The image of a new woman in Candida:

Anais Nin once remarked: “I, with a deeper instinct, choose a man who
compels my strength, who makes enormous demands on me, who does
not doubt my courage, or my toughness, who does not believe me naïve
or innocent, who has the courage to treat me like a woman.”94 Woman
is an epitome of flesh and trade since the emergence of human
civilization. Woman is seen as a commodity and an instrument to derive
pleasure and satisfy the needs of man and a natural trained domestic
care-taker of complex responsibilities at home and work. During
Neolithic Era, woman was treated as an equal to man. She gathered
food like grains, nuts, roots and lentils and men went for hunting, barely
supporting women in the agricultural fields. She made pottery and
grinding the corn as some of the daily activities apart from raising her
children. In Bronze Age, woman was seen as a centre figure and made
her husband realize her importance either in domesticity, financial or
political matters other than her daily chores at home. During Iron Age,
she was skilled and talented in making earthenware vessels, taking care
of food, milking the cows, making bread and cheese and drying up meat
and fish under the sun. Taking care of livestock was more important task
for woman during this era. In medieval age, woman had to go through a
difficult phase of life. She has no freedom because of high and powerful
domination of man in the society. She becomes the property of her
husband after marriage and is confined to giving birth to children and a
male child was regarded important and demanding; so many young
wives tried and spent most of their years in delivering a male heir. But
medical 109 facilities were very poor and many women died at a very
young age in childbirths. She was just like an instrument being used by
man since the evolution of human kind. In modern times, woman
changed the society and established her position as a strong and
independent magnitude of today’s world. According to Chrissy Iley, “For
a modern woman it is important to be supported and that there is
equality in every aspect, and that it’s not two halves that make a whole,
its two holes that make a whole.”95 Woman occupies a prominent role to
reform society in her own realm. She is a pacifist and accepts a
thoughtful twilight for a better dawn. Her astute in balancing domestic as
well as work proved her as the supreme over all the species of the
world. Candida: A Mystery is considered as the ‘Mother Play’ by Shaw in
many ways. He opines that this play induces audience to its deepest
level of fraternity; embodiment of romance with an infatuated boy and a
questioning marital relationship with her husband. Candida is portrayed
as the ‘Holy Mother’ where she treats both as her children and discusses
freedom, individualism and relationships, and Daniel Dervin has rightly
said that “Candida… is the Virgin Mother and nobody else.” 96 Shaw in
his letters to the Abbess of Stanbrook: a contemplative house for
Benedictine nuns, gives an insight why Shaw intended to make Candida
a ‘Mother Play’. “Shaw believes in a catholic religion as he believes in a
universal Madonna, whom he calls Our Lady of Everywhere…always
saying Hail Mary! … as he 110 encounters Her in many forms…the ideal
wet nurse, healthy, comely and completely brainless… her instinctive,
direct, self-sufficient nature, her combination of the Philistine-realist
temperament, and her embodiment of the Life Force.” 97 Candida
written in 1894 was first performed in The Royal Court Theatre, London
in 1897 and was published in 1898. This play echoes with ‘Madonna and
Child’ concept as Mary with her child Jesus takes care in every detail,
likewise Candida with her two children: Morell and Marchbanks, shows
motherly concern towards them, even though Morell is thirty five and
Marchbanks eighteen. The title Candida is taken from the Voltaire’s
novel Candide published in 1759, who is the male protagonist of
Voltaire’s novel. The title means ‘optimist, clean as white, pure, frank
and truthful’. Candida in Shaw’s play is an optimist who cares for both of
them equally, clean in her actions; decides to choose her husband who
is the weakest of the two and above all pure in her thoughts and frank
about her notions on liberty of woman in Victorian England. Candida, the
protagonist of Voltaire’s novel is an optimist as well, who at the end of
the play resorts to a simple living with farming and hard work and sees
life in a positive and assuring way after many tumultuous experiences in
his life as Candida restores back to her husband as a normal duty-
minded wife with affection and care. Candida is a domestic play that
focuses essentially on the home. It refers mainly to the decent conduct
and standards of 111 everyday life in the Victorian England. The theme
of marriage and openness especially in reverence of love, romance and
human relationship and the theme of freedom of a domestic woman in
Victorian period rejuvenate the plot and take the discussion to a higher
note. This play speaks about the freedom of woman: at home or in
society. The narrative technique of this play is discussion and authorial.
The discussion in the play evokes an insignia of a woman towards
salvation and liberation from narrow and sceptical society. This play
preaches the gospel of Shaw: woman is regarded as the quintessence
of endurance. The three characters Candida, Morell and Marchbanks
discuss freedom of woman and leave a message of tolerance over the
constricted animosity in the society. Shashi Deshpande’s That Long
Silence published in 1988 is a comparative study on feminism: though
woman being the toy for many centuries, she did not forget her
admiration towards her husband and society in India. This play narrates
the ideals of woman being tormented and torn apart and considering her
as a useless commodity in the society. This play has won Sahitya
Akademi Award in 1991 for the outstanding work by Shashi Deshpande
on New Woman, who breaks her silence and gets on to create her new
world with her own courage. The Indian society has the stench of ailing
pragmatics on woman: she is confined to kitchen, cannot dare to come
before her in-laws and incapable to make or take a decision. After 112
marriage she lands herself into the middle of nowhere and delusions
haunt within her heart for the rest of her life. Jaya is the protagonist who
is in search of her true identity as a woman in the light of male
dominated society. Her husband Mohan was once a good man he
changes his attitude towards his wife Jaya and starts hating her for
writing an article about their life in a cynical way. Jaya is a writer of short
stories, magazines and newspaper. She is educated and smart with all
prerequisites to be a perfect woman. She once writes that a man cannot
reach his wife completely except through her body, shatters his mind to
an extent that he shuns her from his life. Mohan always irritates her by
disrespecting her work either in her domesticity or in her career as a
writer. He sees the guilt in her as if she has done ‘a thousand sins’ in her
life. This ridiculous atrocity and illogical supremacy over women by men
has to be emptied and wiped off by efficient women like Jaya and
Candida. Candida is the new woman like Jaya, who admonishes the
cruelty of male dominance and sustains her stature with her cleverness
and astute nature in realizing Morell his weakness and making him
strong to recognize his ideologies over her as Jaya took her world in her
own hands to change her husband’s gloomy ideals and absurd society.
Jaya can be related to Candida, who makes a mistake unconsciously by
writing about their marital life, may be for good, as she comes to know
about her strength and passion to establish her own identity in the
society. Candida on the other hand, 113 makes the mistake in
welcoming Marchbanks to lure her for good reason and may be,
Candida is fed up with the behaviour and life style of her husband
Morell, and she wants to envy Morell through Marchbanks, to realize
Morell about the love and affection she has for him. Mohan’s attitude is
uncommon with that of Jaya’s. He wants a traditional wife who
understands him and takes care of house hold chores. He even changes
her name to Suhasini, which means soft and motherly woman and Jaya
signifies victory and triumph. Marriage is a door that transforms woman
with different shades of marital life. Shaw views that “… if marriage
cannot be made to produce something better than we are, marriage will
have to go, or else the nation will have to go. It is no use talking of
honor, virtue, purity.

Plot summary of Candida

Act 1. In his London home, the Reverend James Morell, a popular speaker for
Christian Socialist causes, is arranging lecture dates with his secretary, Prossy, who
is secretly in love with him. His curate, the Reverend Alexander Mill, enters and
announces that Morell’s father-in-law, Mr. Burgess, is coming to see him. While
Morell briefly leaves the room, Mill and Prossy argue about Mill’s tendency to
idealize Morell and his wife, Candida. When Burgess enters, Mill leaves. Burgess
has not seen Morell, whom he regards as a fool, for three years. Morell despises
Burgess for being interested only in money and for paying low wages to his help.
Morell was instrumental in getting the county council to turn down Burgess’s bid for a
construction contract. Burgess says that he changed his ways and now pays higher
wages, but Morell suspects that Burgess only wants to bid on other contracts.
Candida returns from a vacation with her children, accompanied by Eugene
Marchbanks; Burgess, impressed to discover that he is the nephew of a peer,
leaves, promising to return that afternoon. Candida, too, goes out, and Morell invites
Marchbanks to stay for lunch. Marchbanks announces that it is incredible that Morell
should think his marriage to Candida a happy one; he himself loves Candida, and he
dares Morell to tell Candida what he said. Morell begins to get angry when
Marchbanks asserts that Candida is too fine a spirit for a life with Morell. Saying that
he will not tell Candida of their talk, Morell instructs the young man to leave. Candida
returns and invites Marchbanks to stay for lunch.

Act 2. Later that same afternoon, Prossy berates Marchbanks for fiddling with her
typewriter. Marchbanks talks poetically of love until Prossy, who is at first
exasperated, admits that she, too, is in love. Burgess enters and asserts that Morell
is mad. When Morell comes in with the news that Candida is cleaning the house and
the lamps, Marchbanks is horrified to think that his idealized woman is getting her
hands dirty doing mundane chores. This amuses Candida, who takes Marchbanks
out to peel onions. Morell leaves to answer a telegram brought to him by Prossy,
who tells Burgess that Marchbanks is mad. When Morell returns, Burgess complains
that Prossy insulted him and goes out; that upsets Prossy, who also rushes out.
Candida returns and begins to baby Morell. She tells him of “Prossy’s complaint,”
and that women are in love with him and not with his preaching and ideas. Saying
that Morell is spoiled with love and worship, she claims that Marchbanks is the one
who needs love. Marchbanks, she says, is always right because he understands
Morell and Prossy and her. She ends by telling Morell to trust in her love for him. Mill
comes in with the news that the Guild of St. Matthew is very upset that Morell
cancelled his lecture. Candida says that they should all go to hear Morell, but her
husband, resolved to put matters to the test, decides that he will give the lecture but
that Candida and Marchbanks should stay at home together.

Act 3. Later that evening, when Candida and Marchbanks are alone by the fire,
Marchbanks reads poetry to her until Candida tells Marchbanks she would rather
talk. Marchbanks sits on the floor with his head against her knees. Candida wants
him to speak of his real feelings and not to indulge in attitudes, but Marchbanks only
repeats Candida’s name over and over. She asks him if he is happy and if he wants
anything more. Marchbanks replies that he is happy. When Morell enters and
Candida leaves to talk to the maid, Morell and Marchbanks argue about their
differing views of Candida; Marchbanks says that he loves Candida so much that he
wants nothing more than the happiness of being in love. Then he becomes very
excited and begs Morell to send for Candida so that she can choose between them.
Candida comes back into the room, followed by Mill, Prossy, and Burgess, who
return from a supper after the lecture. All are full of praise for Morell. Prossy drinks a
bit too much champagne, and Morell tells Mill to see her home; Burgess, satisfied
with having made contact for business purposes with a member of the County
Council Works Committee, also leaves. When Morell tells Candida that Marchbanks
is in love with her, Candida scolds them both. Morell finally says that Candida has to
choose between them. He offers strength, honesty, ability, and industry. Marchbanks
offers his weakness and desolation. When Candida says that she chooses the
weaker of the two, Marchbanks immediately realizes that she means Morell. Candida
explains that Morell was spoiled from birth and needs support, whereas Marchbanks
is a rebel and really self-sufficient. Candida kisses Marchbanks on the forehead and
he leaves. Morell and Candida embrace.