Major Barbara
1907
What happens when your father makes money from death, and wants to give it to your charity? This is the explosive premise at the heart of Shaw's most devilishly smart play. Barbara Undershaft is a Major in the Salvation Army, devoting her life to helping London's poor. She hasn't spoken to her father Andrew in years - he's an arms manufacturer, and she considers his wealth absolutely tainted. But when he reappears, wanting to donate a fortune to her shelter, Barbara faces an unbearable question: can money be dirty? Can goodness be bought? Shaw's characters clash over dinner tables and in Salvation Army halls, each making a devastating case. Undershaft argues that his weapons create jobs and feed families, while Barbara's charity merely treats poverty's symptoms. Is it nobler to give a hungry man soup, or to ask why he's hungry in the first place? The play refuses easy answers, leaving both Barbara and the audience genuinely torn. A century later, the questions sting even sharper. Major Barbara remains essential for anyone who thinks seriously about ethics, class, and whether purity is possible in an imperfect world.
Editions
X-Ray
“He knows nothing; and he thinks he knows everything. That points clearly to a political career.””
— Bernard Shaw
“You have learnt something. That always feels at first as if you have lost something.””
— Bernard Shaw
“You cannot have power for good without having power for evil too. Even mother's milk nourishes murderers as well as heroes.””
— Bernard Shaw
“Like all young men, you greatly exaggerate the difference between one young woman and another.””
— Bernard Shaw
“All professions are conspiracies against the laity.””
— Bernard Shaw
“When you vote, you only change the names of the cabinet. When you shoot, you pull down governments, inaugurate new epochs, abolish old orders and set up new.””
— Bernard Shaw
“Nothing is ever done in this world until men are prepared to kill one another if it is not done””
— Bernard Shaw
“It is quite useless to declare that all men are born free if you deny that they are born good.””
— Bernard Shaw
“CUSINS. No: the price is settled: that is all. The real tug of war is still to come. What about the moral question? LADY BRITOMART. There is no moral question in the matter at all, Adolphus. You must simply sell cannons and weapons to people whose cause is right and just, and refuse them to foreigners and criminals. UNDERSHAFT [determinedly] No: none of that. You must keep the true faith of an Armorer, or you don't come in here. CUSINS. What on earth is the true faith of an Armorer? UNDERSHAFT. To give arms to all men who offer an honest price for them, without respect of persons or principles: to aristocrat and republican, to Nihilist and Tsar, to Capitalist and Socialist, to Protestant and Catholic, to burglar and policeman, to black man white man and yellow man, to all sorts and conditions, all nationalities, all faiths, all follies, all causes and all crimes. The first Undershaft wrote up in his shop IF GOD GAVE THE HAND, LET NOT MAN WITHHOLD THE SWORD. The second wrote up ALL HAVE THE RIGHT TO FIGHT: NONE HAVE THE RIGHT TO JUDGE. The third wrote up TO MAN THE WEAPON: TO HEAVEN THE VICTORY. The fourth had no literary turn; so he did not write up anything; but he sold cannons to Napoleon under the nose of George the Third. The fifth wrote up PEACE SHALL NOT PREVAIL SAVE WITH A SWORD IN HER HAND. The sixth, my master, was the best of all. He wrote up NOTHING IS EVER DONE IN THIS WORLD UNTIL MEN ARE PREPARED TO KILL ONE ANOTHER IF IT IS NOT DONE. After that, there was nothing left for the seventh to say. So he wrote up, simply, UNASHAMED. CUSINS.””
— Bernard Shaw
