Traditional readings of George Bernard Shaw's texts suggest that he is not a pure
Marxist socialist because of the spiritual and nationalist aspects of his vision. This thesis
attempts to confront Shaw's politics in order to demonstrate that he indeed offers a viable
socialist program. Overlaying his socialism with Louis Althusser's concepts of
"overdetermination," "structural causality," and "ideology" reveals that Shaw uses
relatively autonomous instances of the superstructure toward socialist ends. This
reevaluation of Shaw is best achieved through a combined reading of three of his major
plays -- John Bull's Other Island, Man and Superman, and Major Barbara. In John Bull,
Shaw incorporates the controversy of nationalism into his socialist vision by explaining it
as an inevitable step in the development of an oppressed nation toward socialism. Man and
Superman discusses the need for spirituality in the form of Shaw's concepts of Creative
Evolution and the Life Force, which drive toward the development of a consciousness that
recognizes socialism as the only sustainable internationalist program. Major Barbara
combines Shaw's socialist and spiritual views by showing that both stand in reciprocal
relation to each other; they are equally necessary to the Shavian world, one providing the
ideal social system, the other the most enlightened human sensibility. This project
demonstrates that Shaw's integration of these elements usually considered contradictory to
Marxism becomes a way to understand him as practicing the Althusserian idea that any
displacements of the infrastructure are economic in the last instance. / Graduation date: 1999
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:ORGSU/oai:ir.library.oregonstate.edu:1957/33556 |
| Date | 11 June 1998 |
| Creators | Kramer, Johanna I. |
| Contributors | Davison, Neil R. |
| Source Sets | Oregon State University |
| Language | en_US |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis/Dissertation |
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