Understanding Blanco

George Bernard Shaw in a speech given before the first performance of Blanco Posnet:

"The English censor exists to keep (the people) from finding out the fact. He gives them incomplete arguments, sentimental half-truths, and above all he keeps dramatists from giving them anything in sudden phrases that would startle them into the perception of reality."

Blanco Characters as Critiques of Society:

• Feemy Evans - Shaw's (surprisingly feminist) take on prostitution, which can also be seen in another play of his, Mrs. Warren's Profession. Shaw said he wrote these characters "to draw attention to the truth that prostitution is caused, not by female depravity and male licentiousness, but simply by underpaying, undervaluing and overworking women so shamefully that the poorest of them are forced to resort to prostitution to keep body and soul together."

• Elder Daniels - A case-study on the hypocrisy of religious leaders.

"The fact that a believer is happier than a skeptic is no more to the point than the fact that a drunken man is happier than a sober one." 

"No man ever believes that the Bible means what it says: he is always convinced that it says what he means."

• The Sheriff, Strapper Kemp, & The Foreman - Examples of the corruptness within the justice system; how suppression in place of justice is a recipe for chaos.

• The Woman - Shaw's Virgin Mary—a reincarnation of the age-old woman who brought the believers and non-believers together with a universal truth: grief.

"Christianity might be a good thing if anyone ever tried it."