Candida by George Bernard Shaw

Overview – This play was accompanied with three others when I bought the volume to read ‘The Man and Superman’. This play is about a famous preacher and his wife who is being heavily pursued by a broke poet who has run away from his wealthy family. He is very much romantic and tries wooing the wife of the pastor through various advances and poems. In the end the pastor allows the wife to be alone with the romantic boy where he is rejected by the wife. The wife being preoccupied with whereabouts of her husband. Finally, when the Preacher comes back home, he asks if there has been any romance to which he is told “no”. The wife goes on to explain to the poet why she couldn’t be with him. The reason given was the husband needs her more.

Theme – Giving women the sense of freedom

Biggest takeaway – When the wife was given the chance to be with the poet, she thought of nothing but her husband. She then proceeded to tell the poet what was important was how much the preacher needed her. She goes on to explain to a man who is estranged from his family and is rather poor, that her purpose is to stay because her husband needs her to be his family. That the preacher needs her to be his father who is a very successful man, needs her to be a mother who sees the preacher as the apple of her eye, a friend to which the preacher has many etc… The preacher is very popular, and the city loves and embraces him but she also needs to be that for him too. The preacher has it all, but the wife believes she needs to be there for him because of what the preacher lacks. This is horse shit.

It doesn’t explain fully the truth of female attraction or desire. She is with the preacher because he has status, fame, people like him; he has an outward facing position which opens up their lifestyle and makes her the wife of the well-known preacher giving her status, they aren’t wanting for money and all those tangible things is why she is attracted and attached to him. Woman from my experience do not want to be needed by a man, wanted, maybe but mostly they want to feel chosen. As if 1,000 or 1 million woman a man could have he has chosen you. Women do not want to be with a man who writes poetry all day, whines about the problems in the streets, struggles to make money, isn’t famous, isn’t respected or well liked. This puts too much strain on a women and is wholly unattractive for many.

By leaving to go do his speech the preacher presented the wife with the option of choice with no one around but the poet who had just made an “embarrassing” confession of his love for the wife in the presence of the preacher. The wife did nothing but worried about the preacher until he returned. Wondering how his speech went, who was there, or maybe did he run off with his secretary who is madly in love with him. All these thoughts she was riddled with not concerning herself with being someone’s world as the poet desperately wanted and needed.

Shaw makes a bit of switch in the conclusion of the play completely ignoring what I laid out in this section of female nature. He may have done it to appease female readers and watchers, or he may really believe this is a illogical stance. But truthfully the wife always choosing the preacher and its never for the reason she gave in the play.

Overall Satisfaction - 7/10 Great read, conclusion of the play was pretty much backwards.

Comments on the Author – Called the second behind Shakespeare he is quite an amazing storyteller and writer. This was a gem from start to finish.