Heartbreak House: Shaw's Ship of Fools

Abstract

IT IS EASIER to accept Shaw's judgment that Heartbreak House is his greatest play than to make critical sense of it, for the play can present obstacles even to the sympathetic critic. Throughout, the plot line is interrupted, expectations for further actions are undercut, and wildly improbable events occur. These irregularities are most glaring in the burglar's intrusion (Act II), the often contradictory responses of the characters, and the unpredictable denouement. Since such devices abound in farce and "absurdist" drama, critics have noted resem blances between Heartbreak House and, say, nineteenth century Dublin farce, as wel1 as plays of Beckett and Pinter. In contrast to these works, however, Heartbreak House is didactical1y ordered: Shaw bodies forth a simple statement on the future of England in two metaphors -the ship of state and the ship of fools. Uncovering the dramatic relation between these venerable tropes and the further relation of the tropes to the surface action lays bare the play's principle of coherence.