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영어

The perspective of socialism tends to be applied to analysis of Bernard Shaw’s plays which directly deal with the social problems, while his plays which focus on the creative evolution are analyzed by the perspective of life force. But such a dichotomous approach caused many contradictory and confusing explanations of Shaw’s characters, especially of Undershaft in Major Barbara. In spite of the fact that Shaw was devoted to socialism and in his works socialism was obviously reflected, he disapproved to be defined as a socialist, commenting he was a moral revolutionary, interested not in the class war, but in the struggle between human vitality and the artificial system of morality. Since he believed that progress can be achieved by the improvement of the human nature rather than by the reformation of the institutions, he laid particular stress on the life force which accompanies human’s living will, courage, and realistic standpoint. Therefore if, even in the analysis of the plays with the subject matter of the social evils, we exclude the viewpoint of life force, we may fail to evaluate the works as a whole. In Major Barbara, Undershaft provides the cornerstone of the creative evolution by destroying of the false idealism of Barbara and Cusins that religion and philosophy can solve the problems of man and society. Despite his limitation that he reveals no creative vision for the future, he has the claim to be defined as a personification of life force.