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George Bernard Shaw's Major Barbara
Task A - Familiarising yourself with the passage
Below you will find an extract from the very beginning of George Bernard
Shaw's Major Barbara and a video-clip of the extract being acted
out by some undergraduate students studying Theatre Studies at Lancaster
University.
We suggest that you familiarise yourself with the
extract by reading it through and then, after you have done that, watching
the video-clip. That way, you will be able to form your own impressions
of the extract before seeing how the students interpret it.
In Task B we will be asking you to spell out what you see as the relationship
between the two characters in terms of power and anything else you think
relevant. So it will be useful to bear this in mind when you are reading
the extract and watching it performed.
ACT I
[It is after dinner in January 1906, in the library
in Lady Britomart Undershaft's house in Wilton Crescent. A large and
comfortable settee is in the middle of the room, upholstered in dark
leather. A person sitting on it (it is vacant at present) would have,
on his right, Lady Britomart's writing table, with the lady herself
busy at it; a smaller writing table behind him on his left; the door
behind him on Lady Britomart's side; and a window seat directly on his
left. Near the window is an empty armchair. Lady Britomart is a woman
of fifty or thereabouts, well dressed and yet careless of her dress,
well bred and quite reckless of her breeding, well mannered and yet
appallingly outspoken and indifferent to the opinion of her interlocutors,
amiable and yet peremptory, arbitrary, and high-tempered to the last
bearable degree, and withal a very typical managing matron of the upper
class, treated as a naughty child until she grew into a scolding mother,
and finally settling down with plenty of practical ability and wordly
experience, limited in the oddest way with domestic and class limitations,
conceiving the universe exactly as if it were a large house in Wilton
Crescent, though handling her corner of it very effectively on that
assumption, and being quite enlightened as to the books in the library,
the pictures on the walls, the music in the portfolio, and the articles
in the papers. Her son, Stephen, comes in. He is a gravely correct young
man under 25, taking himself very seriously, but still in some awe of
his mother, from childish habit and bachelor shyness rather than from
any weakness of character.]
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1 STEPHEN:
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What's the matter?
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2 LADY B:
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Presently, Stephen.
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[Stephen walks submissively to the settee and sits
down. He takes up a Liberal weekly called The Speaker.]
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3 LADY B:
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Don't begin to read, Stephen. I shall require all your attention.
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4 STEPHEN:
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It was only while I was waiting---
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5 LADY B:
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Don't make excuses, Stephen. [He puts down
The Speaker] Now! [She finishes her
writing; rises; and comes to the settee] I have not kept
you waiting very long, I think.
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6 STEPHEN:
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Not at all, mother.
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7 LADY B:
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Bring me my cushion. [He takes the cushion
from the chair at the desk and arranges it for her as she sits down
on the settee.] Sit down. [He sits down
and fingers his tie nervously] Don't fiddle with your tie,
Stephen; there is nothing the matter with it.
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8 STEPHEN:
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I beg your pardon. [He fiddles with his watch
chain instead.]
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9 LADY B:
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Now are you attending to me, Stephen?
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10 STEPHEN:
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Of course, mother.
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11 LADY B:
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No: it's not of course. I want something much more than your everyday
matter-of-course attention. I am going to speak to you very seriously,
Stephen. I wish you would let that watch-chain alone.
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12 STEPHEN:
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[Hastily relinquishing the chain] Have
I done anything to annoy you, mother? If so, it was quite unintentional.
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13 LADY B [astonished]:
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Nonsense! [With some remorse] My poor
boy, did you think I was angry with you?
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14 STEPHEN:
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What is it then, mother? You are making me very uneasy.
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15 LADY B
[squaring herself at him rather aggressively]:
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Stephen: may I ask how soon you intend to realize that you are
a grown-up man, and that I am only a woman?
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16 STEPHEN: [amazed]:
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Only a---
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17 LADY B:
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Don't repeat my words, please: it is a most aggravating habit.
You must learn to face life seriously, Stephen. I really cannot
bear the whole burden of our family affairs any longer. You must
advise me: you must assume the responsibility.
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18 STEPHEN:
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I!
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19 LADY B:
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Yes, you, of course. You were 24 last June. You've been at Harrow
and Cambridge. You've been to India and Japan. You must know a lot
of things, now; unless you have wasted your time most scandalously.
Well, advise me.
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20 STEPHEN
[much perplexed]:
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You know I have never interfered in the household---
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21 LADY B:
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No. I should think not. I don't want you to order the dinner.
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22 STEPHEN:
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I mean in our family affairs.
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23 LADY B:
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Well, you must interfere now; for they are getting quite beyond
me.
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24 STEPHEN [troubled]:
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I have thought sometimes that perhaps I ought; but, really, mother,
I know so little about them; and what I do know is so painful! it
is so impossible to mention some things to you--- [he
stops, ashamed].
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25 LADY B:
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I suppose you mean your father.
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26 STEPHEN
[almost inaudibly]:
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Yes.
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27 LADY B:
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My dear: we can't go on all our lives not mentioning him. Of course
you were quite right not to open the subject until I asked you to;
but you are old enough now to be taken into my confidence, and to
help me to deal with him about the girls.
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28 STEPHEN:
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But the girls are all right. They are engaged.
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29 LADY B [complacently]:
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Yes: I have made a very good match for Sarah. Charles Lomax will
be a millionaire at 35. But that is ten years ahead; and in the
meantime his trustees cannot under the terms of his father's will
allow him more than £800 a year.
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30 STEPHEN:
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But the will also says that if he increases his income by his own
exertions, they may double the increase.
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31 LADY B:
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Charles Lomax's exertions are much more likely to decrease his
income than to increase it . . .
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George Bernard Shaw 
 Watch the 'Major Barbara' video clip.
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