Images Of Blood And Fire In Plays: The Robbers And Major Barbara Essay - 1,942 words

Images of Blood and Fire in Plays: The Robbers and Major Barbara The two plays by very well world known writers Friedrich Schiller and Bernard Shaw play important role in the development of audiences perception of what is good and what is evil. In this research we are going to talk about the essence of the two plays and particularly about the images of blood and fire presented in them. These both stories have plenty of violence at the first stage and consequently the images of blood and fire play significant role in the audiences better perception of how negative and ugly can the violent actions be as they appear to be performed in the plays. The images of blood and fire appear at different stages of the two plays and symbolize violence and grief that face the major characters of the stories. In the case of Major Barbara the images of blood and fire go along the whole story through the existence of the cannon factory owned by her father. This factory causes a great deal of controversy that follows the play in the relationships between the main characters.


The main argument of the play Major Barbara is between Undershaft and Major Barbara. They disagree about what each other does for a profession, what their professions due for other people, and the idea of money. In this play Lady Britomart chose not to allow her children to be raised in the presence of their father. She feels that Undershafts decision to not break that family tradition of passing the business down to a foundling, is more than her name can handle. She believes that the family fortune should be passed down to the real blood of the family, not an orphan. Stephan, their son, has trouble accepting the fact that the family business will be passed on to someone else. He is not upset because he will not inherit the family business; he is upset due to the general idea of the inheritance situation.


Stephan has no desire to inherit the business; he is just upset about the foundling that will inherit the business. Lady Britomart is also upset because the business is that of making canons. Lady Britomart feels that making canons is no real way to make a living and earn money. (Gussman) Act I of the play actually consists of Lady Britomart calling Undershaft to dinner to ask him for more money for their children to live on. Their two daughters have chosen to marry men that will not be able to support them to the fullest extent. Barbara has decided that she will marry a professor of Greek philosophy and Sarah decided that she would marry a poet. As he comes to dinner, he meets is family for the first time since they were young kids. He had no clue who they were; he continuously introduces himself to everyone until he finally gets it right.


The children are all curious with the idea of their father. They have always been told that their father was a rotten man due to what he did for a living. So when he came for dinner they were very interested in him, which irritated Lady Britomart. It irritated her because she felt that she was the one that raised them and now they are disrespecting her when finding Undershafts ideas interesting and curious. Barbara and Undershaft hit it off right from the start. They both in some way were very intrigued by each others professions. Barbara dedicated her time to the Salvation Army.


She thought that her mission in life was to help the needy. She felt that her mission was to save the souls of the people that had less fortune in their lives. On the other hand, Undershaft who ran the canon factory, felt that his mission in live was to help people by giving them a solid job, means to feed their children, and a place to sleep at night. But everyone else was so oblivious to that and thought that all he thought about was money and gunpowder. (Gussman) Undershaft thought that poverty was the greatest crime, he hated to see people living in misery and thought that if the were steady in their lives, and then their souls were saved. Undershaft and Barbara made an agreement to see each other at work. So first Undershaft went to the Salvation Army and witnessed the lives that people lived in poverty. While there he also witnessed the fact that the Salvation Army needed a great deal of money to stay open.


The only means to reach their goal was through donations. The owner of the local distillery offered the Salvation Army five thousand dollars if the other half would be donated by someone else. Major Barbara felt that the money from the distillery should not be accepted because liquor causes people to do bad things. But overall the argument against Barbara was that the owner of the distillery was not the one that was causing the harm to people; it was the people that were abusing the alcohol that caused problems. Eventually Undershaft offered up the remainder of the money that was needed to save the Salvation Army, but again Major Barbara did not think they should take the money because it was coming from somebody who is building canons, which in the long run killed people. Thus we see how the images of blood and fire were implied in the cannon factory and how the images influence the relationships between Undershaft and Barbara as well as the other people in the play. Barbara had her mind set to nothing but religion and saving the souls at the Salvation Army.


Undershaft had his ideas set to nothing other than money and gunpowder. But when they met as adults they were able to influence each other ...................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................

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Essay Tags: salvation army, main character, barbara, bernard shaw, robber

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