The widening scope of the Shavian heroine.
Item
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Title
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The widening scope of the Shavian heroine.
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Identifier
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AAI9807937
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identifier
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9807937
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Creator
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Granger, Judith.
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Contributor
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Adviser: David J. Gordon
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Date
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1997
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Language
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English
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Publisher
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City University of New York.
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Subject
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Literature, English | Theater | Women's Studies
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Abstract
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"The Widening Scope of the Shavian Heroine" explores woman's historical experience and expanding role in society at the turn of the twentieth century, and the reflection of that social history and expansion in Shaw's major plays. Nineteenth-century constrictions confining Victorian women to a domestic social role were replaced by the Edwardian "New Woman's" expanded opportunities, presented by Shaw in the evolving roles of the heroines of his plays. Their progressive evolution exemplified the early twentieth-century expansion of Western woman's self-conception and social role.;The scope of the Edwardian New Woman and of the Shavian dramatic heroine widened from the traditional concept of woman solely as domestic nurturer to the modern concept of multiple and self-determined roles for women in a wider world.;The enlarged opportunities and concerns of Shaw's heroines within the time frame of 1893-1923 reflected Shaw's awareness of the unprecedented evolution in the social status of women and the expansion of women's social role and responsibilities, demonstrated by the multiple and progressively expanding roles of his major heroines in Candida, Man and Superman, Mrs. Warren's Profession, Pygmalion, Major Barbara, and Saint Joan. Shaw's Victorian domestic heroines, Candida and Ann Whitefield, represented nineteenth-century woman's traditional domestic nurturant role. Shaw's Edwardian heroines reflected the opening of educational, economic, and political opportunities to women: the scope of Shaw's entrepreneurial heroines, Vivie Warren and Liza Doolittle, widened to the public world of business and commerce, and Shaw's crusading savior heroines, Major Barbara and Saint Joan, embodied the expansion of Edwardian woman's social and political concerns.
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Type
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dissertation
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Source
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PQT Legacy CUNY.xlsx
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degree
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Ph.D.
