The Power Relations In Shaw’s Problem Plays

George Bernard Shaw(1856—1950), a leading dramatist in the end of nineteenth and early twentieth century, wrote virtually in the tiny village of Ayot St. Lawrence to the end of his days with a clear and unclouded mind. The materials of Shaw?s plays are taken from his real life, which are so interlaced with provocative comments on social, moral, and political issues that they offer a lens into the very fabric of his age and society. In his five plays mentioned in this thesis, Shaw gives a broad analysis of the phenomenon of social inequality in a complicated way. It does not focus on the direct description of social unrest or power conflicts but on the passive choice of individuals and their final revolution, from which readers can see through the function of social power and also dig into the active resistance of individuals. Thus this thesis combines Bourdieu?s “symbolic power” theory with these five plays to explore how the modern people are lost in the ubiquity of power, and how to find their realist self under the force of the power.This thesis consists of five chapters. The first chapter is an introduction to this thesis including a brief introduction to George Bernard Shaw and his five plays, literature review, and the structure of this thesis. The second chapter attempts to explain Bourdieu?s symbolic power theory and discuss about the invisible power which can be found in some male characters in Shaw?s plays. Under the social influence of class stratification, people easily fall into the dilemma of struggling for the monopoly of the symbols of class, such as luxury goods in both daily life and cultural field, and the legitimated manners that labeled their identity and ideology. Persons in the possession of power are the possessor of the recognized legitimate lifestyles even if sometimes they do not have the intention to distinguish themselves from others. The third chapter shall make a detailed analysis of the inequality in cultural aspect. Culture has many forms in the daily life, including accent, language, clothes and cultural taste, which are an indirect manifestation of individuals? social position and stratum. The denial of those lower, coarse, or vulgar enjoyments is a good recommendation of the superiority in cultural aspect of the members of upper classes, because a work of art can only have meaning for those who possess the cultural heritage and cultural competence. Meanwhile, culture of the upper classes working as a hidden power induces lower-class people to pursue its graceful lifestyle. The upper class?s culture will influence those lower-class people as follows: Rather than forming a healthy personality, they easily suffer from an alienated personality and an invisible loss. The fourth chapter will interpret how the main characters discard their wrong recognition and find their realist self. The last chapter is a conclusion. In this chapter, the author concludes that the willing compliance to social power structure of the lower classes leads to the inequality in cultural aspect in their daily lives with more various forms, while culture is increasingly successful to act as a defender of social governing, making the social inequality hidden; individuals are more convinced to misrecognize the “nature” of social order and class stratification.