John Bulls Other Island by George Bernard Shaw free essay sample

Examines plays dramatic critique of cultural political issues from Marxist perspective. George Bernard Shaw wrote a number of what have come to be called philosophical comedies, and three of these/*Major Barbara, Man and Superman, and John Bulls Other Island have been viewed as a trilogy in this genre because all of them deal with the issue of the bankruptcy of nineteenth-century liberalism in the face of the prevailing forces of sex, nationalism, and poverty. John Bulls Other Island specifically represents a counter to the neo-Gaelic movement then under the leadership of William Butler Yeats. Indeed, the other island referred to in the title is Ireland, and John Bull is the name for the British government, much as we refer to the American government as Uncle Sam. Shaw does not make an overt Marxian appeal in this play, but his analysis of the exploitation of the Irish by the British demonstrates an understanding of the nature of Karl Marxs ideas