Submitted by: Submitted by afreebo1
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Date Submitted: 03/15/2009 09:14 PM
Women at the turn of the century were not permitted to be autonomous free thinkers that they are today; rather they were expected to adhere to society’s conventions by conducting themselves as prim proper women and also by wooing and marring the highest ranking man in their class. These upper class women were then able to enjoy all that life at the time had to offer especially in the “wonderful world of art” (15). Many of them immersed themselves in such affairs as operas, concerts, art museums, and also indulged themselves with expensive materialistic objects. If a woman did not marry then she was obviously left to provide support for herself, yet the woman of this time period was only able to choose from a scarce selection of employment options that were anything but lucrative. For instance, they could be waitresses, dishwashers, nannies, or laborers and enjoy a seventy two hour or more work week for a paycheck worth less than $4.10. Thus, this prevented them from becoming financially independent and prevented them from experiencing any forms of the arts or much less possessing anything of real value. Although the poor women would still be left to struggle, a transformation commenced in this new era for the affluent women in which social roles had begun to expand. Women of the upper crust were starting to express free thoughts on politics and social perspectives, and were also starting to earn their independence spouseless and through more profitable employment options. Bernard Shaw, in his play Mrs. Warren’s Profession, exposed this expansion by formulating an opposition between his main characters, Mrs. Warren and Vive, in which one believes in the standard patrician lifestyle and the other rejects it in all of its forms.
At the onset of the play, Bradshaw distinctly describes Mrs. Warren’s daughter, Vive, as a “highly educated young middle-class Englishwomen” that is “prompt, strong, confident, [and] self-possessed” (12). Her rejections of...