The Making of a New World

Name: Jason Higgons

Date: Decmber 5, 2013

Tutor:

Topic:

THE MAKING OF A NEW WORLD AS PORTRAYED IN “MRS. WARREN’S PROFFESSION”

Mrs. Warren’s Profession is a play that was published as written by George Bernard Shaw in 1893. The play is greatly concerned with the dark satanic mills of the Victorian Britain of that time. It basically talks about societal evils with Mrs. Warren’s profession, though smartly concealed, actually being prostitution and the running of several brothels through which the lady has made a fortune for herself. One of the actors, Kitty Warren (Lisa Banes) is no mere prostitute but the very successful co-owner and manager of chain of brothels across Europe and actually forms the epicenter of this play. This is in addition to the fact that most of the personalities of the characters are wholly immoral and degenerate. It in this sense is right to say that the play is about immorality (Gail M. Burns, August p7)

In this book, the author is advocating three major things:

1. The empowerment of women

2. The exposition and control of immortality in the British society of the 1800s

3. The balancing between restraints and passion/ fun

In this paper, I intend to cover these by exposing how the author championed these ideas either directly or through the conducts of players.

Women empowerment as brought out in Mrs. Warren’s Profession

From the beginning, we meet two women who are working hard to have their own stamp on society. Though their ways and thinking may be very divergent, Vivie, being 22years of age, is determined to make good of herself in the world of academia and is a well upcoming lawyer and scholar. Right from the beginning of the play, one of the Actors, Mr. Praed, observes that Vivie is “an attractive specimen of the sensible, able, highly-educated young middle-class Englishwoman aged 22, Prompt, strong, confident, self-possessed… plain business-like dress but not dowdy. She wears a...