Mrs. Warren's Profession Questions and Answers
Mrs. Warren's Profession
Are there any similarities between the play Mrs. Warren's Profession and The Importance of Being Earnest?
Both plays are turn-of-the-20th-century social satires written by Anglo-Irish men living in England. Both premiered in London. Mrs. Warren’s Profession was published in 1898 and first produced in...
Mrs. Warren's Profession
What sort of satire and humor are present in George Bernard Shaw's play Mrs. Warren's Profession?
Shaw presents the satire of his play through his dramatis personae. Each character represents a part of society and/or a worldview that Shaw satirizes by pointing out its follies, using irony as...
Mrs. Warren's Profession
In Mrs. Warren's Profession, how is Vivie the New Woman, in terms of her appearance as well as her ideas?
The New Woman was a term used by writer Henry James and others from the late nineteenth century onward to describe a type of female who was the antithesis of the Victorian angel of the home. The...
Mrs. Warren's Profession
How does Shaw use settings in Mrs. Warren's Profession to achieve his goals in the play?
The main theme of George Bernard Shaw`s play, Mrs. Warren`s Profession, is the contrast between surface values and actual truth. Money brings the appearance of respectability, and can serve as a...
Mrs. Warren's Profession
Is Mrs Warren's Profession a critique on capitalism and industrialization?
Not really. Mrs Warren's Profession is, in fact, a feminist play. G.B. Shaw himself declared that he had written it for women and about women. As a socialist, Shaw was aware of social and gender...
Mrs. Warren's Profession
How are Vivie and her mother alike and how are they different in Mrs. Warren's Profession?
Both Vivie and her mother are successful career women who take practical steps to make their ways in the world. Mrs. SWarren flouts Victorian convention in running a brothel. She is unconventional...
Mrs. Warren's Profession
What is the genre or subgenre of Mrs. Warren's Profession?
Mrs. Warren's Profession by George Bernard Shaw is a prime example of the genre known as the problem play. This genre first developed on the Western stage in the late nineteenth century to cater to...
Mrs. Warren's Profession
What are some examples of hypocrisy in the play Mrs. Warren's Profession by George Bernard Shaw?
Many examples exist of hypocrisy in "Mrs. Warren's Profession" by George Bernard Shaw. First of all, Mrs. Warren becomes a prostitute because she would rather work in a brothel than a factory with...
Mrs. Warren's Profession
What is the importance and significance of "Mrs. Warren's Profession"?
Perhaps the single most important and significant feature of George Bernard Shaw's play, Mrs. Warren's Profession, is its frank and unsentimental treatment of the business of prostitution. In this...
Mrs. Warren's Profession
Why does Vivie tell her mother at the end of the play that she is a "conventional woman at heart?"
Towards the end of the play, Vivie Warren explains her mother Kitty's behavior in a way that shows that Vivie has a very scornful notion of what is expected of women, and of what women are like....
Mrs. Warren's Profession
In the final moment of Mrs. Warren's Profession, what does Shaw bid us ask?
The biggest question that the ending of this brilliant play seems to ask in my mind concerns the nature of the mother/daughter relationship that is at the heart of the play and the way that both...
Mrs. Warren's Profession
What happened to Mrs. Warren's two "good" sisters in Mrs. Warren's Profession?
Before answering this question, it is very important to realise how Shaw was challenging the views of the day and what the public thought of prostitution. Prostitution was considered to be a major...
Mrs. Warren's Profession
What lesson is Shaw trying to teach with the play?
In his play Mrs. Warren's Profession, George Bernard Shaw shows us a series of dynamics that take place in the same plot. First, you have the topic central theme of the hypocrisy among the upper...
Mrs. Warren's Profession
What kind of role does the content of the preface play in connection to the drama?
Yes, it guides us to take very seriously the play’s criticism of capitalism, marriage, and the position of women in Shaw’s 1895 British culture. He wants his audience to understand the...
Mrs. Warren's Profession
What is significant about the man who discusses perjury in Act II of Mrs. Warren's Profession by George Bernard Shaw?
The man that is discussing perjury in Act II of George Bernard Shaw's Mrs. Warren's Profession is Reverend Samuel Gardner. Gardner is described verbatim as: "...a beneficed clergyman of the...
Mrs. Warren's Profession
What is significant about the setting in Act I?
The importance of placing the opening action of the play in a garden such as the one described in the text is its connection to the nature of English society. One of Shaw's main goals behind...
Mrs. Warren's Profession
Why might Shaw have Frank confess to gambling in Act IV of Mrs. Warren's Profession?
The most possible reason why Shaw made Frank confess to gambling in Act IV of Mrs. Warren's Profession is to give an otherwise incorrigible character some redeeming characteristics. We know as...
Mrs. Warren's Profession
Is Mrs. Warren in Mrs. Warren's Profession any worse or better than the weather men who finance her business or...
This very much lies at the heart of this excellent play. Let us remember that George Bernard Shaw is above all a playwright who has a distinct socialist slant to his work, and focuses on the themes...