THE DRONE AND THE BEE: MAN-WOMAN RELATIONSHIP IN G. B. SHAW’S MAN AND SUPERMAN

Abstract

In Man and Superman, which is subtitled A Comedy and A Philosophy, G. B. Shaw is basically concerned with the issue of the relationship between men and women. He portrays women as primarily endowed with vital reproductivity and men as endowed with potential intellectuality. Though in this philosophical comedy, he expounds to some length the doctrine of Life Force, he does not attempt to approach the issue in a purely philosophical manner. He contrasts men’s intellectualism and romanticism and women’s active vitality and practical immorality, and thus his women are motivated to desire men for marriage, and his men either harbour romantic illusions about women or engage in intellectual discussion about man-woman relationship before attempting to escape from the women who are pursuing them for marriage. In the prefatory note to the play, Shaw defends men’s intellectual view of this relationship, and as the writer of this comedy, he represents women as if they are the queen bees guided by the Life Force, which forces them to mark out men as their mates and their subsequent victims. The playwright represents men as finally capitulating to such desires of women, though all for the sake of this Life Force, which is purposed to produce intellectually advanced supermen. Though Shaw uses this drone-bee relation as a motif to produce comical effects, with this he both highlights the man-woman relationship and makes it clear that this concept of the Life Force cannot be taken too seriously.