Description

Although Bernard Shaw is often regarded as a writer of English society plays, his formative years in Ireland deeply influenced his work for the stage. His use of Irish-born, Irish Diasporic, Surrogate Irish, and Stage English characters reveals the degree to which he maintained a strongly Irish perspective throughout his life. Shaw's Irish-born characters betray his Irish reverse snobbery; he uses them to suggest that it is better to come from a marginalized background than a privileged one. Some of his English and American characters (including Henry Higgins) derive their strengths - and some of their weaknesses - from their Irish cultural backgrounds, and Shaw occasionally endows non-Irish characters (such as Saint Joan) with Irish qualities and then uses them as crypto-Irish foils in their dealings with English characters. Shaw uses Stage English characters in his three Irish plays to critique the English for what he sees as their national flaws.