Shakkeela Sainu Kalarickal/ Punalur
George Bernard Shaw can in one word described as the irresistible genius with full contradictions. He had once said of himself as a self-proclaimed bachelor, an Irishman, a vegetarian, a man who can speak lies in the wink of an eyelid, a social democrat, a debater, a lover of music, fiercely opposed to the current status of women, and terribly stubborn about the serious nature of art.
The only thing that has changed is that he is single…
His play ‘Widower’s Houses’ was the first whiplash against the Victorian conception of femininity.
The idea of women during those days was just as decorative items.
He could not bear to see literary men extolling womanhood as the pinnacle of holiness.
Determined to create a new womanhood to empower women.
he wrote Mrs. Warren’s Profession”.
It fueled the moral dilemmas of Victorian England.
A.G. Gardiner described Shaw with the meaningful phrase, “a whip that lashed across the centre of this century”…
It is doubtful whether there has been a literary writer in the century who has stirred contemporary life so much.
During the First World War, when Shaw wrote a pamphlet called “A Little Common Sense About War”, England, which had no time for anything, was panicked and did not know how to pacify Shaw…. So invincible and extraordinary is the power of Shaw’s writing….
He was born in 1856 in Dublin, Ireland.
It was his pastime to make fun of the sentimentalism of the Englishman
He had in-depth knowledge in various fields of art like music, drama and writing.
Shah introduced Ibsen to the English in his critical book “Quinsensence of Ibsenism” and criticized them well for their lack of character.
“If you can’t say something that will annoy a person, it’s better not to say it.
They don’t bother about anything that doesn’t bother them… First you have to figure out what to say…
Then you should say it like a slap in the face…
He said so many things.
Just like Arjuna’s arrow, it has hit the bulls eye and was on-dot. It hit where it ought to.
That is the somewhat miraculous man of contradictions that Priestley described as half genius and half clown….
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