Ghosts, Part 2 or Getting Married: Shaw's Emendation of the Ibsenian New Woman

abstract:Shaw addresses the argument and form of Ghosts with his 1908 play, Getting Married. With the creation of a new "disquisitory" form, Shaw provides an analogue to Ibsen's Ghosts. In Getting Married, Shaw dramatizes one long discussion on the status of marriage and the necessity for liberalizing divorce laws. Central in the loose narrative are three distinct "New Women," repudiating their duty to Victorian idealism and providing a snapshot of the myriad outcomes for women facing the same problem as Ghosts's Mrs. Alving. In its dramaturgical construction and underlying theme, Getting Married can be seen as response to the Alving's terrible marriage in Ibsen's Ghosts. Lesbia Grantham, Mrs. George Collins, and Edith Bridgenorth function as the potential future iterations of Helene Alving. Getting Married responds, reimagines, and redresses through discourse and dramaturgy a potential world and a potential marriage contract for women that Ibsen's dramatic plotting excises.