A Struggle for an Independent Identity for Two: Mrs. Warren’s Profession

Year 2016, Issue: 38, 257 - 290, 25.08.2016

Yasemen Kiriş Yatağan

Abstract

This
article deals with a particular way of reading Mrs. Warren’s Profession from an ignored point of view. It aims to
exhibit the enormous challenges and struggles of a mother to protect herself and
her only child from the social and economic constraints of the society. It
might be regarded as a common duty for a mother to do so; however, what if she
sacrifices herself for her daughter by selling her body in the time of Victorian
Era when the social constraints were on the rise in terms of moral codes and
when the principle of “prudery” was adopted? During the Victorian Era, a great
majority of the plays dealth extensively with the issue of prostitution that
there appeared a new form of theatre named Brothel
Drama. As a social critic, George Bernard Shaw, to attract especially
women's attention to their inured subordinate and captived position, wrote Mrs. Warren’s Profession for the determination
of women in more then a hundred and twenty years ago at the time when such
issues were even forbidden to mention. Today, also, “prostitution” not only as
an occupation but as a word is also a taboo for the majority of the society. But
under those unpleasant conditions of mentioned occupation, Shaw drew a mother
character representing holy maternal instinct, who struggles to gain a place
within society for both herself and her daughter.

Keywords

Bernard Shaw, Mrs. Warren’s Profession, Motherhood, Prostitution, Independent Identity

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