbara soon gets disillusioned about her ideals. She comes to know that the army is dependent on the capitalists who are dealers in death and destruction. It is ultimately the money that governs. Another contender for Barbara’s soul is her lover, Adolchus Cusins, a professor of Greek, who, to please Barbara, puts his studies aside and plays the brass- drum in the Salvation Army Band. Cusins is important in the thematic structure of the play as he is the third member of the trinity which is to save society. Undershaft, following the tradition of his predecessors, disinherits

32 his own son Stephen and adopts Adolchus as his protege and successor. Adolchus adds intellect to Undershaft’s power and Barbara’s moral fervour. Shaw’s hope for the salvation of society, presumably, lay in this combination.

The Doctor’s Dilemma (1906) deals with the question which life is more valuable, that of an amoral artist of great quality or that of a mediocre doctor who is decent, honest and to top it all good. This, however, has been left unsolved in the play because the doctor decides to sacrifice the artist for extraneous reason, that is, his love for his wife.

Shaw’s doctrine of the Life Force is developed further in two plays, Heartbreak House (1914) and Back to Methuselah (1921). In House, he gives a warning that cultured and leisured Europe will meet its doom if it did not undertake the mission of the Life Force. This play proved to be a prophecy. There is little action and more talk in the play. War, love, society, education, religion, politics and science have been dealt with in the play. The play is full of propaganda, wit, paradox, philosophy and prophecy. The characters assume allegorical significance. Captain Shotover, a figure larger than life and yet lifelike, reliving his past and creating his future in terms of his own fantastic logic, is the embodiment of old England. The house, built like a ship, suggests his own and his country’s maritime history. Mazinni Dunn is the nineteenth-century Liberal, believing in progress, but too sentimental to be an intellectual force. As a result of it, he has become a tool in the hands of Boss Mongan, who is the symbol of capitalistic exploitation. But the characters, though fairly representative of cultured, leisured England before the war, are full of life.

In Back to Methuselah (1921) Shaw once again considered the purpose of the Life Force and pronounced a great warning that if Man did not come up to the mark, he would be replaced by another set of beings. Shaw’s doctrine in this respect was contrary to the Theory of Natural Selection, expounded by Darwin. The play is pretentious and dull, showing a most undramatic desire to reduce all human life to disembodied speculation. It lays emphasis on creative evolution.

The play begins with the story of Adam and Eve. The main problem in the Garden of Eden is not how to extend life but how to end it. Adam feels that he is not strong enough to bear eternity. Yet he does not want to end life on the earth. The Serpent solves the dilemma by explaining to Eve the doctrine of creative imagination. All they need to die is the will to die, and to ensure the perpetuation of life, the will to create new life. Then in Adam’s absence, he whispers the secret of sex into the ears of Eve. This will satisfy her desire for perpetuation and fulfillment which is greater than that of Adam. The Second Act takes place a few centuries later. A variation on the theme of life and death, it is, in fact, a debate on the purpose of life between Eve, Adam and Cain.

Saint Joan (1923) is Shaw’s finest play. In it, the independence of the true Protestant is seen in opposition to the forces of organized society. In this play, Shaw presents the life of the French girl, Saint Joan, who defied British power and fought valiantly for the freedom of her country. Saint Joan is captured and is burnt as a witch. Later on, the greatness of Saint Joan is understood by the people and she is canonized in the Christian Church. The trial-scene in this play is one of the finest scenes in the whole of dramatic literature. Shaw has telescoped history from 1429 to 1431.

Joan inspires the soldiers. The English are defeated at Orleans and at other places. The Dauphin is crowned as King Charles VII. But the conventional society rums against Joan, the moral genius of her time. They regard her as a heretic or a witch. The courtiers, knights and churchmen begin to hate her as they are jealous of her. The King, the Archbishop and the courtiers have no need of her now. The Archbishop regards her as proud and disobedient. At last she is tried. In the trial-scene, she is accused of heresy and is burnt for heresy.

Misalliance (1970) deals with parent-child relationship. Mrs. Tarleton and Summerhays have a daughter and a son, Hypatia and Johnny. The brother and sister do not have any affinity. Hypatia is going to be married to a rich man, Bentley. The story relates to Hypatia and her mother.

Pygmalion (1912) is a witty and a highly entertaining study of class distinction. It is based on the story of Pygmalion and Galatea. It is an amusing comedy with a particular interest for the lovers of phonetics. The play is a story of the romance of Eliza Doolittle. The Pygmalion of Shaw is a Professor Henry Higgins, with a magical command of phonetics, who can place any man within six miles on the basis of his speech. He is of the energetic, scientific type, heartily, even violently interested in everything that can be studied as a scientific subject, and careless about himself and other people, including their feelings. He is a confirmed bachelor and has no feeling for women who, according to him, upset everything. More over, he can love if he can love at all, only a woman who is as his mother as possible.

One day, while standing under the portico of St. Paul’s church to protect himself from rain, he is impressed by a flower-girl. While he is taking notes of her accent, he is taken for a ‘cooper nark’ (informer of the police), and a humorous situation arises. He tells the people standing around him their native-place on the basis of their accents.

After a few months, Eliza comes to him to learn her lessons in phonetics so that she could be a lady in a shop. Charmed by her daring attempt, Higgins agrees to pass her off as a duchess within three months, a thing which he has said in jest, by teaching her cultivated English, but he utterly ignores her feeling. In the mean time, her father makes his appearance. Higgins thinks that he has come to blackmail him on account of his daughter’s staying there. He is an interesting fellow and has come there not to take his daughter back. Higgins is charmed by his frankly non-moral attitude and gives him a five-pound note. Eliza successfully passes off as a duchess in the garden-party. This is a great event in the career of the

Professor, and he and his friend feel greatly relieved.

In The Apple Cart (1929) Shaw deals with the problem of monarchy in a democratic country like England. He comes to the conclusion that the attempt to do away with the institution of monarchy, represented by King

Magnus in the play, will ultimately spell ruin in society. In this play, Shaw is neither opposed to monarchy nor democracy but to capitalism, and his diatribes are directed against Breakages and Company that stands in the way of all social and economic progress.

As Shaw has portrayed social realism Anna a great democrate, a champion of the poor, a powerful orator, a versatile penman, a renowned dramatist, a charismatic leader, a matured politician, a selfless servant of the masses, a brilliant administrator, a reputed statesman and a leading

Parliamentarian has greatness as a man, as an artist, and as an individual with commitment, dedication, conviction and service orientation in the stance of political and social correctness. Anna joined the Pachiappa’s

College, Madras, after the completion of his school education at

Canjeevaram. There he came in contact with so many Professors, ‘who were staunch followers of the Justice Party. After taking M.A., he worked as teacher in Govindappa Naicker School, China Bazaar, Madras.

The first half of the Twentieth Century is remarkable for the great wave of renaissance that has rejuvenated every aspect of its art and culture.

Poetry and literature, music and drama and the modern field of cine art, have all received a new life and a new effervescence of growth during this period.

Each of these fields has had its distinguished savants responsible for this new spirit, but Anna has been the one dynamic cultural force that inspired every field and revolutionized each and all of them. He has the unique fortune of being a great writer, a great dramatist and sector, a great journalist and a great leader of the people into the bargain. But his own intrinsic part in the several fields is but a nucleus in his ever throbbing dynamic influence on these fields – his entry into each and every field has witnessed an efflorescence of art among the youth of the country – new writing, new acting, new forms of poetry and story shot out from among the people due to his national inspirations.

Anna carved a political career for himself from his student days. He was an active debator as a student, and he used the College Debating

Society to crystalise his ideals and cultivate his political talents. This experience in the impressionable period of his life has marked him as a distinguished speaker with craftsmanship over his words - a craftsmanship which has earned him the title ‘Alliteration Annadurai’. Then he plunged headlong into politics by becoming a staunch supporter of the Justice Party.

Thus Annadurai’s life is an important chapter in the history of Tamil. Anna was a great campaigner for the Justice party. He first met Periyar Ramasami in a Social Reform Conference in 1934 at Tiruppur. Periyar was very much impressed with Anna’s oratory and requested him to work for the movement. The Self-Respect Youth League in Mint Street was Anna’s favourite haunt. It was a debating society, social club and main centre of

Justice and Self-respect activities.

He began his public life as a follower of Periyar. At the young and impressionable age he came under the spell of that veritable crusader against the social evils that prevailed in Tamil Nadu. A pioneer and path finder Periyar attracted many a non-Brahmin youngster to his fold during the thirties of the twentieth century. Anna was in the forefront as his able lieutenant. Annadurai was associated with The Justice a journal founded by the late Dr.T.M. Nair as its sub-editor. He was a brilliant translator and an ardent campaigner for the Justice candidates. He was for sometimes the editor of Namnadu, Navayugam and Kudiarasu which carried his radical thoughts. His deep involvement in the party forced the Rajaji Ministry to arrest Annadurai for taking part in the anti-Hindi campaigns. After the release, he became the editor of Viduthalai under the aegis of Periyar at

Erode. Then, he edited Bala Bharathi a Tamil Weekly published from Madras during 1930s. In 1942, Annadurai started his own Weekly The Dravidanadu. It was a formidable weapon in his hands. He attracted the youth. Another weekly, ‘Kanchi’, was also founded by him. He was editing the Tamil weekly Kanchi and Malai Mani, a Tamil daily, till he was elected leader of the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam Legislature Party in March 1967. He was fluent, scholarly and versatile in English as well as in Tamil. In 1957, he started an English weekly by name The Homeland . In 1966, he founded another weekly The Homerule.

Anna has written stories and dialogues for films. He has not only been a playwright but also has acted on the stage as well. Social reform has been the theme of his plays and film scripts. He has raised the dialogue and conversational style of the screen to the level of a fine art for the first time in the history of the stage of the south. He has written many short stories compiled in two volumes. Like Henry James and Edgar Allan Poe, Annadurai as a short story writer in Tamil, was a great trend setter. He was an intelligent essayist. And he wrote essays in an Emersonian vein. His essays abounded in assertions, and arguments, which turned out to be so many epigrams, often quoted by Annadurai-scholars. That itself is an indication of wide learning and streamlined scholarship. He is against caste and communal prejudices. He is against irrational superstitions and meaningless rituals. And when he was returned to power, Annadurai did not forge the ideals he had placed before the people in earlier days. He promptly brought fourth measures to encourage inter-caste marriages and provide legal sanction to the “reform marriage”. “Anna”, as Annadurai is affectionately called, carved a political career for himself from his students days.

Anna’s public life was influenced by two causes - social reform through the elimination of casteism like that of class in Shaw’s case and democratic justice akin to Shaw in all perspectives. Anna’s social thinking was moulded by Periyar. Anna was a forceful and prolific writer. His most famous plays are Chandramohan (historical play), Neethi Thevan

Mayakkam (The Dilemma of the God of Justice), Velaikkari (The Servant- maid) and Ore Iravu (One night).

The concept of “One Creed-One God” of Thirumular has been constantly and consciously used in the writings of Annadurai. He started his career as a playwright with the scholarly review of the drama Kumasthavin

Penn, staged in 1940 by the TKS drama troupe. It is evident that he wrote his first play Kolaikariyin Kurippugal as a continuation of Kumasthavin

Penn. He continued to write forty six plays to his credit. Simply speaking every play is studded with gems and pearls of Tamil sentiments and revolutionary ideas.

Throughout his life Anna has been an ardent student of English and

Tamil literatures and acquired utmost proficiency in both the languages. A scholar of great repute, he has maintained voracious reading habits, keeping himself fully in touch with the intricacies of the changing and challenging problems of the day; political, social and economic. His suavity and his manners made him an eminent scholar. Anna “turned the Tamil language into an active vehicle for expressing his thoughts and demonstrated that it could be a powerful means of popular education” (Ahulwalia 3). Anna even made an effective use of the Tamil language which he had mastered to the

40 extent of building up a style specifically his own in speaking and writing.

His strong criticism and marvellous analytic faculties strengthened his outlook as a good playwright. Tamil becomes an effective instrument in arousing the social consciousness of the people in the hands of Anna.

The writings of Anna had a purpose and it was proved beyond doubt that the success was really great. While explaining any problem, Annadurai has never seen in him a tendency to go with the times for vain gain for name. He made his writing weapon to fight for justice and righteousness which is ever lasting rather than for short lived fame which fades with changing time. Hence, his writings are persuasive both at the logical and emotional level. They have stimulated his readers to fight against social evils, corrupt society and undemocratic-socio-economic conditions.

Anna belonged to the rare type of personages who could retain personal friendship and loyalties inspite of the difference of opinion, however pronounced, declared, and fundamental. “Of all the arts, drama is the closest to the people. No other art depends so much on the human element” (Mark 1). In line with this idea, Anna as a playwright has a tremendous impact on the Tamil language and the society. Anna as a dramatist by his imaginative as well as personal experience, enters ideally into the minds of all his characters and speaks from within. Anna is brilliant and supremely persuasive and also plausible. He is eloquent and awe- inspiringly dedicated. He is a purposeful and coherent thinker.

Anna, as a playwright, dealt with contemporary life and problems which were really a challenge to the entire society. The questions raised during his period concerning culture, tradition, system and environment were questions which anyone alive to the present or anyone who took up as an issue must try to answer. Generally speaking, his plays show the awakening of both a humanitarian conscience and a revolutionary consciousness with reference to social injustice and an increasing interest in social welfare, the rights of the common man and the problem of living in a troubled world. He contrived to be a leader of the masses and the intellectually serious and progressive Tamil theatre and a successful reputed playwright. It is contended that socio-political drama is successful when the morality of the audience is poised against contemporary social condition and society, so that the enforced fluctuation between two ostensibly congruent sets of norms reveals a contradiction. “The playwright must seek subtle means of communication rather than simply abuse contemporary norms, yet he must not compromise his message so much that it is lost”

(Rabay 5). Anna’s contributions to the Tamil cultural renaissance are outstanding. One is struck by his immense intellectual versatility. By and large Anna, eventually conveyed his message and became the messiah of the Tamils at a particular point.

As a Tamil playwright, Anna made his ideals acceptable even to his opponents by making more and scientific and rational approaches. He was the uncontested intellectual leader, gloriously irreverent, transparently sincere, socially prophetic and historically revolutionary. The widely known messages of Anna are most brilliantly enunciated. As an outcome of his

42 writing, the ideals never failed to create a rational thinking in the contemporary minds of the Tamils. Anna made his reputation as a bold iconoclast, and as a thinker. His plays have remarkable bearings of the ideals for which he dedicates himself totally. He was a playwright endowed with the genius to win anybody by his convincing arguments. Through his writings, he always viewed matters as a serious practical man. His works evinced greater interest to reform and restructure the society. Anna’s works are delightful as well as instructive. They have didactic values.

Anna is an amalgamation of western thoughts and Tamil sentiments.

He retains the identity and antiquity of Tamil culture and language. He presents his principles in his works in an intelligent manner. Anna identifies the human areas, feels sincerely, thinks creatively, speaks fervently, writes critically, and acts progressively and more practically. They are brought to the people more meticulously. As a point of view, he stresses the importance of Tamil civilization, and attacks the Brahminical culture, condemns the backwardness and superstitious practices of the society. Anna’s works contain the scientific and universal facts and very common opinions. But he is undoubtedly fair minded, but not blindfolded. Hence throughout the entire range of Anna’s mighty dramatic output, the incisiveness and individuality of thought is never lacking.

Anna was a reputed freelance journalist both in Tamil and English.

He was proud to call himself a journalist at the press meet when he was the

Chief Minister. As a justifiable journalist, he produced articles, editorials, letters and other journalistic pieces of lasting value. Even a small piece of

43 writing or a message assumes added literary eminence under his mighty pen.

Undoubtedly, he has proved that the pen is mightier than the sword.

Journalism blossoms out from his powerful pen as fine pieces of literature in

Tamil and English. In this respect, he is an Addison or Steele. The Tamil weeklies, Dravida Nadu and Kanchi and the English weekly Home Land helped him largely produce enormous amount of literature. His journalistic career started in 1934 and ended in 1969. Thus, Anna’s career may be briefly analyzed under the following headings: articles, editorials, forewords, interviews, letters, messages and statements.

Anna has penned more than 2300 articles in Tamil in Dravida Nadu and Kanchi and more than 350 articles in English, Home Land. All articles of absorbing nature are varied in content and kind, more political and less literary. As an outstanding essayist, he is a Bacon. Anna had been the editor of so many journals for more than 40 years such as Dravida Nadu and

Kanchi, Malaimani and Nam Nadu. He was also the sub-editor of Justice, the official organ of the Justice Party. In addition he had edited his own

English weeklies, Home Land and Home Rule. His own weeklies Dravida

Nadu and Kanchi and English weekly Home Land carried eminent editorials: “Calcutta Fever”, “The Lords of Oman Beach”, “The Big people of Ripon Buildings and Our Selvan” (A.T. Panneerselvam) in Viduthalai.

The first editorial in Dravida Nadu is in Turmoil; others are “Hindustan

Hamara”, “Each one a gun”, “Congress Guess” and “God’s Call”.

The first novel of Anna is The Swollen Lip or My Life, started in

Kudiarasu, 1940 and ended in Dravida Nadu, 1948. (It stopped in the middle in Kudiarasu and continued in Dravida Nadu, 1948). The last novel is In The White House, 1966 (translation). The novel Kalinga Rani (Kalinga

Queen), 1943 is a historical novel. All others are social novels such as

Parvathi B.A. (1943), Dasavadaram (Ten Incarnations) and Rangon Radha

(1948). Further, his plays are :

1. Chandrodayam, (The Rising of the Moon) 1943, Social. 2. Velaikkar i (Servant-Maid) 1944, Social. 3. Chandramohan (Hindu Rajas foreseen by Sivaji), 1945, Historical. 4. Neethi Thevan Mayakkam (The Dilemma of the God of Justice) 1947, Literary. 5. Nalla Thambi (Good Brother), 1948, Social. 6. Ore Iravu (One Night) 1948, Social. 7. Kathal Jothi (The Flame of Love) 1953, Social. 8. Sorkka Vasal ( Heaven’s Gate) 1955, Social. 9. Pavaiyin Payanam (The Journey of the Damsel) 1956, Social. 10. Kannaiyiratin Ulakam (The World of Kannayiram) 1966, Social. 11. Rotti Thundu (Loaf of Bread) 1967, Social.

Of these, the plays Velaikkari (Servant-Maid), Nalla Thambi, Ore

Iravu and Sorkka Vasal had been shot into successful films. The film,

Velaikkari was the hit movie. It brought about a miraculous change in the film world. Anna’s social plays were largely used as benefit performance plays. He made all his friends act in the plays. V.C. Ganesan became Sivaji

Ganesan because he acted the role of Sivaji ably in Chandramohan.

Anna’s prose-verse poems are 73 in number. Anna started his poetry composition from Kudiarasu and continued it up to Kanchi. Anna is an outstanding short-story writer. He has written 90 short-stories. The first one is “Kokarako” in Anandavikatan and the last one is “Pongal Gift” in Kanchi,

1960. Most stories are social ones. “The Fall of Thanjai” and “The Divine

Flame seen by Thirumalai” are historical creations. Anna presents himself as Rajapart Rangadurai in one story. This story was written by Anna after the split from the Dravida Kazhagam in 1949. The stories such as “The Red

Plaintain”, “Social Worker Charubala” and “A Loaf of Bread” are the best short stories.

Anna wrote dramas and even took a part on the stage as an actor.

Social reform was the theme of his plays. Some of his dramas are

Chanthrodayam, Ore Iravu, Velaikkari, Kal Sumantha Kasadar,

Kannairathin Ulagam, Chella Filial, Pavayin Payanam, Kathal Jothi,

Chandra Mohan or Sivaji Kanda Samrajyam, Inba Oli, Nalla Thambi,

Sorka Vasal, Neethi Thevan Mayakkam, Rotti Thundu, and Nankodai. Some of his works are fiery and direct attack on the social customs and oppressive measures. Arya Mayai is an excellent critical work of Annadurai and was banned by the then government for its exposition of faith and realities.

Anna could be matched with the renowned orators of the world -

Demosthenes, Burke, Ingersol, Churchill and others. Anna was a great literary figure of his generation and influenced the minds of the people and brought out changes in people’s thinking and attitude. He made his ideals acceptable even to his opponents by merely speaking of justice. His ideas

46 never failed to hit a fire in the contemporary minds and very often influenced them. As a remarkable writer Anna came in touch with S.P.P.

Lingam, comrade P.Jeevanandam, Kalaivanar N.S. Krishnan, Udumalai

Narayanakavi, Nadippisai Pulavar K.R. Ramasamy, Thiruvadudurai

Rajarathinam, Cine directors A.S.A. Samy, and A. Kasilingeswaran, a group of revolutionary thinkers and writers. Their association made him so powerful in writing on varieties of subjects especially plays. P.C. Ganesan in

C.N. Annadurai says :

Like George Bernard Shaw Anna believed that all literary art

needs must be didactic. He explored all literary forms-short

stories, novels, plays, essays, criticism and so on. In the matter of

weaving the plots he imitated George Bernard Shaw but did not

possess the masterly approach of the inimitable English writer.

(Ganesan 106)

In Anna’s writings one could detect the perceptible influences of E.V.Ramasamy Naicker, Ingersoll, Karl Marx and Engels. His view points always tend towards rationalism and left-oriented thinking. His literary works are marked by simplicity and candour. Anna has often been compared to Cicero, Macaulay, Edmund Burke, and Ingersoll. Anna has profound scholarship, histrionic talents, oratorical powers, political sagacity, statesmanship, love of fellowmen, concern for other man’s point of view, and above all humanity. He has sweetness of temper, affability, amiability, ready wit, gaiety and buoyancy in the face of the hardest toil, and a sense of moderation and liberal mindedness. His eloquence and versatility combined with an almost uncanny ability to reach the public mind made him the most

47 interesting public and popular figure of his days. He made use of all this mass of knowledge, power of observation, and rich experience accumulated as a result of long intellectual efforts in promoting common good.

Anna’s Chandrothayam (The Rising of The Moon) was staged in 1943. This play was considered a propaganda play. It was his first play. This play is about the marriage of two widows, Aruna and Ponni. Their marriages are also inter-caste marriages. The play also satirises untouchability, the callous and careless attitudes of the bourgeois society and religion. It also includes tales of families related to Singaravelan, Vanchi Natha Sastri, Kanthapubathi, Murugadas, Parama Dayalu and so on. It affirms that love cannot be destroyed by the prejudice of a familial tree and prestige. Anna’s Chandramohan was first titled as Makudapishekam (Coronation). It is a historical play having the great warrior Sivaji as its protagonist. It details how Sivaji was successful in safe guarding Hindu religion by establishing Hindu Kingdom with Kanju Pattar (the priest). Anna’s Velaikkari was staged in 1944. It has fifty four scenes as a sequence with no acts. The title is suggestive of class consciousness. It deals with exploitation on all levels. Similarly his play Ore Iravu talks about how sexual exploitation and how orphans are neglected in the society. Anna’s Nalla Thambi is a social satire as it castigates the traditional beliefs and practices, exploitation in the name of poor wages and so on. Even though it is a social satire, it has political overtones. His Kathal Jothi was staged in 1953. It makes a strong distinction between the upper caste Brahmins and other caste people. It insists on Widow’s remarriage. It indirectly suggests the union between upper caste Brahmins and others for a social change. In his Sorkka Vasal and Pavaiyin Payanam he pleads for women’s emancipation.

In Anna’s Velaikkari Vedachalam Mudaliar of Vattiyoor Jamin is a heartless chap who cheats the poor people. He pretends to help the poor and thus possesses their properties by making them loan defaulters. Sundaram Pillai received a loan from Vedachalam Mudaliar and due to poverty he finds it difficult to repay the loan. Ultimately he is forced to commit suicide. Anandan, his son, wants to take revenge against Vedachalam Mudaliar for his father’s untimely ill folded, premature death. Paramanandan, a young man of a rich family is murdered at the railway station on his return from abroad. The murder is unnoticed. Anandan has the resemblance of the slain Paramanandan and as a result Anandan becomes Paramanandan. In the guise of Paramanandan, Anadan marries the daughter of Vedachalam Mudaliar. Moorthy, the son of Vedachalam Mudaliar falls in love with the servant girl Amirtham in his house. Later, the son of Vedachalam Mudaliar joins an ashram out of frustration and failure in love. He comes to know about the immoral activities of the Sanyasin and ultimately kills him. Moorthy gets arrested. Anandan appears before the honourable court on behalf of Moorthy. He rectifies his mistakes and corrects him. The murdered Sanyasin is a notorious and wanted criminal. The Sanyasin for his dacoities and anti-social activities is very much wanted by the police authorities. Moorthy marries Amirtham, the servant maid, at last the play ends with a happy note. This play is full of social issues. It is intimately connected as an expression of a definite period in the playwright’s thought and feeling. The main theme is against the castes, blind and bigotry beliefs, the untold sufferings of the poor, inexplainable and cruel domination of the rich, the pseudo image and false prestige of rich women, the religious scandals and the immoral life of Sanyasins.

Neethithevan Mayakkam is an imaginative play in which the arguments are superb. Ravanan, the villain as focused in the Ramayana is shown as a noble character in this play. He pleads for the role in which he was forced to execute certain things. He tries to prove that Rama, Kaikaeyi, Thevars,

Ascetics and Nayanmars are heartless because of their actions. When they are in a position to safeguard the people, they fail miserably. Ravanan presents his arguments against the creator of the Ramayana. No one in

Tamil drama has tried to present literary criticism in the form of play other than Annadurai. Kambar is cross-examined by Ravanan. It is an epitome in the history of Tamil literary criticism. The Justice, unbearable to tolerate the truth expressed by Ravanan, gets fainted at last.

Pavayin Payanam is yet another milestone in the writings of

Annadurai. It is a living literature for the liberation of women. The flash back techniques in this play is a new concept in Tamil drama. The interesting conversation between Napoleon and Josephine takes place.

A young girl marries an old king due to the restraints in the circumstances.

The king dies of old age and the first wife becomes the queen of the country. Despite the warnings given by others, the queen kills herself in a sati. It is an exposition of the cruelties of the period. The young widow is chased by the lustful younger brother of the king. To defend herself, she takes training from Vallaban for sword fighting. Despite all her struggle, her passion for the liberation of women from the clutches of the society is clearly brought out by Anna.

Sorkka Vasal is an epitome of Annadurai. A young poet falls in love with a princess of a neighbouring country. Prior to this, the King sends the poet to that country to talk about his marriage with the princess. In the meantime she gives up her throne but for the sake of protecting her country, she wages a war against the enemy. The Rajaguru in Pavalan country misuses his power and swindles money in the name of religion. The poet opposes it and gets killed. Pavalan takes up the mission of his friend and brings out the unrighteousness of the Rajaguru. Pavalan is branded as a rationalist and banished from the country. Then Pavalan’s sister gets killed and the king summons Pavalan to save his daughter who is sincerely in love with Pavalan. But the original lady love of Pavalan comes back to the country to see the conditions of her country. Democracy is declared in both the countries. This play is an exposition of the institutionalized religion and the exploitation of the Sanyasins, in the name of religion.

Kathal Jothi is a classic which talks about the inter-caste marriages and the widow re-marriages. This play establishes the freedom of women.

When the young widows are forbidden from re-marriage, they are driven to the extent of committing suicide. The rigid custom in the society prohibits a girl to claim her social rights. This play focuses the disparity between the

Brahmins and the non-brahmins. Chandrasekar Iyer, his son Arunkumar and his daughter Suguna are presented as Brahmin characters. Ponnan, Ponni,

Thangappan and Porkodi represent the non-Brahmins.

Anna tries to establish a casteless society only by having matrimonial relationship between the Brahmins and the non-Brahmins. There are several barriers and obstacles in the society. Annadurai, through his characters, exposes the reality and gives a call for a unified society devoid of caste supremacy and religious domination, peculiar to India’s social conditions and in particular Tamilnadu’s contemporary conditions.

Chandra Mohan or Shivaji Kanda Samrajyam is a historical story of the 16 th century. Shivaji, a mighty warrior with his great battalion of soldiers fights against the Mughals and at last wants to usher the throne by crowning himself as the king of this kingdom. But there are very great opposition.

Why there is an opposition is deeply discussed through memorable characters by Annadurai. The Brahmin domination is very clearly focused.

Kakkapattar a representative of the Brahmin community is the master brain behind all the disturbances for the swearing in ceremony of Shivaji. The country’s Exchequer is fully exhausted in the name of crowning and thus

Annadurai brings out caste supremacy in an explicit manner.

Kannayirathin Ulagam is a play full of deceitful attitudes of a rich family of which an innocent poor family becomes a prey. The poor family members suffer a lot in the hands of the rich. A person who focuses himself as a good Samaritan in a village is mainly responsible for the sufferings of the poor. This is the situation of the age in which Annadurai lived.

Rotti Thundu is a play which talks about the impersonation of the son of a rich man. The son of a rich man steals the writings of his friend. His writings are full of socialistic thinking and preaches against the economic inequalities and the domination of the upper castes. The writings are brought out in the form of a book which is not liked by the father. The original writer is branded as a lunatic and sheltered in an asylum by the rich. The social disparity is shown in this play.

Inba Oli is a record of the working community. Arivananthar representing the working community pledges for the uplift of his country.

He is not money minded. But the army Lieutenant fails to understand the noble heart of Arivananthar. In the meantime the Rajaguru of the country cheats the people in many ways. The playwright wants to convey the message that the scientific knowledge should spread all over the country, instead of superstition.

Anna is a versatile genius. He is a social reformer. As a journalist like Whitman, Anna has gained real mastery over the art of writing. He has valued objective reportage, revision and editorial skills like, expanding, contracting, adding and deleting. Anna is a prolific man of letters, a short fictionalist, dramatist, essayist, poet and a novelist. As a playwright he favours comparison with Shaw because both are fired by the same reformatory zeal and progressive outlook. His created art is marked by structural finesse, technical excellences, and contextual relevance. His discourses are marked by rhetorical flourishes, language and literary competencies and range of vision.

The propaganda aspect exposes certain progressive ideas held by

Anna. His plays are highly intellectual in character and the breeding ground of many revolutionary ideas. His plays are nothing but discussions of contemporary problems and the themes like the inheritance of tainted money, sex and the position of women, unholy practices of religious mendicants, poverty and other contemporary issues. With cold objectivity,

Anna exposes the wrong ideas of some traditional beliefs and advocates social reforms. Anna as a refined rationalist, advocated social reforms. He did not believe in God. He did not like religion being denigrated into rituals.

He was for the abolition of caste and superstitious beliefs. He encouraged inter-caste marriages and worked hard for the introduction of self-respect marriages in society. He strongly condemned policies and not personalities.

Anna’s writings have a searching and often prophetic quality. They were evidence of the masterly grasp of his subject, clarity and profundity of thought, his forceful, yet always elegant persuasiveness, his power of friendly arguments and the utter sincerity of conviction that dominated his purpose throughout his literary as well as political career.

Both Shaw and Anna ushered in an era of literary revolution that literature instead of limiting itself to the intellectual few could reach out to large masses outside. Both of them envisage an ambition to form a new society based on the principles of democracy, rationalism, and socialism.

They wrote fearlessly and advocated radical social reform for the elimination of class and caste systems. They were highly rational in their perspectives. They hated the cant and hypocrisy, the blind superstition and

54 corruption which obsessed the purity of religion. Anna has dedicated himself to the cause of social reform. Like Shaw, he made his choice quite convinced of the need to reshape the destiny of the people of Tamil Nadu.

Like Shaw, he advocated social revolution, and political and economic changes. He wanted to have a radical change in all spheres of life.

Anna was imbued with the aesthetic ideas and the zeal for social reforms. In fact, self-respect which was the mainstay of the Dravidian Movement coupled with a love of language (Tamil) gave him a new dimension and a new spirit for adventure. Anna “turned the Tamil language into active vehicle for expressing his thought and demonstrated that it could be a powerful means of popular education (Ahulwalia : 3). In the hands of Anna,

Tamil became an effective instrument in arousing the social consciousness of the people. Anna is an individualist who cherished valued self-respect, dignity and honour. He was a man of artistic and political integrity. He was progressive and radical in his outlook. Anna like Whtiman was a democrat by conviction. In Anna Speaks, he says :

Democracy is not a form of Government alone, it is an invitation

to a new life, an experiment in the art of sharing responsibilities

and benefits, an attempt to generate and coordinate the inherent

energy in each individual for the common task (xxvii).

Anna believed in socialism. He never liked to be constricted by set doctrines and never changing dogmas. He insisted on duty, decency, and decorum on all walks of life. He projected himself as a public figure with a gift of the gab and ratiocinating capacity. He remained a democrat, socialist

55 and a rationalist. Rationalism was his religion. He believed in real faith which would feed the hungry and comfort the suffering. He argued that true faith in God was deep faith in human beings. Anna as a rationalistic artist wants to remove social dogmas. It is through his literary works, he propagates his economic philosophy that was based on the socialistic approach of ensuring a good and harmonious living for one and all. In this connection, he argues that “concentration of wealth in the hands of a few is like a deluge, that would destroy not only the weaker sections of a society but even those possessing it” (Anna Speaks: xxvii). Anna was not merely an individual like Shaw.

Both Shaw and Anna can be taken as symbols of several eras put together in the case of Shaw may be from Shakespeare’s time to Ibsen’s time and in the case of Anna, it is from Thiruvalluvar to the present time. In fact, they accelerated renaissance in the dramatic fields of English and Tamil by their animated speeches and writings. Shaw and Anna have uniformly written domestic plays. Most of their plays have been based on contemporary situations. Shaw’s and Anna’s domestic plays introduce the eternal triangle and the consequences of misplaced love. Shaw’s Candida and Anna’s Rangon Radha, Kapothipurak Kathal, Kumasthavin Penn give a new dimension to the love triangle. In Shaw’s Candida, Shaw exhibits original thinking in introducing the action scene, the choosing scene where

Candida has to decide Marchbanks or Morell as her partner in life. Shaw in an innovative manner resolves the love triangle by making Candida the supreme deciding factor. Her husband modestly says that he can offer his strength for her defence, his position, and authority for her dignity.

Marchbanks can only say that he can offer his weakness, his desolation and his heart’s need. Candida candidly asserts that she gives herself to the weaker of the two. Then she makes it clear to Marchbanks that her love for him has been more of a mother by affection. Marchbanks realizes his folly and leaves them resigning himself to unhappiness.

Both Shaw and Anna are mirroring their time in their plays. Clifford Leech in Shaw and Shakespeare admits that

Shaw is a dramatist, and he knew better than most people that the theatre is a place where you don’t reproduce actuality. You present an image of it, which means that you aim at the essence, not the everyday appearance of things. Every now and again one does make a really startling encounter [...] the dramatist can and must use such experiences, and make them more obviously startling than they ever truly are (90-91).

Shaw and Anna have been bunched together specifically to establish the validity of the argument that they are poignant social scientists and satirists. Their consciousness of their time, milieu, and race is acute. Moreover, their awareness of all the socio-politico-economic happenings in their respective regions and nations is sharp. Yet again, their sense of Zeitgeist is perfect. It is their studied knowledge of the goings on of life in their respective milieu and their undying motivation to reform, rejuvenate and revitalise their societies that serve as the basic material of their oeuvres. It is in this precise context, Shaw and Anna are identified as social scientists and satirists. Therefore, there is an analytical and studied focus on the running parallels and correspondences detected in their oeuvres.

Shaw and Anna employed their creative capacities, writing talents and streamlined scholarship to a great effort to capture the hopes, aspirations, successes and failures and frustrations of the people as well as fin de Siecle condition of modern society. They are, in fact, sensitive to the social ills that surface in the form of poverty, ignorance, violence, sex assault, deprivation, denial, dehumanization, and degradation. They trace the causes of these effects in their works of art. They scrutinise society against social injustices and indignities. They become rebels and crusaders of the society. They pad off false hypocrises. It is of pertinence to record that if Anna was school teacherly and pontifical, Shaw was the left-oriented castigator of the society. They uniformly believe that society was in the wrong to keep so many in abject poverty and intellectual ignorance and thereby subject them to exploitation and deprivation. In that, they endeavour honestly and perservently with the sole purpose of triumphing over their harsh circumstances. In their works, they argue that the writer should boldly confront environmental determinism and challenge and defeat fate. Both Shaw and Anna accept the fact that in this confrontation with environmental determinism and fatalism one is bound to fail but what is more important is how one struggles and fights against evil forces in the society.

Shaw and Anna believe in the basic goodness and rationality of man as they were the members of the Fabian society and Self-Respect Movement respectively. Both of them are confident that the sensible man would slough off the debilitating teachings of a corrupt contemporary society and will become capable of unselfish devotion to the common good. They believe that man can exert his free will. They uniformly portray that an individual is essentially free from the control of institutions and traditions.

Both Shaw and Anna treat poverty and squalor uniformly as they never supported the argument that slums and villages are the nourishing

58 grounds of nobility and innate goodness. Incidentally, they were bitter against those who made their financial success at the expense of other. In fact, Shaw and Anna are not bound by the environment in which they lived but by the clash between the idealized societal norms and codes and the reality of the society in which they lived. It seems to be that man in society is subject to illusions that are at variance with reality and that human conduct is sometimes directed by a moral code which has little applicability to individuals in a society. So, they uniformly strike the chord that man can break the code. He/she can depart from norms and codes established by the society. Thus Shaw and Anna uniformly focus on human consciousness as they are aware of poverty, ignorance, misery, deprivation, dehumanization, denial, exploitation and violence. They have an immediate and total bearing on their socialites. They aim at introducing corrective measures and definitive prescriptive which when adopted would turn society into a better place to live in. It is equally true that they uniformly make a bold assertion that literature is not only the effect of social causes, it is also the cause of social effects. It is understood that their oeuvres are qualified by moral earnestness, intellectual intensities and social expectations. Their works are genuine, valuable and objective studies of their societies and social life. In them, society becomes their works of art.

As literature and society are intertwined, it is understood that precisely in the sociological background that the assertions and arguments of Shaw and Anna gain depth, significance and relevance as their oeuvres become purposive arts. They uniformly project their consciousness of a pervasive complacency, burgeoning bourgeois, suburban togetherness, automated workers, escapism and widespread anomie. They uniformly perceive that anomie as the sense of isolation of the less privileged and the isolation of self estrangement of the denied, deprived, and exploited.

To them, anomie as a concept extends to a variety of social conditions and psychic states such as personal disorganization and cultural breakdown. James McGregor Burns in The Crosswinds of Freedom says:

The diagnosis of anomie aroused the sharpest concern, for it applied to a person’s whole life, defined broadly as the collapse of social norms that regulate social attitudes, expectations and behaviour, a condition of anomie could have a variety of effects; normlessness marked by the feeling that anything goes; a hugner for direction and authority that might lead to a turning toward autocratic leaders, a craving for reassurance from peers and superiors; a proclivity to manipulate others in a culture lacking interaction. (275).

Shaw and Anna give expression to anomie and bemoan the lack of understanding on the part of men and women. In fact, they are considered representative spokesmen of their regions-Shaw’s England and Anna’s Tamil Nadu. Their respective regions endow them with artistic inspiration and strength to evolve into nationalists and then universalists. It is their strength of nationalism that strengthened them to run into universalisms as they never remain constricted to their regionalism and nationalism. Their oeuvres are characterised by their humanistic concern. Their art products arouse the man in every one and evoke finer feeling of compassion, love and kindness. Shaw and Anna serve as the collective voice of the proletariat, the denied, the depraved, and the exploited.

Shaw and Anna refuse to be passive spectators of the injustices that lie rampant in the modern Kafkan wasteland world. Therefore, they employ literature as the most effective tool to arouse the conscience of the sensitive readers and thereby cause betterment in society as they focus on the plights and predicaments of the common man.

Shaw and Anna value the identity of every individual and more particularly women and their self. They uniformly portray that there cannot be a great tragedy for a man or a woman than to lose his or her self respect, dignity, and honour. They highlight the truth that life is qualified by ambilectics and indeterminacies as they have innate capacities to express their complex feelings, intricate thoughts and cosmicity of experiences with clarity, precision, order, harmony, logicality, coherence, symmetry, and balance. They have the keen power of observation, remarkable retentive capacity, and mastery over lexis, syntax and semantics which are evident in Shaw’s lengthy prefaces and letters and Anna’s speeches and writings. They have a clear weltanschauung precisely because they subjected everything that they confronted in life to an analytic study first and a synthetic examination next. They uniformly probe deep into men and matters. Their attention shifts from anthropomorphic God centre to man-centre. Man becomes their centre of attention. Every socio-politico economic issue is examined in relation to man. It is pertinent to argue that the historical and sociological background left a great impact on the mind and art of Shaw and Anna.