Sex
Man and Superman offers Shaw's insightful take on the sexual nature of humanity. Within the play, Ann Whitefield sets her sights on her new guardian, John Tanner. Despite his aversion to romance, he eventually gives in to her pursuit. His draw to her isn't rooted in typical love but rather the "Life Force" she exudes. This pull is more about sexual attraction than romantic feelings. Shaw's idea of the Life Force is influenced by the French philosopher Henri Bergson’s concept of élan vital, or the spirit of life.
Bergson proposed that intellect is an evolved form of instinct, and together, they create a vitality that links all living things to God. Social traditions such as marriage and courtship disguise the underlying drive for life and reproduction. The Life Force embodies the creative drive for self-preservation and renewal, urging beings to evolve, adapt, and achieve their potential. Bergson's views align with French naturalist Jean Baptiste Lamarck’s biological theory that organisms adapt to their surroundings to survive through self-change. Lamarck’s ideas came before Darwin’s theory of natural selection. Shaw, however, leans towards Lamarckian determinism, which suggests an unconscious drive towards life.
Shaw weaves both philosophical and biological theories into his concept of the Life Force, which appears frequently in his works, particularly in his prefaces. It is most thoroughly explored in the "Don Juan in Hell" section of Act III. Here, Ann Whitefield becomes Dona Ana de Ulloa, and Tanner transforms into Don Juan Tenorio. Together, they debate the virtues of heaven and earth with the devil and "the statue," Ana’s deceased father. Don Juan asserts that, "Life is a force which has made innumerable experiments in organizing itself... the mammoth and the man, the mouse and the megatherium, the flies and the fleas and the Fathers of the Church... all more or less successful attempts to build up that raw force into higher and higher individuals, the ideal individual being omnipotent, omniscient, infallible, and withal completely, unilludedly self-conscious: in short, a god."
The goal of the Life Force is to create a superior being, the Superman. In Man and Superman, the Life Force is expressed through female intuition, which seeks to pair with a male of superior intellect. An exceptional woman, driven by a strong and compelling Life Force, disregards lesser intellects like Octavius, who, although smart, lacks charisma. Instead, she is drawn to someone like Tanner, whose intellect makes him grumpy and abrasive to other men but irresistible to strong women like Ann.
While merging intellect with the Life Force might seem unconventional, Don Juan explains that "brains" are crucial for survival. Therefore, a woman looks for a partner whose offspring are likely to thrive.
Ubermensch (Superman)
The German term Ubermensch first appeared in Goethe's Faust (1808) and gained wider recognition through Nietzsche's Thus Spake Zarathustra (1892). Nietzsche used this concept to describe a universal human ambition that can only be achieved when individuals control their natural desires and commit to intellectual creativity. For Nietzsche, this represents the ultimate aim of humanity, rising above individual or cultural objectives. The Superman would possess moral and intellectual superiority over the average person.
Nietzsche was inspired by Arthur Schopenhauer, a German philosopher who proposed that a universal "Will" influences nature and individual behaviors. Nietzsche's idea of the Superman impacted Hitler's vision for a dominant Aryan race. Shaw also suggests that a Superman could emerge from humans possessing the highest intellectual and moral qualities.
In Man and Superman , the creation of a Superman is seen as a possibility through the union of Jack Tanner, due to his intellectual capabilities, and...
(This entire section contains 281 words.)
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Ann Whitefield, who embodies the Life Force. The concept of the Superman is directly mentioned in the play when the devil calls Nietzsche’s Superman "the latest in fashion among Life Force fanatics" in Act III. Shaw’s Don Juan states that the Life Force's goal is to produce a Superman and that humanity's greatest purpose is to serve this cause and cultivate a philosophical mindset to comprehend it.
Intellect is vital because, without it, humanity "blunders into death." The philosophical person "seeks in contemplation to uncover the world's inner will, in invention to find ways to fulfill that will, and in action to carry out that will through the discovered means." Essentially, each individual should aim to understand their ultimate purpose and willingly align with the Life Force's drive to create the Superman.
Moral Corruption
The tale of Don Juan is an enduring narrative about a compulsive lover and explorer who ultimately meets his fate at the hands of the devil after a life spent chasing women. Perhaps the most renowned adaptation is Mozart's opera Don Giovanni (1787). In this version, Don Giovanni (Don Juan) tries to seduce Donna Anna, who rebuffs him, leading to a duel where he kills her father, the Commander, while defending her honor. Later, Don Giovanni and his servant Leporello come across a statue of the late Commander in a graveyard, and Don Giovanni mockingly invites it to dinner. The statue nods in agreement and later shows up at the meal, reprimanding Don Giovanni for his reckless lifestyle. The Devil then arrives to take him away, while the authorities arrive too late to apprehend him for murdering Donna Anna’s father.
The origins of the Don Juan legend are cloaked in mystery, first appearing in Spanish literature in 1630 with Don Juan of Seville. In the eighteenth century, Moliere wrote his own adaptation, and in the early nineteenth century, Lord Byron reimagined Don Juan as a loquacious adventurer traveling from Spain to a Greek island, then to Turkey and Russia, and eventually to England. During his journey, he engages in love affairs interspersed with philosophical musings on power, politics, and poets. Shaw's play is a modern and comedic twist on Mozart's work, which Shaw greatly admired due to his mother's involvement in opera.
In Shaw's version of the Don Juan story, the roles are reversed: Ann Whitefield becomes the pursuer, while John Tanner, the Don Juan figure, is a reluctant lover. The commander/statue character is transformed into Roebuck Ramsden, who threatens Tanner not with a sword but by throwing Tanner’s book, The Revolutionist’s Handbook, at him. Instead of a conflict over her virtue, they engage in a verbal duel about whether Ann should be allowed to read Tanner’s book and how to handle her joint guardianship. This role reversal shifts the theme from moral corruption, as seen in the original Don Juan, to one of moral passion—a concept borrowed from Hegel. Tanner is fervent about upholding his morals despite Ann's attempts at seduction. Ultimately, he is unsuccessful because Ann, driven by the Life Force, lacks morals and is determined to procreate, as is Tanner. In Shaw’s rendition, moral corruption is portrayed as merely a consequence of the fundamental biological urge to continue the species.
