Shaw's Daughters: Dramatic and Narrative Constructions of Gender by J. Ellen Gainor (review)

682 Book Reviews a student's paper [86], and Zinman describes slUdents' artistic designs [150-55]). As well. it hardly need be said that all contributors have in common a love of Beckett's play. A central focus to this vast and varied assembly is recognilion of the paradoxes in Godol (and in the rest of Beckett's work). Stephen Barker's allusion to Camus' The Myrh ofSisyphus sums up the dichotomy in CodOI (a dilemma which other conlributors approach in different ways): "the absurd is precisely the suspense and tension, the abyss. in the hUman being. instigal'ed by the arbitrary irrationality of the world and the rage for order in the mind" ( I 19). (See also Gamer [1431.) Contributors also seem to agree that an heuristic approach is the most helpful for "teaching" Gadal. As students are encouraged to explore and learn for themselves, they discover that the play is "as Vladimir describes himself and Estragon - 'inexhaustible '" (Schlueter, 17). When the student perceives that no single critical view can explain Gadot, slhe realizes that the limitations and failures of criticism run parallel 10 Beckett's words and art: "to be an artist is to fail as no other dare fail" (110, 155). In this volume, criticism superbly mirrors BeckeLt's own humane recreation of our striving , failure, and renewal. PATRICIA HOWARD, UNIVERSITY QFTORONTO J. ELLEN GAINOR. Shaw's Daughters: Dramatic' and Narrative COllstructions a/Gender. Ann Arbor: Univ. of Michigan Press, 1991. Pp. 282, iIIuslrated. $32.5°. Shaw's DUI/glllet's raises the important question of why Shaw was ever considered a feminist. Based on the harsh reviews it has received among Shaw critics, the book must be seen as successfully upsetting assumptions that have been passed for years to students and thealer-goers. While Shaw has generally been touted as the exceptional Victorian -Edwardian man who believed in women's equality, Gainor proves that, as he himself stated, Shaw was incapable of portraying a woman on stage who was not in some measure himself. In other words, equality was based on masculine attributes and thus the unwomanly woman is essentially a man. Gainor divides her discussion into three parts. "G.B.S.'s New Women." "Shavian Androgyny," and "Shaw's Daughters." Although her argument does not clearly take off until Part Two, her examination of the New Woman points to Shaw's basic problem with "feminist" characterization on stage, a problem he shared with his contemporaries Pinero and Jones. In his attempt to represent women who are independent socially. sexually, and economically (such as Vivie Warren), he sacrifices their sexuality in an effort' to make them "equal," i.e. masculine. A fundamental issue of feminism, then, is either turned into a joke (Prossy's dogged devotion or Julia Craven's aggression ) or an obstacle to the character's independence (Vivie's refusal of Frank). The argument of Part One is grounded in close readings of several dramatic texts, a methodology which I found less convincing for Gainor's thesis than the more histori- Book Reviews cally contextual reading she begins in Part Two. The book does not pretend to study theater - performance history - as opposed to drama - the texts themselves - but the brief discussion of England's history of theatrical androgyny places Shaw among the thinkers of his day. Psychology and sexology set out to redefine Victorian notions of gender: the "invert," the feminine man and the masculine woman became more than curiosities - they were types. Novels of the period dealing with such types abound, but they were rarer on stage. A book tackling the staging and reception of Shaw's plays, both when they were first performed and today would be welcome. Shaw's Daughters, however. has the advantage of discussing plays such as The Adventures oftile Black Girl in Her Searchfor God which are often omitted in critical studies. While the lack of performance analysis here is a shame, the attention to neglected texts is laudable. Gainor argues that Shaw's use of androgyny, in characters like Joan, the Lady in The Mml of Destiny, and Annajanska, merely reinforces his statement in the essay "Woman - Man in Petticoats," that "a woman is a person...