f
"She is an attractive specimen of the sensible, able, highly-educated
young middle-class Englishwoman. Age 22. Prompt, strong, confident,
self-possessed. Plain business-like dress, but not dowdy. She wears a
chatelaine at her belt, with a fountain pen and a paper
Vivie has distinguished herself at mathematical tripos at Cambridge and is
very independent as evidenced by her turning to actuarial work at Honoria
Fraser's to support herself instead of accepting her mother's money.
With the characters of Vivie and her mother, Shaw gives us a more
realistic treatment of women's economic and social position, getting away
from the idealized Victorian image of the "Angel in the House" and her
symbolic role of embodying the spiritual values of the family and of the
society. Instead, he presents them as individuals struggling in a complex
moral world and making their different choices as different people.[2]
And, as discussed later in this paper, these choices are greatly influenced
by the woman's circumstances that they are born into.
Vivie and her mother are unconventional for Victoria times in choosing
a career other than marriage. But, unfortunately, Shaw depicts these
careers as meaning the loss or rejection of love. For Vivie, this means a
complete dismissal of love and the romance and beauty of life. She says:
"But there are two subjects I want dropped, if you don't mind. One of
them is love's young dream in any shape or form: the other is the
romance and beauty of life, especially Ostend and the gaiety of
Brussels. You are welcome to any illusions you may have left on these
subjects: I have none. If we three are to remain friends, I must be
treated as a woman of business, permanently single and permanently
And, Mrs. Warren if forced to lose her daughter in order to keep her
career. Responding to her daughter'...