Previous
Act 2
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Major Barbara, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Power, Anarchy, and Freedom
Critique of Capitalism
Moralism and Hypocrisy
Good vs. Evil
Punishment and Forgiveness
Summary
Analysis
Overnight, both Barbara and Cusins both disavow their participation in the Salvation Army, thanks to their encounters with Andrew Undershaft the previous day. The next morning in Lady Britomart’s library, Cusins describes the meeting Barbara refused to attend. The generous donations made publicly by Bodger and anonymously by Undershaft inspired 117 conversions. In his attempt to comment on what he sees as the ridiculous display of the Salvationists, Charles Lomax irritates Lady Britomart.
At the beginning of the third act, Undershaft looks like a sort of demon bent on destroying Barbara’s and Cusins’ faith. Yet his actions have instead added to the ranks of the faithful. And the number of conversions at the meeting merely confirms how right Mrs. Baines was to accept the money, despite Barbara’s moral scruples. Moreover, he has thus far mostly pointed to inconsistencies in their beliefs, suggesting that their faiths always rested on shaky ground.
Themes
Undershaft himself arrives to escort his family on a tour of his factory. When the young people leave to gather their coats, Lady Britomart makes another fruitless attempt to convince Undershaft to reconsider leaving his business to Stephen. Undershaft admits that Stephen could learn to do the work, but his breeding, schooling, and relative privilege have denied him the grit necessary to succeed in the long run. As they argue, Stephen enters the library, putting an end to the discussion by refusing to follow in his father’s footsteps. He intends to become a politician instead.
In contrast to Barbara, who quit the Salvation Army rather than compromise her moral scruples, Lady Britomart’s hypocrisy continues. She criticizes Undershaft’s business but insists that it should stay in her family by passing to Stephen. When Stephen defies her, he’s both taking a more principled moral stance and insisting on his own autonomy, an important step on his path to maturity.
Themes
Dryly noting that knowing nothing but thinking that he knows everything certainly qualifies Stephen for politics, Undershaft endorses his son’s plan. Still, Stephen’s efforts won’t accomplish much because people like Undershaft himself—the wealthy and the warmongers—truly control society. Stephen disagrees; he believes in the superiority of the English’s moral “national character.”
Ever a proponent of people seizing power, Undershaft endorses Stephen’s plan to forge his own path even though it’s clear he doesn’t respect politicians (or Stephen, with his underdeveloped and uncritical ideas about life). Undershaft doubts the moral compass of the nation—what Stephen calls its character—because he sees how easily societies and individuals comfort themselves with the idea that they believe the right things even when their actions fail to measure up. And he notes how easily money buys influence, power, and control in a system that worships wealth.
Themes
When Barbara, Sarah, Cusins, and Lomax return, Undershaft can’t help but brag about the beauty and order of the nearby village he has built for his workers to live in. Cusins asks how Undershaft maintains order and discipline, and Undershaft answers that order keeps itself in a clearly hierarchal system; each man polices those beneath him. The idea clearly offends Cusins, although he cannot articulate why.
This is another example of Undershaft simply noticing and narrating the way things are. He describes the way that a capitalist system uses money as a proxy for power and how it uses social coercion to keep people in line in ways that benefit the privileged. Polite society rejects Undershaft because he’s willing to say the quiet parts out loud.
Themes
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Undershaft asks Barbara if he has made her unhappy. She replies that she hates him for having exposed the Salvation Army as a fraud and thus having stolen Bill Walker’s soul from her grasp. Undershaft reminds her how deeply her words seemed to affect Bill, suggesting that there is still hope for his salvation. Barbara feels her faith beginning to rekindle. She embraces her father and she faces the visit to the “factory of death" with greater gusto.
Undershaft turns to Barbara, who essentially confesses her anger at her him for exposing the uncomfortable truths that polite society agrees to ignore. Still, now that she’s seen the truth, she can’t go back to her old ways, and this suggests that she stands on the cusp of a new realization and new maturity. Moreover, events in the play suggest that she should be mad at the corruption in the system rather than at her father for pointing it out. He himself gently suggests this.
Themes
The factory town sits between two pleasant green hills. Its streets and buildings are clean, well-ordered, and inviting. It sits behind the weapons testing range where Undershaft and his guests assemble. Barbara, Cusins, and Sarah can find little fault with the town. It is a veritable “heavenly city.” Its happy citizens have access to libraries, schools, nursing homes, insurance and pension funds, and more. Only the reminder that the suffering of others provides these benefits—in the form of a telegram about the successful deployment of one of Undershaft’s new designs—discomforts his guests.
The peace and orderliness of Undershaft’s village contrasts sharply with the dingy setting of Barbara’s Salvation Army shelter, confirming the superiority of his approach toward social reform. What’s more, the ease with which the wealth generated by a single industry provides such a nice life for the workers again pointedly suggests that most societies have enough resources to give everyone a good life, if only resources were shared more equitably.
Themes
Stephen worries that taking such good care of the working men might “sap their independence and […] responsibility.” Undershaft answers that he doesn’t think civilization requires “trouble and anxiety” to exist, at least not more than the natural fear of death that keeps people from being complacent (especially in the explosives business). As if on cue, one of his foremen, Bilton, escorts Charles Lomax away from a nearby explosives shed, complaining that he stupidly lit a match inside. Undershaft takes the young man’s matches away.
When Stephen proposes that work is good for poor people, he merely repeats what his society models in its failure to equitably distribute resources. Undershaft, the play’s moral center, articulates a vision for a different kind of society, one organized around happiness and comfort rather than a desperate scrabble for resources. Taking the matches away from Lomax metaphorically suggests that most people remain blind to the truths the play seeks to illuminate and must therefore be shepherded by men of vision like Undershaft.
Themes
Lady Britomart bustles onto the parapet. She still doesn’t want anything to do with the weapons, but she has become infatuated with the beautiful town. She declares that it belongs to her and her children by rights as Undershaft’s family, and she renews her nagging about their disinheritance. She suggests that Undershaft pretend Cusins is a foundling and adopt him as heir. Undershaft replies that he’d like nothing more—Cusins has the right kind of character. In that case, Cusins says, he’s ready to confess the truth. He decided to hide it when he realized that Barbara came from a wealthy and high-class family, but his parents’ marriage is considered illegitimate by English laws.
Lady Britomart wants the benefits of civilization—the beautiful town and its lovely furnishings—without having to acknowledge that these are the fruits of her husband’s bloody occupation. Moreover, she betrays her shallow morality by suggesting not only that the family benefit from a business she still claims to hate but that they do so by deceit. In direct contrast to her tendency to cling to self-deceit, Cusins chooses to come clean about not just his parentage but also his desire to become Undershaft’s heir. He risks a lot by doing this, from Lady Britomart’s kind opinion to Barbara’s love. But hiding his desires hasn’t made him happy (just repressed), so he comes clean.
Themes
This pleases Undershaft, who is willing to overlook Cusins’s extensive education, which doesn’t seem to have indoctrinated away his common sense. The two haggle briefly over the salary Cusins can expect to receive during his apprenticeship, leaving only the question of whether Cusins can morally accept the responsibility for manufacturing and selling weapons. Lady Britomart suggests that he only sell them to people with just causes. But Undershaft vehemently insists that neither he nor Cusins nor anyone else has the right to judge causes. The Undershafts make and sell weapons to whoever can afford them, regardless of cause, class, faith, or race. The distinction between right and wrong lies with God or another higher power.
When it seems clear that Cusins will indeed take Undershaft up on his offer, Lady Britomart begins to fret. Both she and Stephen express scruples about the business even though they’ve seen the benefits it brings to them and to all the workers in the town. They both believe that they can distinguish between good and evil. But, like Barbara earlier, Undershaft stalwartly refuses to claim the power to correctly determine his customers’ motives. The play has already shown how flawed human judgement of right and wrong can be, making Undershaft’s decision to keep his own opinions out of it the most noble—and moral—choice available.
Themes
Cusins finds Undershaft’s appeal to a higher power surprising, but Barbara doesn’t. She recalls how joining the Salvation Army made her feel connected to something bigger than herself. Unfortunately, when she learned that that higher power was money, she lost her faith. Undershaft promises that she can regain it if she throws away her old morality and replaces it with something new and more realistic. He claims that the cleanliness and respectability of his town—the cleanliness and respectability that money can buy—are the ultimate source of morality and social stability. Centuries of prayer, preaching, and charity by the religious-minded haven’t eased the burden of poverty; only direct (and sometimes violent) action can do that. And until the seven deadly sins of “food, clothing, [heat], rent, taxes, respectability, and taxes” are removed from humankind’s neck, their souls will remain hobbled.
Undershaft has made it very clear that he doesn’t believe in the Christian god. Yet he is, as he claimed earlier, a mystic in his staunch belief that there is some sort of higher principle or power ordering the universe. And he’s just as much of an evangelist as his daughter. But while Barbara wants to convert people to a heartfelt and true practice of Christianity, he wants to show people that there’s a better way to organize society, one that acknowledges reality rather than trying to use religious ideas to cover up distasteful or distressing truths. In his view—and the play’s—the fact that capitalist societies worship wealth is less problematic than the fact that they try to hide this truth and end up oppressing some people by allowing them to remain poor. If such societies acknowledged their worship of wealth openly, as Undershaft has done, then they might have a hope of reordering themselves in a more just and less abusive way. And only once people are free from poverty—as Barbara has always been—can they wholeheartedly turn their minds to spiritual affairs.
Themes
Lady Britomart, alarmed by what she perceives to be Undershaft’s wicked ideas, tries to call her children away, but Barbara, Sarah, and Charles Lomax all make their intentions to remain with Undershaft clear. Cusins feels torn between a desire to join Undershaft and his fear that doing so will alienate Barbara. But when Lady Britomart and the others withdraw to give the couple privacy, he declares that he’s ready to sell his soul for power. He has come to peace with the fact that power can be used for good or for evil.
Lady Britomart remains convinced that she knows the difference between good and evil. Her children, now aware of the reality before them, disagree. Under Undershaft’s tutelage, Cusins, too, sees that he can have a happier life—and bring about more good in the world—when he follows his inner dictates rather than repressing himself for the sake of making others comfortable. The play celebrates him for his unity of conscience and action.
Themes
To Cusins’s delighted surprise, Barbara denounces the easy distinction between good and evil as a middle-class superstition; life involves both. And now she realizes that saving the souls of her father’s workers—who cannot be bribed with bread or a warm bed in the way her previous converts were—is the highest task for a missionary of her zeal. Calling Lady Britomart, she announces her intention to stay and asks for help picking out a house in the village.
Barbara’s previous unconscious belief that she could still tell the difference between good and evil limited her ability to make the world better. It also limited her ability to be happy and firm in her own convictions. Now that she has determined that she will leave the distinction of good and evil up to the higher power of her God, she finds her faith—in God, in herself, in humanity, and in the possibility for creating a better world—reinvigorated.
Themes
