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The Gospel According To Undershaft

"I am a sort of collector of religions," remarks Adolphus Cusins, Major Barbara Undershaft's fiancé, midway through the second act of George Bernard Shaw's morality play, Major Barbara. And thus, the play can be seen as collection of varying religious, moral, and social ideals. The play centers on Barbara Undershaft and her father Andrew Undershaft, a Salvation Army Major and a millionaire arms dealer respectively, and there conflicting ideological beliefs. However, Shaw also creates the character of Adolphus Cusins, a Greek scholar, to act as an impartial buffer between the two. He is realist who looks at every belief objectively, and finds a way to see logic in them all. Through these three characters Shaw is able to show an entire spectrum of opinions regarding God, love, and salvation. Although in the end only one belief will prevail
Major Barbara is structured by a contest between father and daughter for the other's soul and the path of salvation. Each agrees to visit the other's workplace and allow the other to attempt their conversion. Undershaft's visit to the Salvation Army shelter takes place in second act; Barbara goes to the armory with her family in the third act. Sadly, as one literary critic said, "It ends with a triumvirate of Barbara, her rich father, and her fiancé, a professor of ancient Greek, taking over the munitions factory. It is Shaw's vision of the alliance of the future, a trinity of spirit, body, and mind: idealism, realism, and intelligence"(Applegate). By the end, Barbara suffers a crisis of faith, and she, along with her fiancé, accept her father's of "Money and Gun Powder" philosophy.
Andrew Undershaft is the wealthy owner of a munitions manufacturing company. Undershaft understands himself in participating in a greater power that controls the world, not the Salvation Army of God, but the armory proper. The Undershaft firm represents an alternative canon, charting a long tradition of Saint Andrews who have quietly held Europe...