THE SOCIETAL COMMITMENT OF GEORGE BERNARD SHAW AND C.N.ANNADURAI AS PLAYWRIGHTS : A COMPARATIVE STUDY

Transcription

1 THE SOCIETAL COMMITMENT OF GEORGE BERNARD SHAW AND C.N.ANNADURAI AS PLAYWRIGHTS : A COMPARATIVE STUDY THESIS SUBMITTED TO BHARATHIDASAN UNIVERSITY, TIRUCHIRAPPALLI FOR THE AWARD OF THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY IN ENGLISH ii Ms. R.UMADEVI, M.A.,B.Ed.,M.Phil., Research Scholar (Ref /Ph.D.2/English/P.T./July 2006) Dr. R.SHANTHI, M.A.,M.Phil.,Ph.D., Research Supervisor P.G. AND RESEARCH DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH A.V.V.M. SRI PUSHPAM COLLEGE(AUTONOMOUS) (AFFILIATED TO BHARATHIDASAN UNIVERSITY) POONDI , THANJAVUR DISTRICT JUNE 2011

2 iii NAAC RE-ACCREDITED WITH A GRADE P.G. AND RESEARCH DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH A.V.V.M. SRI PUSHPAM COLLEGE(Autonomous) POONDI , THANJAVUR DISTRICT, TAMIL NADU, INDIA. (Affiliated to Bharathidasan University, Tiruchirappalli) Dr. R.SHANTHI, M.A., M.Phil, Ph.D., Associate Professor in English CERTIFICATE Date : This is to certify that the thesis entitled THE SOCIETAL COMMITMENT OF GEORGE BERNARD SHAW AND C.N.ANNADURAI AS PLAYWRIGHTS - A COMPARATIVE STUDY is a bonafide record of research work done by UMADEVI R. in the P.G. and Research Department of English, A.V.V.M. Sri Pushpam College (Autonomous), Poondi, Thanjavur district, under my guidance and supervision, submitted to the Bharathidasan University, Tiruchirappalli for the award of the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in English and that the thesis has not been previously formed the basis for the award to the candidate of any degree, diploma, associateship, fellowship or any other similar title. I further certify that the thesis represents independent work on the part of the candidate. (R. SHANTHI) Research Supervisor

3 iv DECLARATION I do hereby declare that this work has been originally carried out by me under the supervision of Dr. R.SHANTHI, Associate Professor, P.G. and Research Department of English, A.V.V.M. Sri Pushpam College(Autonomous), Poondi, Thanjavur District, Tamil Nadu, affiliated to Bharathidasan Unviersity, Tiruchirappalli and this work has not been submitted elsewhere for any other degree. June, 2011 Poondi (Ms. R.UMADEVI)

4 v ACKNOWLEDGEMENT I acknowledge with gratitude the permission granted by Thiru K.Thulasi Ayya Vandayar, Secretary and Correspondent, A.V.V.M. Sri Pushpam College(Autonomous), Poondi to carryout my research in the Department of English in the esteemed institution. It is my pleasure to thank the respected Principal, A.V.V.M. Sri Pushpam College(Autonomous), Poondi for having given me permission to do the research work. I express my wholehearted thanks to Dr. R.Shanthi, my research supervisor, for her valuable guidance and suggestions. With her expertise and erudite scholarship she enhanced my research work successfully. This study would not have been possible but for her immense help. I have a very special word of thanks to Dr. K.Veeramani, Chairperson, Periyar Centenary Polytechnic College for the motivation and encouragement he offered me during the period of my research study. I deem it a great pleasure to express my heartfelt thanks to Dr. V.Sundararajalu, Correspondent, Periyar Centenary Polytechnic College for his suggestions in the successful completion of the thesis. I take this opportunity to express my gratitude to Dr. R.Malliga, Principal, Periyar Centenary Polytechnic College who has been instrumental in the successful completion of this project by offering kind help and moral support in all spheres of my research work.

5 I thank Dr. H.Parveen, Director Administration, Periyar Centenary Polytechnic College for her valuable guidance for the preparation of my research work. vi I wish to register my thanks to Mr. R.S.Baskkaran, Mr.R.Ayyanathan and Mr.P.K.Sachidanandam, faculty members of Periyar Centenary Polytechnic College for their constant support from the beginning to the end of my research journey. I render my thanks to my colleagues, friends and well-wishers for the co-operation and co-ordination extended by them in the collection of data needed for my research. Let me wish to make a special mention about my better half Mr.R.Chandrasekaran, my sons, Mr.C.Prasanna Venkatesan and Mr.C.Rajesh and my daughter-in-law, Ms. P.Janani for their support and wholehearted encouragement. Ms. R.UMADEVI

6 vii CONTENTS Chapter Page TEXTUAL NOTE ABSTRACT vii ix PREFACE xi I INTRODUCTION 1 II SOCIAL AND RELIGIOUS ASPECTS 61 III FEMINISTIC PERSPECTIVE 114 IV CRAFTSMANSHIP 150 V CONCLUSION 199 WORKS CITED 217

7 viii TEXTUAL NOTE The thesis has been framed by strictly following the guidelines given in the sixth edition of Joseph Gibaldi MLA Handbook for Writers of Research Papers (6 th edn., 1977 New Delhi: Affiliated East West Press Ltd., 2004). The following abbreviations are used for indicating name of the plays of George Bernard Shaw( ) and C.N. Annadurai( ). WH - Widowers Houses ( ) P - The Philanderer (1893) WP - Mrs. Warren s Profession ( ) AM - Arms and the Man (1894) Candida - Candida ( ) D - Man of Destiny (1895) Disciple - The Devil s Disciple ( ) Cleopatra - Caesar and Cleopatra (1898) Brassbound - Captain Brassbound s Conversion (1899) Superman - Man and Superman ( ) MB - Major Barbara (1905) DP - The Doctor s Dilemma (1906) GM - Getting Married (1908) Androcles - Androcles and the Lion (1912) Pygmalion - Pygmalion ( )

8 ix HH - Heartbreak House ( ) BM - Back to Methuselah ( ) SJ - Saint Joan (1923) AC - The Apple Cart (1929) R - On the Rocks (1933) CP - Complete Plays* * Even though titles of Bernard Shaw s plays are mentioned, references are from Complete Plays and from other collections mentioned in works cited. OI - Ore Iravu (1944) V - Velaikkari (1944) RR - Rangon Radha (1946) KJ - Kathal Jothi (1953) PP - Pavaiyin Payanam (1959) IO - Inba Oli (1970)

9 x ABSTRACT The thesis evaluates the societal commitment of George Bernard Shaw and C.N.Annadurai as playwrights - a comparative study. The thesis is divided into five chapters. The introductory chapter traces the early life of George Bernard Shaw, an Irish playwright and C.N.Annadurai, a Tamil playwright. The dramas of both the playwrights are introduced with some important aspects. Drama was just one form of stating their message and theatre just one format for performing it. Shaw and Anna employed their creative capacities, talents and streamlined scholarship to a great effort to capture the hopes, aspirations, success, failures and frustrations of the people. The second chapter Social and Religious Aspects brings out the social and religious views of George Bernard Shaw and C.N.Annadurai. Deep observations of day to day life, barbed criticisms on the superstitions, delicate treatment of tender feelings, satirical comments on faults and foibles of the society, relentless questionings of rational thinking, the hallmarks of their plays are portrayed in detail. They can, in their plays detach themselves and watch the characters arguing forcibly in their views. Their plays are centred round the themes of contemporary interest to expose social problems and suggest maladies mostly relevant to philosophical and religious thought content.

10 The third chapter Feministic Perspective deals with the concepts of love, marriage and liberation of their women characters. The writings of Shaw and Anna emphasise on a question related to the status of women in a society. Shaw and Anna are feminists. Their stand is refreshingly original, favoured individuality. They believed that the nation could be healthy only if women were liberated. xi The fourth chapter Craftsmanship concerns itself with the techniques adopted by both the playwrights. Shaw and Anna are the representative types of English and Tamil modern theatres. They are the word-intoxicate dramatists who made language high toned and seemingly verbose. Their resourcefulness in illustration, their ironic knowledge and the linguistic and stylistic devices adopted are discussed elaborately in this chapter. The playwrights have made their characters in the plays speak what they want to convey to the society. The fifth chapter Conclusion offers a summing up of the thesis highlighting the significant similarities in the intellectual equipment of both George Bernard Shaw and C.N.Annadurai. Shaw and Anna followed a wide and deep study which gave them a good knowledge about men and matters of the world and both took special interest in the study of literature. Shaw and Anna are more concerned with exposition of religious bigotry and its evil consequences than with characterization.

11 xii PREFACE It is common knowledge that Comparative Literature as a subject of study has been steadily gaining ground in recent times. With the progress of modern civilization and rapid advancement of science and technology, countries have been coming closer together, resulting in an increasing curiosity on the part of students and scholars of literature to discover these aspects of literary art practiced in different countries, which on account of their similarity can be treated as the fundamentals of literary art in general. Such a discovery is bound to be immensely useful in establishing a common link between people by emphasizing the common characteristics to all great and the essential unity of all men in spite of their apparent diversity. This comparative study is based on the assumption that art is primarily mimetic. The artists spend their time in transferring their experiences alike in varied forms. However, it is also taken into account that art is a more serious involvement with life than representation of the outer world. It has psychic connotations which are of utmost significance to the artist, and which normally account for this artistic creativity. For a writer, the desire to represent the figures of external experience is usually based on his need to use reality as a means of recreating his inner life, very much in reveries one weaves together the figments of experience into a more meaningful text.

12 George Bernard Shaw (hereafter referred to as Shaw) and C.N.Annadurai (hereafter referred to as Anna) are theatrical innovators. Critics discuss more of their ideas than of their techniques. Shaw is often ridiculed as a person who writes long prefaces for short plays. Whether the preface is long or short, it is the opinion of the dramatist an integral part of the play. Actually, the need for the preface is justified only on the score of the dramatist s earnestness to present his point of view as correctly as possible before the reader. The prefaces are really independent pieces of composition, excellent essays on various topics of the day. That is why Shaw s prefaces have been separately published. They form a piece of independent literature. Apart from expounding the underlying object of the plays, they throw valuable light on the life and artistic growth of the dramatist himself. Thus Shaw and Anna has succeeded in making drama a real literature and not a mere three hour traffic of the stage. And lastly, they created a new public, the intellectual middle class. xiii Consequently, against the conventions of classical drama and the complications of Romantic drama, Shaw stresses the simplicities of life, as they have depth and significance enough to engage our whole attention. This is perhaps one reason, why he does not make use of emotional expression. But in Shaw s plays, the conflict is essentially intellectual. This tends to simplification in details and complication in essence. Shaw has been rightly called the father of the theatre of ideas in England or in other words, another great exponent of the problem plays. Shaw s stress on ideas is the basis of his drama. In every play, the central

13 motive is some significant idea or problem which the dramatist has to expound or discuss. Thus, in a sense, Shaw s plays may be termed discussion plays, and in many of them there is a very slight thread of story or incident, the main interest centering round is the discussion of an idea. And thus the plays tend to be a series of brilliant, witty and incisive conversation. xiv Most critics of Shaw found Plays Unpleasant as least significant plays. They address immediate economic issues, slum landlordism, and the exploitation of female workers on the basis of prostitution. Hence, it is understood by the researcher that part of the problem in perceiving Shaw clearly and assessing him lies in the division in his own nature and thus in his aim as a writer. If Shaw and Anna had not exercised their hands in creative literature, few people perhaps no one-could be much concerned with their labours as socialist thinkers and propagandists or with their convictions as religious philosophers, although in both areas their achievements, by ordinary standards, would have constituted an honorable life s work. Shaw s and Anna s ideas demand attention from those who would understand their works. In Mrs.Warren s Profession, for example, Shaw the socialist slips into the mouth of Crofts, the capitalist bully, an unconscious revelation of what Shaw sees the pervasive corruption of capitalist society, in which all are pocketing what they can, avoiding inconvenient questions. In a more profounder way, Shaw s ideas are transformed into dramatic metaphors.

14 The commitment to socialist action in Shaw s and Anna s life becomes in their writings a commitment to human existence in the world, especially as transformed by comedy. In the case of Shaw, the commitment to the ascendant thrust of the life force becomes darker, to some degree, secret impulse to transcend the world. The roots of Shaw s socio-economic ideas extend deep into the nineteenth century, at least as far as Carlyle, with his denunciation of the misery engendered by irresponsible economics and his puritanical emphasis on the recessing for work, and as far as Ruskin, with his revulsion from the ugliness of the world created by nineteenth century capitalism and his distrust of popular democracy. xv In the case of Anna, it happened in the early twentieth century when Tamilnadu witnessed a major socio-politico-religious upheaval caused by the establishment of the Justice party by E.V. Ramasamy. Then the Justice Party paved the way for the founding of the Dravida Kazhagam (DK) a nonpolitical organization. From this evolved, the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam as a political outfit under the leadership of Anna. In the early 1880, Shaw seemed to have found what he sought in the words of Karl Marx. Similarly in 1934 Anna met E.V.Ramasamy and was completely won over by the Socrates of South India. From then on, Anna wielded his powerful tongue and opened it to disseminate the ideas of E.V.Ramasamy, fondly called Periyar (great man). Both Shaw and Anna insisted that if socialism had to come, whether by revolution or not, it would need effort and a new economic foundation.

15 The social critic in Shaw and Anna is not so sunny as dramatist. The dramatist in them creates beings of innate goodness and perfectability, flamed by weakness which allows corruption of society to enter. The social critic in them recognises that there are human beings whom they must consider, for all practical purposes, incorrigible. That s why Shaw s Prefaces and Anna s speeches concerning social issues and not political issues are choked with these indigestible remnants; explanation, condemnation and horrible examples. Their understanding of prudery is made clear. Prudery is a mere incident of popular squalor. In their hands, sex becomes offensive where poverty makes cleanliness impossible. Poverty also makes off sex offensive by making privacy impossible. Their fastidiousness is too obvious to reel expatiation and too unusual to gain general sympathy and the prudery of contemporary discussion, they attribute to the fact that only one in a mission can speak of sex without wounding any individual s self-respect. Prudery as a class phenomenon is depicted but not analysed by them. As socialists they think of the poor; as satirists they think of the middle class; as playwrights they take aristocratic standards for granted. The freedom that money and an assured social position made possible for upper-class women, was quite comparable to the freedom which they believed the new era should grant to all women. But the class idea remains implicit in their writings. Shaw and Anna did not make trifles of tragedies but often they tended to underrate to human pain. They also found it difficult to share their contemporaries gravity about many a social and human problem. Humour was considered an effective weapon, especially to attack the illusions and hypocrisies of society. Shaw reasonably claimed that he was applauded as most humorously extravagant paradox in London. He reported what he saw in his plays as Anna did in his writings. xvi

16 George Bernard Shaw xvii

17 C.N.Annadurai xviii

18 George Bernard Shaw Plays xix

19 C.N.Annadurai - Plays xx

20 xxi Chapter I

21 xxii Chapter II

22 xxiii Chapter III

23 xxiv Chapter IV

24 xxv Chapter V

25 xxvi Textual Note

26 xxvii Works Cited