GetWiki
Misalliance
ARTICLE SUBJECTS
being →
database →
ethics →
fiction →
history →
internet →
language →
linux →
logic →
method →
news →
policy →
purpose →
religion →
science →
software →
truth →
unix →
wiki →
ARTICLE TYPES
essay →
feed →
help →
system →
wiki →
ARTICLE ORIGINS
critical →
forked →
imported →
original →
Misalliance
please note:
- the content below is remote from Wikipedia
- it has been imported raw for GetWiki
{{Short description|Play by George Bernard Shaw}}{{Use dmy dates|date=April 2022}}{{more citations needed|date=December 2023}}{{original research|date=December 2023}}- the content below is remote from Wikipedia
- it has been imported raw for GetWiki
factoids | |
---|---|
Characters
- John Tarleton, Junr.
- Bentley Summerhays
- Hypatia Tarleton
- Mrs Tarleton
- Lord Summerhays
- John Tarleton
- Joseph Percival
- Lina Szczepanowska
- Julius Baker
Plot
Misalliance is an ironic examination of the mating instincts of a varied group of people gathered at a wealthy man's country home on a summer weekend. Most of the romantic interest centres on the host's daughter, Hypatia Tarleton, a typical Shaw heroine who exemplifies his lifelong theory that in courtship, women are the relentless pursuers and men the apprehensively pursued.Hypatia is the daughter of newly-wealthy John Tarleton who made his fortune in the unglamorous but lucrative underwear business. She is fed up with the stuffy conventions that surround her and with the hyperactive talk of the men in her life. Hypatia is engaged to Bentley Summerhays, an intellectually bright but physically and emotionally underdeveloped aristocrat.Hypatia is restless with her engagement as the play starts, even as it is revealed she has also had a proposal of engagement from her betrothed's father, Lord Summerhays. She has no desire to be a nurse to the elderly and is in no hurry to be made a widow. She longs for some adventure to drop out of the sky, and it doesâan aircraft crashes through the roof of the conservatory to close the end of the first act.At the beginning of Act II, it is revealed that the aircraft brings two unexpected guests. The pilot, Joey Percival, is a handsome young man who immediately arouses Hypatia's hunting instinct. The passenger, Lina Szczepanowska, is a female dare-devil of a circus acrobat whose vitality and directness inflame all the other men at the house-party.An additional uninvited guest arrives in the form of Gunner. He is a cashier who is very unhappy with his lot in life. He blames the wealthy class for the plight of the ordinary worker, and he blames John Tarleton in particular for a romantic dalliance that he once had with Gunner's mother. Gunner arrives with intent to kill Tarleton but hides inside a piece of furniture. From this position, he becomes wise to Hypatia's pursuit of Percival. His character comes to introduce the themes of socialism to the play, as well as serving to question the conventional views on marriage and social order.All together there are eight marriage proposals offered for consideration in the course of one summer afternoon. The question of whether any one of these combinations of marriage might be an auspicious alliance, or a misalliance, prompts one of the prospective husbands to utter the famous Shavian speculation: If marriages were made by putting all the men's names into one sack and the women's names into another, and having them taken out by a blind-folded child like lottery numbers, there would be just as high a percentage of happy marriages as we have now. Part of Shaw's premise is in the irony that men spend so much energy courting a woman who will be obedient and subservient to them, when what they really desire is a strong woman who will be their equal. Shaw's idea of such an "ideal woman", one present throughout his works, is embodied in this case by the character of Lina Szczepanowska. She is a death-defying Polish acrobat who accompanies Percival on his flight and subsequently becomes the object of affection for Summerhays, Tarleton, Bentley and Johnny. The affirmation of her role as Shaw's archetypical ideal woman is her speech (the longest by far in the work) in which she rejects Johnny's offer of marriage in favor of retaining her independenceâfinancially, intellectually and physically. She takes Bentley, who finds a shaky new courage, up into the air with her at the conclusion of the play.Audio adaptations
The L.A. Theatre Works released an audio adaptation in 2004 ({{ISBN|978-158081-275-7}}) with Roger Rees as Lord Summerhays, Eric Stoltz as Johnny Tarleton, Victoria Tennant as Mrs. Tarleton, W. Morgan Sheppard as Mr. Tarleton, Joy Gregory as Hypatia, Tom Beyer as Bentley Summerhays, Tegan West as Joey Percival, Douglas Weston as Gunner/Julius Baker and Serena Scott Thomas as Lina Szczepanowska.References
{{Reflist}}External links
{{Commons category|Misalliance}}{{Wikisource}}- Download Misalliance from Project Gutenberg
- {{librivox book | title=Misalliance | author=George Bernard Shaw}}
- {{ibdb show|6120}}
- weblink" title="web.archive.org/web/20130512064903weblink">Misalliance and Shaw
- Shaw compared to Shakespeare
- weblink" title="web.archive.org/web/20050227084338weblink">Review of Misalliance
- content above as imported from Wikipedia
- "Misalliance" does not exist on GetWiki (yet)
- time: 5:01am EDT - Sat, May 18 2024
- "Misalliance" does not exist on GetWiki (yet)
- time: 5:01am EDT - Sat, May 18 2024
[ this remote article is provided by Wikipedia ]
LATEST EDITS [ see all ]
GETWIKI 23 MAY 2022
The Illusion of Choice
Culture
Culture
GETWIKI 09 JUL 2019
Eastern Philosophy
History of Philosophy
History of Philosophy
GETWIKI 09 MAY 2016
GetMeta:About
GetWiki
GetWiki
GETWIKI 18 OCT 2015
M.R.M. Parrott
Biographies
Biographies
GETWIKI 20 AUG 2014
GetMeta:News
GetWiki
GetWiki
© 2024 M.R.M. PARROTT | ALL RIGHTS RESERVED