This document provides a Marxist interpretation of George Bernard Shaw's play Heartbreak House. It summarizes the plot, which tackles class distinction in England through disjointed music. It argues the play promotes Marxist ideas like collective ownership and depicts capitalists getting richer off the poor. Several remarks from characters are cited that attack the capitalist system or present Marxism as a solution. The conclusion is that through these remarks, Shaw aimed to normalize and propagate Marxism by showing the suffering under capitalism and presenting Marxist ideology as a path to justice.

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Kingdom of Saudi Arabia
Ministry of Higher Education
Princess Noura University
Faculty of Arts
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Heartbreak House as a Marxist Text
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OBJECTIVE
In my opinion, the majority of our problems like poverty, sectarianism, and wars could be
solved if the people knew who is benefiting from them, and became aware of their strength that all
these things would not happen if they did not let them. Heartbreak House fascinates me for sending
this message clearly to the audience. I chose to interpret it as a marxist text to shed the light on the
remarks that reflect this message.
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CRITIQUE
Heartbreak House by George Bernard Shaw was written on the eve of WWI. It tackles the
subject of class distinction in England. This issue is presented cleverly by the aid of music as Shaw
chose it to be in a free form, inharmonious. Michael W. Kaufman explains in The Shaw Review:
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“The musical analogue precisely reflects Shaw’s announced theme: England’s plight
because her ruling class has allowed ‘power and culture to fall into separate
compartment.’… The essence of the musical form is the struggle between two themes. The
first gravitates around the tonal centre and the second is introduced and moves as far as
possible from the original key to a contrasting tonality.“
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Sarah Abdulaziz Abdussalam
Dr. Haya Al Otaiby
ENG 4219
May 1, 2014

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Shaw suggests the solution through Captain Shotover’s description of England as a drifting
ship with a drunken captain and that Englishmen must learn their business. Hector asked him, “And
what may my business as an Englishman be, pray?" He said, "Navigation. Learn it and live; or leave
it and be damned." This stresses the marxist view that society as a whole should own and control
their land. That each member of the society should share in giving and taking.
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Furthermore, there are many remarks imposed in the play in favour of Marxism. First, there
is the house that is open to everyone to reside in it. It is perfectly a marxist idea to have a collective
ownership of something like if there is no private property. Second, when Ellie Dunn was talking to
Hesione Hushabye about Marcus, she said he is a “Socialist…[who] despises rank, and has been in
three revolutions fighting on the barricades.” So a marxist is introduced as a hero, a worrior who
fights for his principles and ideals. Third, when she was talking about Mazzini and his poverty, she
said that she is proud of it. It is a hint that an honest and respectable man cannot be rich in a
capitalist system. Fourth, when she was about to marry the city capitalist Boss Mangan, she used
the word ‘sell,’ which is of significance “I shall pretend to sell myself to Boss Mangan to save my
soul from the poverty that is damning me by inches.” So her social being determined her
consciousness. Fifth, the characterisation chosen by Shaw makes every character in an equal rank to
the other. There is no hero nor antihero. All of the characters are allowed to develop and to give
speeches equally. These speeches sometimes attack the capitalist system. For example, when
Captain Shotover asks, “What then is to be done? Are we to be kept forever in the mud by these
hogs to whom the universe is nothing but a machine for greasing their bristles and filling their
snouts?” In a capitalist system, there is a free market based on a private ownership. According to
marxists, those few individuals who dominate the free market get richer and the poor get poorer
which is unfair. The capitalists also reinforce their dominance in society and control the politicians
who are too self consumed to see what is coming. And this is the point of the Captain objection in

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the previous quote. Sixth, the stage prop that is plain which has to do with the idea of producing
what is needed only so that people will not turn into enslaved consumers who buy thing they do not
need with money they do not own.
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In conclusion, the remarks that project the class struggle, the ugliness of the capital system
on one hand. And the remarks that makes the marxist ideology look as a form of justice on the
other, manifest the quest to normalise it and propagate it. This ideology makes “learning to
navigate“ a patriotic act and an unavoidable step to stop the suffering of the working class. It is
upon the people now to solve the biggest issues, that it is not logical to wait for the world to change
or even expect it to change when they are taking part in that change.
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REFERENCES
- Shaw, Bernard. Heartbreak House. London: Constable, 1931.
- Kaufman, Michael W.. “The Dissonance of Dialectic Shaw's "Heartbreak House”.” The Shaw
Review (JANUARY, 1970), Vol. 13, No. 1, pp. 2-9. Published by: Penn State University Press.
Article Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/40682203