Shaw Mrs Warren

Shaw: Mrs. Warren’s Profession Essay, Research Paper

MRS. WARREN’S PROFESSIONMRS. WARREN is engaged in a profession which has existed through all the ages. It was at home in Egypt, played an important role in Greece and Rome, formed one of the influential guilds in the Middle Ages, and has been one of the main sources of income for the Christian Church.But it was left to modern times to make of Mrs. Warren’s profession a tremendous social factor, ministering to the needs of man in every station of life, from the brownstone mansion to the hovel, from the highest official to the poorest drag.Time was when the Mrs. Warrens were looked upon as possessed by the devil,-lewd, depraved creatures who would not, even if they had the choice, engage in any other profession, because they are vicious at heart, and should therefore be held up to condemnation and obloquy. And while we continue to drive them from pillar to post, while we still punish them as criminals and deny them the simplest humanities one gives even to the dumb beast, the light turned on this subject by men like George Bernard Shaw has helped to expose the lie of inherent evil tendencies and natural depravity. Instead we learn:Mrs. Warren. Do you think I did what I did be cause I liked it, or thought it right, or wouldn’t rather have gone to college and been a lady if I’d had the chance. . . . Oh, it’s easy to talk, very easy, isn’t it. Here!– Would you like to know what my circumstances were. D’you know what your gran’ mother was. No, you don’t. I do. She called herself a widow and had a fried-fish shop down by the Mint, and kept herself and four daughters out of it. Two of us were sisters: that was me and Liz; and we were both good looking and well made. I suppose our father was a well fedman: mother pretended he was a gentleman; but I don’t know. The other two were only half sisters-under sized, ugly, starved, hard working, honest poor creatures: Liz and I would have half murdered them if mother hadn’t half murdered us to keep our hands off them. They were the respectable ones. Well, what did they get by their respectability. I’ll tell you. One of them worked in a whitelead factory twelve hours a day for nine shillings a week until she died of lead poisoning. She only expected to get her hands a little paralyzed; but she died. The other was always held up to us as a model because she married a Government laborer in the Deptford victualling yard, and kept his room and the three children neat and tidy on eighteen shillings a week–until he took to drink. That was worth being respectable for, wasn’t it. Vivie. Did you and your sister think so.Mrs. Warren. Liz didn’t, I can tell you; she had more spirit. We both went to a Church School–that was part of the lady-like airs we gave ourselves to be superior to the children that knew nothing and went no where–and we stayed there until Liz went out one night and never came back. I knew the schoolmistress thought I’d soon follow her example; for the clergyman was always warning me that Lizzie ‘d end by jumping off Waterloo Bridge. Poor fool: that was all that he knew about it! But I was more afraid of the whitelead factory than I was of the river; and so would you have been in my place. That clergyman got me a situation as a scullery maid in a temperance restaurant where they sent out for anything you liked. Then I was waitress; and then I went to the bar at Waterloo Station-fourteen hours a day seeing drinks and washing glasses for four shillings a week and my board. That was considered a great promotion for me. Well, one cold, wretched night, when I was so tired I could hardly keep myself awake, who should come up for a half of Scotch but Lizzie, in a long fur cloak, elegant and comfortable, with a lot of sovereigns in her purse.Vivie. My aunt Lizzie .Mrs. Warren. Yes…. She’s living down at Winchester, now, dose to the cathedral, one of the most respectable ladies there–chaperones girls at the country ball, if you please. No river for Liz, thank you! You remind me of Liz a little: she was a first-rate business woman–saved money from the beginning–never let herself look too like what she was–never lost her head or threw away a chance. When she saw I’d grown up good-looking she said to me across the bar: “What are you doing there, you little fool . Wearing out your health and your appearance for other people’s profit!” Liz was saving money then to take a house for herself in Brussels: and she thought we two could save faster than one. So she lent me some money and gave me a start; and I saved steadily and first paid her back, and then went into business with her as her partner. Why shouldn’t I have done it. The house in Brussels was real high class–a much better place for a woman to be in than the factory where Anne Jane got poisoned. None of our girls were ever treated as I was treated in the scullery of that temperance place, or at the Waterloo bar, or at home. Would you have had me stay in them and become a worn-out old drudge before I was forty. . . . Yes, saving money. But where can a woman get the money to save in any other business. Could you save out of four shillings a week and keep yourself dressed as well. Not you. Of course, if you’re a plain woman and can’t earn anything more: or if you have a turn for music, or the stage, or newspaper writing: that’s different. But neither Liz nor I had any turn for such things: all we had was our appearance and our turn for pleasing men. Do