The Gospel According to Undershaft

"I am a sort of collector of religions," remarks Adolphus Cusins, Major Barbara Undershaft's fiancй, midway through the second act of George Bernard Shaw's morality play, Major Barbara. And thus, the play can be seen as collection of varying religious, moral, and social ideals. The play centers on Barbara Undershaft and her father Andrew Undershaft, a Salvation Army Major and a millionaire arms dealer respectively, and there conflicting ideological beliefs. However, Shaw also creates the character of Adolphus Cusins, a Greek scholar, to act as an impartial buffer between the two. He is realist who looks at every belief objectively, and finds a way to see logic in them all. Through these three characters Shaw is able to show an entire spectrum of opinions regarding God, love, and salvation. Although in the end only one belief will prevail

Major Barbara is structured by a contest between father and daughter for the other's soul and the path of salvation. Each agrees to visit the other's workplace and allow the other to attempt their conversion. Undershaft's visit to the Salvation Army shelter takes place in second act; Barbara goes to the armory with her family in the third act. Sadly, as one literary critic said, "It ends with a triumvirate of Barbara, her rich father, and her fiancй, a professor of ancient Greek, taking over the munitions factory. It is Shaw's vision of the alliance of the future, a trinity of spirit, body, and mind: idealism, realism, and intelligence"(Applegate). By the end, Barbara suffers a crisis of faith, and she, along with her fiancй, accept her father's of "Money and Gun Powder" philosophy.

Andrew Undershaft is the wealthy owner of a munitions manufacturing company. Undershaft understands himself in participating in a greater power that controls the world, not the Salvation Army of God, but the armory proper. The Undershaft firm represents an alternative canon, charting a long tradition of Saint Andrews who have quietly held Europe under their thumbs and determined the course of history. As with his predecessors, Undershaft is a foundling who understands himself as having established himself in the world through the force of his will alone. Over and against Christian ideals of human brotherhood, the recognition Undershaft demands from his neighbor is not love but obedience and respect, a bending to his will. "He is portrayed as strong and powerful, god like almost, as one critic noted, By bringing in these associations of godhead, Shaw gives a greater substance to the effect of Undershaft"(Whittock).

Undershaft's gospel is organized around the ideals of the military industrialists. As the characters come to realize, the world is not in God's power but in the power of the military industrialist. With money and gunpowder, Undershaft participates in the power that reigns over Europe, the power that determines the course of society. This re-organization of society, rather than one's faith in a religious dogma, provides the means of salvation. For Undershaft, man does not need redemption from sinfulness but from abject poverty, hunger, and sickness. The growth of Christian virtues rests fundamentally on man's material security. Undershaft wants nothing to do with a religion that abjures warfare and wealth. These evils are the necessary means by which man can be saved.

Undershaft's philosophy also organizes itself around a notion the great man's "will." This will comes into being through the agonistic struggle between men. As Undershaft proclaims, a sacred commandment, "Thou shalt starve ere I starve," sets him on the path to greatness. Through a murderous struggle with others, Undershaft realizes his will and desire. Thus his "bravest enemy" is his best friend, a rival who keeps him "up to the mark." Over and against Christian ideals of human brotherhood, the recognition Undershaft demands from his neighbor is not love but obedience and respect, a bending to his will. Again, the struggle he stages with others is decidedly violent. Those who do not submit to his desire must die.

Violence in the name of the will does restrict itself to those who stand in the way of the great man's desire, but existing social structures, institutions, and ways of thinking as well. Violence is the way the moralist's ideals of what should happen actually happen. Only the murderous command can inaugurate the new that follows necessarily according to the will of the great man. Until he achieves his will, he is menace to civilization; upon its realization, he becomes its benefactor. Thus, the great man makes history.

Undershaft's Perivalee Saint Andrews appears as a paradise of social engineering. Undershaft has redeemed his men more successfully than preaching ever could by eliminating poverty. He does not do so for the love of the masses. Undershaft provides for their comfort to assure his company's productivity. He also, however, considers poverty the worst of man's crimes. For Undershaft, the crime of poverty is a crime committed against society by the poor themselves. The poor, appearing as abject masses from some paranoid fantasy, destroy society's happiness, forcing the ruling class to eliminate its liberties and organize unnatural cruelties to keep them in check.

Thus Undershaft will pit himself against poverty in the name of order and cleanliness. For Undershaft, order and cleanliness are categorical imperatives of sorts. They justify themselves. Though the realization of these essentials would seemingly benefit the masses, but it is quite obvious how they might come at their expense as well. Simply put, the institution of order and cleanliness easily means the elimination of the disorderly and unclean. With that in mind, Undershaft's meaning when he creates his own version of the Salvation Army's motto "My sort of blood cleanses: my sort of fire purifies," becomes clear.

In contrast, Major Barbara of the Salvation Army is an idealist. She is portrayed as a truly religious person. Rejecting the meaninglessness of her secure and pampered existence at Wilton Crescent, Barbara seeks to serve a cause greater than herself, and thinks she has found it in the Salvation Army where she can bring spiritual enlightenment and practical help to the needy and the poor. Barbara's view of the world is portrayed as somewhat naпve. Shaw appears to belittle the Salvation Army, and Barbara by association.

Shaw's portrait of the shelter is fundamentally a critique of the Salvation Army's flaws. One of the many criticisms Shaw underlines, for example, is that the Army forces its clientele to pander to the saintliness of its workers. In this sense the work of the Army has less to do with

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