@article{ART001582741},
author={Yeong-Yoon Seo},
title={Reading Bernard Shaw’s Too True to Be Good: Illness and Vision for the Remedy},
journal={Journal of Modern English Drama},
issn={1226-3397},
year={2011},
volume={24},
number={2},
pages={111-138}
TY - JOUR
AU - Yeong-Yoon Seo
TI - Reading Bernard Shaw’s Too True to Be Good: Illness and Vision for the Remedy
JO - Journal of Modern English Drama
PY - 2011
VL - 24
IS - 2
PB - 한국현대영미드라마학회
SP - 111
EP - 138
SN - 1226-3397
AB - In Too True to be Good(1932), Shaw attempts to dramatize the chaos of English society after the World War I. Here the postwar chaos was revealed through three kinds of illness: bodily, spiritual and English ills.
At first the Patient epitomizes bodily ills. She thieves her own jewels with Aubrey the burglar and Sweetie the nurse. With them she escapes from the sickroom and goes out into a British outpost. Colonel Tallboys is nominally in charge of the military post as a representative of the British Imperial but Private Meek, an all-round soldier, is an actual leader. Shaw’s satire on the Colonel leads to the satire on the British Imperial. Secondly, Aubrey represents spiritual ills. He suffered from his wartime experiences and was spiritually taken ill. With the morbid self-disgust for bombing civilians, he took up with Sweetie and turned a burglar. Thirdly, Shaw suggests that the outworn Victorian ideals such as religion and love(sexual and familial) are illusions, namely, English ills.
In this play Shaw reveals the hopeful vision through the recovered Patient. Her quest for reality begins with her escape from bodily ills. In wild nature she ostensibly becomes well and strong. Due to the disillusionment of romance with Aubrey, she realizes that her past life has been unreal and wants practical work to face reality. So she wishes to be a housekeeper and to put the world in order. To achieve it, she tries to found a sisterhood with the awakened mother. Her mother, Mrs. Mopply, undergoes a forcible regeneration with the Colonel’s sudden strike and realizes the illusory aspects of Victorian ideals. The mother discovers in her liberated daughter a new being and liberates herself.
In the end Shaw suggests that Aubrey the speaker, who realizes that the old standards have gone with the postwar chaos, may die but the Patient, the woman of action, starts to find practical work. Ultimately he suggests the action, not the word, as the remedy for the postwar English ills, that is the way of being awakened from the illusion. It, however, is not certain that the Patient will succeed in going into meaningful action through a sisterhood with her mother. Because the play ends with the author’s word instead of the Patient’s action.
KW - Too True to Be Good;Bernard Shaw;ideal;illness;remedy;illusion;reality
DO -
UR -
ER -
Yeong-Yoon Seo. (2011). Reading Bernard Shaw’s Too True to Be Good: Illness and Vision for the Remedy. Journal of Modern English Drama, 24(2), 111-138.
Yeong-Yoon Seo. 2011, "Reading Bernard Shaw’s Too True to Be Good: Illness and Vision for the Remedy", Journal of Modern English Drama, vol.24, no.2 pp.111-138.
Yeong-Yoon Seo "Reading Bernard Shaw’s Too True to Be Good: Illness and Vision for the Remedy" Journal of Modern English Drama 24.2 pp.111-138 (2011) : 111.
Yeong-Yoon Seo. Reading Bernard Shaw’s Too True to Be Good: Illness and Vision for the Remedy. 2011; 24(2), 111-138.
Yeong-Yoon Seo. "Reading Bernard Shaw’s Too True to Be Good: Illness and Vision for the Remedy" Journal of Modern English Drama 24, no.2 (2011) : 111-138.
Yeong-Yoon Seo. Reading Bernard Shaw’s Too True to Be Good: Illness and Vision for the Remedy. Journal of Modern English Drama, 24(2), 111-138.
Yeong-Yoon Seo. Reading Bernard Shaw’s Too True to Be Good: Illness and Vision for the Remedy. Journal of Modern English Drama. 2011; 24(2) 111-138.
Yeong-Yoon Seo. Reading Bernard Shaw’s Too True to Be Good: Illness and Vision for the Remedy. 2011; 24(2), 111-138.
Yeong-Yoon Seo. "Reading Bernard Shaw’s Too True to Be Good: Illness and Vision for the Remedy" Journal of Modern English Drama 24, no.2 (2011) : 111-138.
