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Charles Lomax
Bill Walker is a young man who comes to Barbara’s Salvation Army shelter in search of his girlfriend Mog Habbijam, whom he intends to beat for abandoning him. He’s an angry, blustering man, but Peter Shirley easily sees through the charade, correctly seeing that while Bill happily assaults vulnerable women like Mog, Jenny Hill, and Rummy Mitchens, he’s too afraid to face a man in a fight, whether that’s boxer Todger Fairmile or middle-aged Peter himself. Bill has a crisis of faith and conscience when Jenny and Barbara refuse to punish him for assaulting Jenny and Rummy. Instead, Barbara uses the opening to try to convert Bill and encourage him to join the Army. She and Jenny offer him unqualified forgiveness and since they won’t punish him, they leave him only one option for escaping his feelings of guilt and remorse: truly reforming himself into a better person. He tries to get Mog and Todger to return his insults with their own but they, too, merely forgive him and pray for his soul. He even tries to buy forgiveness with money from his savings, which Barbara refuses because she correctly identifies it as an attempt to pay off his emotions rather than a free offering. But then, when Mrs. Baines accepts a similarly tainted but much larger donation from Horace Bodger, Bill becomes cynical about the Army and its mission and goes home in disgust.
Bill Walker Quotes in Major Barbara
The Major Barbara quotes below are all either spoken by Bill Walker or refer to Bill Walker. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
).
Preface
Quotes
You will never get a high morality from people who conceive of their misdeeds as revocable and pardonable, or in a society where absolution an expiation are officially provided for us all. […] Thus Bill Walker, in my play, having assaulted the Salvation Lass, presently finds himself overwhelmed with an intolerable conviction of sin [… But the Salvation Army] will not punish him: it will not take his money. It will not tolerate a redeemed ruffian: it leaves him no means of salvation except ceasing to be a ruffian [… Barbara] refuses to prosecute a drunken ruffian; she converses on equal terms with a blackguard to whom no lady should be seen speaking in the public street: in short, she imitates Christ. Bill’s conscience reacts to this […] He is placed in a position of unbearable moral inferiority, and strives by every means in his power to escape from it.
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In proof I might point to the sensational object lesson provided by our commercial millionaires today. They begin as brigands: merciless, unscrupulous, dealing out ruin and death and slavery to their competitors and employees […] Captain Kidd would have marooned a modern Trust magnate for conduct unworthy of a gentleman of fortune. The law every day seizes on unsuccessful scoundrels of this type and punishes them with a cruelty worse than their own […]
But the successful scoundrel is dealt with very differently, and very Christianly. He is not only forgiven: he is idolized, respected, made much of, all but worshipped. Society returns him good for evil in the most extravagant overmeasure. And with what result? He begins […] to live up to the treatment he receives. He preaches sermons; he writes books of the most edifying advice to young men […] he endows educational institutions; he supports charities […]
Act 2
Quotes
BILL. Aw downt want to be forvive by you, or be ennybody. Wot Aw did Aw’ll py for. Aw trawd to gat me aown jawr browk to settisfaw you—
JENNY (distressed). Oh no—
BILL (impatiently). Tell y’Aw did: cawnt you listen to wots bein taold you? All Aw got be it was being mide a sawt of in the pablic street for me pines. Well, if Aw cawnt settisfaw you one wy. Aw ken anather. Listen eah! Aw ed two quid sived agen the frost; an Awve a pahnd of it left. […] Eahs the manney. Tike it; and lets ev no more o your forgivin an pryin and your Mijor jawrin me. Let wot Aw dan be dan an pide for; and let there be an end of it.
JENNY. Oh, I couldnt take it, Mr Walker.
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Act 3
Quotes
CUSINS. […] How do you maintain discipline among your men?
UNDERSHAFT. I dont. They do. You see, the one thing Jones wont stand is any rebellion from the man under him, or any assertion of social equality between the wife of the man with four shillings a week less than himself, and Mrs Jones! Of course they all rebel against me, theoretically. Practically, every man of them keeps the man just below him in his place. I never meddle with them. I never bully them. I dont even bully Lazarus. I say that certain things are to be done; but I dont order anybody to do them. I dont say, mind you, that there is no ordering about and snubbing and even bullying. [… But the] result is colossal profit, which comes to me.
CUSINS (revolted). You really are a—well, what I was saying yesterday.
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Bill Walker Quotes in Major Barbara
The Major Barbara quotes below are all either spoken by Bill Walker or refer to Bill Walker. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
).
Preface
Quotes
You will never get a high morality from people who conceive of their misdeeds as revocable and pardonable, or in a society where absolution an expiation are officially provided for us all. […] Thus Bill Walker, in my play, having assaulted the Salvation Lass, presently finds himself overwhelmed with an intolerable conviction of sin [… But the Salvation Army] will not punish him: it will not take his money. It will not tolerate a redeemed ruffian: it leaves him no means of salvation except ceasing to be a ruffian [… Barbara] refuses to prosecute a drunken ruffian; she converses on equal terms with a blackguard to whom no lady should be seen speaking in the public street: in short, she imitates Christ. Bill’s conscience reacts to this […] He is placed in a position of unbearable moral inferiority, and strives by every means in his power to escape from it.
Related Characters:
Related Symbols:
Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
In proof I might point to the sensational object lesson provided by our commercial millionaires today. They begin as brigands: merciless, unscrupulous, dealing out ruin and death and slavery to their competitors and employees […] Captain Kidd would have marooned a modern Trust magnate for conduct unworthy of a gentleman of fortune. The law every day seizes on unsuccessful scoundrels of this type and punishes them with a cruelty worse than their own […]
But the successful scoundrel is dealt with very differently, and very Christianly. He is not only forgiven: he is idolized, respected, made much of, all but worshipped. Society returns him good for evil in the most extravagant overmeasure. And with what result? He begins […] to live up to the treatment he receives. He preaches sermons; he writes books of the most edifying advice to young men […] he endows educational institutions; he supports charities […]
Act 2
Quotes
BILL. Aw downt want to be forvive by you, or be ennybody. Wot Aw did Aw’ll py for. Aw trawd to gat me aown jawr browk to settisfaw you—
JENNY (distressed). Oh no—
BILL (impatiently). Tell y’Aw did: cawnt you listen to wots bein taold you? All Aw got be it was being mide a sawt of in the pablic street for me pines. Well, if Aw cawnt settisfaw you one wy. Aw ken anather. Listen eah! Aw ed two quid sived agen the frost; an Awve a pahnd of it left. […] Eahs the manney. Tike it; and lets ev no more o your forgivin an pryin and your Mijor jawrin me. Let wot Aw dan be dan an pide for; and let there be an end of it.
JENNY. Oh, I couldnt take it, Mr Walker.
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Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
Act 3
Quotes
CUSINS. […] How do you maintain discipline among your men?
UNDERSHAFT. I dont. They do. You see, the one thing Jones wont stand is any rebellion from the man under him, or any assertion of social equality between the wife of the man with four shillings a week less than himself, and Mrs Jones! Of course they all rebel against me, theoretically. Practically, every man of them keeps the man just below him in his place. I never meddle with them. I never bully them. I dont even bully Lazarus. I say that certain things are to be done; but I dont order anybody to do them. I dont say, mind you, that there is no ordering about and snubbing and even bullying. [… But the] result is colossal profit, which comes to me.
CUSINS (revolted). You really are a—well, what I was saying yesterday.
