The theme of this article is the most striking play of the founder of the British social drama Bernard Shaw, "The House Where Heart Breaks."
It cannot be summarized in one sentence or in one sentence, since the work of the classic is multifaceted. The author considered the narrative of the mores of pre-war Britain the main mission of his drama.
The original creative method, which turned it into a popular playwright, Bernard Shaw himself borrowed. Anton Pavlovich Chekhov, the main theatrical innovator of the beginning of the 20th century, became his teacher, who made the main emphasis in his dramaturgy on the world of human feelings, his spiritual appearance. At the same time, the work of Bernard Shaw is not perceived as plagiarism. His “proprietary” irony and humor are unique. Answering this question in an interview, he said that almost everything he wrote was funny because of the truthful reflection of reality.
The irony over the emptiness of British high life
What is unusual about the play “The House where the hearts break”? The summary of the work is a meeting of heroes in a unique house, its shape resembling a ship. This unusual meeting in a strange house tore off the masks that people wear in everyday life. As a result of this action, it turned out that all the characters, except the master of the house, profess a double morality, hiding under the guise of deanery the deceitfulness and indifference to others. Critics claim that this play by Bernard Shaw is a creative sentence for the British high and middle world, formed on the eve of the First World War. The playwright was able to subtly and with humor show that the whole social life of the country - the Queen of the Seas was completely penetrated by lies and deceit. It is no coincidence that the captain Shatover’s phantasmagoric house, where the whole action of the play takes place, resembles a ship in its outlines.
The amazing home of a retired captain
What else, besides the resemblance to the ship, is there an unusual dwelling, where the whole intrigue of the play “A House Where Heart Breaks” Origins? The summary of the work, like the play itself, answers this question. Indeed, this house has a unique ability to force people in it to be frank. The stiff English, accustomed to “keep skeletons in the closet,” suddenly in Russian expose their souls. What forces them, accustomed to cautious, streamlined phrases, to open up, in Chekhov's way, to begin to give capacious, sincere characteristics to themselves and others. Bernard Shaw, with all the strength of his talent, is trying to convince us that the whole secret lies precisely in the special aura of the mansion of the retired captain.
A significant, outstanding phenomenon of English classical literature is the play "Home, where hearts are broken." The summary of the drama, in principle, can be stated in one paragraph of the text. However, this, of course, is not enough to feel the power of the talent of Bernard Shaw. Our presentation will be more detailed.
About the characters of the play
Hesion's eldest daughter (Mrs. Hushebye) invites guests to her father’s house:
- her unmarried friend Ellie Dan with her father Mazzini Dan;
- millionaire Mangen.
Why is she doing this? Out of boredom, it occurs to her to upset the upcoming marriage of this couple: a young insolvent young lady Ellie with a sixty-year-old rich man who once saved her father from bankruptcy and poverty. Obviously, Hesion considers this his intention to be generous. In addition to her and her father, her husband Hector Hushebye, a man with beautiful, regular features of about 45 years old, is also in the house.
However, not only these heroes are included in the script of the play by Bernard Shaw ("The House where Hearts Break"). The summary of the work contains other images. Incidentally, at the same time, the younger sister of Hesiona, Ariadne Utterword, who recently married Hastings Utterword, comes to her father’s house. The latter is not involved in the play, but is only mentioned. Obviously, the father, captain Châtover, is annoyed by Ariadne’s unauthorized wedding, so he accepts her underlined coldly, as if she had arrived by chance by an uninvited guest.
Among the characters of the play there are also secondary characters: Hector’s brother Randall and the servant Gines, the former nanny of Hesion and Ariadne. Also, an unexpected guest, a thief, Bill Dan, who is the ex-husband of the nanny Gines and the former boatswain of the owner of the house, gets into the house-ship during the action.
Hesion and her naive desire
How is Hesion going to realize his plan? Obviously, she had previously agreed on his performance with her father. Mrs. Husheby begins a frank conversation with her friend Ellie to dissuade her from the idea of unequal marriage. At this time, her father, Captain Châtover, also speaks frankly with the industrialist Mengen, urging him to abandon the very idea of ​​a wedding.
Bernard Shaw (“The House Where Hearts Break”) tells about what the Hession’s leisure venture leads to. The summary of the play will convince any of its readers that each of the guests of Captain Shatover will prove to be a hypocrite, a snob, a deceiver, an ill-wisher. Each character of the play conceals its own unsafe design for others. An unusual house makes all these people confess their secret sins, but they still don’t have sincere repentance.
Trick vs. Trick
Staying in a strange house and talking with Hesiona, Miss Ellie Dan (despite the fact that she is going to marry Mr. Mengen) unexpectedly admits that she is in love with Mr. Mark Darily, whom she met recently and was fascinated by his stories about past experiences. But when Hesiona's husband Hector enters their room during a conversation between friends, Elli turns pale and loses the thread of conversation. The secret is simple: he is Ellie's lover. The unfaithful husband, in search of love affairs under a false name, gets acquainted with the girls, trying to trick them into turning their heads. In the past, Hector was a charismatic man, but his marriage turned him into a henpecked and a liar.
Further, according to the plot of the work, Hesiona's husband flirts at half-heartedly with his wife’s younger sister, who behaves to his liking.
Note that the unpleasant characterization of not only Hector contains a brief summary of the play “The House where Hearts Break”. How does Ellie react when she finds out about the deceit of the person she loved?
The girl begins her even more insidious game. Hesion’s girlfriend is now trying to marry a rich man. She, without hesitating for a long time, starts a conversation with Mengen, lulling his vigilance with her imaginary enthusiasm for his magnanimous act. The millionaire, influenced by an unusual house and carried away by confidential conversation, admits to her authorship of the ruin of her father.
How did this happen? Elli Mazzini's father Dan was not rich, but he had a talent for business. And he had a real chance to get rich. However, the master of intrigues, his “friend” Mengen did not want this ...
Mengen and Ellie
The word is not a sparrow! Mengen catches himself, but it's too late. His desire to get married disappears. However, he revealed his cards. Now the pragmatic Ally begins methodically to blackmail him. In hysterics, the rich man falls into a chair, and Ellie "pulls out his secret trump card", hypnotizing him. Then the girl calmly leaves, leaving him alone. Now the millionaire is in an altered state of consciousness. Moreover, outwardly, he resembles a sleeping person, but in reality he hears and understands everything.
Friends: Mazzini and Mengen
Ellie's father, Mazzini Dan, and Hesiona enter his room. She convinces him not to marry his daughter to a business partner out of gratitude. However, his answer convinces the reader of the richness of the plot of the play. Indeed, the author is completely non-linear, and with many intrigues and plot twists, he wrote “The House Where Heart Breaks”.
A summary of the chapters of this play contains numerous evidence that Mr. Mazzini is also not easy! He builds his own chess game against Mr. Mengen in his own way.
Communicating with a millionaire, Ellie's father in every possible way expresses his respect for him. However, now (the influence of a miracle house is felt), he sincerely tells Hesion that he really despises the rich man, as a person incompetent and not far off. Regarding the future marriage of his daughter to him, Mazzini considers it pragmatically, as an opportunity to seize the property of a millionaire. He is sure that Ellie, having married, "will create him a regime." The story of the father of the future bride is quite cynical, but Mengen, who is in a hypnotic trance, hears all this.
When the incoming Ellie takes the rich man out of hypnosis, he is furious, and accordingly the intrigue of the play “The House Where the Hearts Break” increases.
A brief summary of the actions unexpectedly (once again in this play!) Reveals the image of Mengen in a different way. In it, a strange house suddenly revives human feelings that are completely inaccessible to him: resentment, disappointment, anger. He even cries. Hesion, who did not expect such an expression of feelings from a fat man, comforts him. The scene is interrupted by a shot ...
The leitmotif of the work: a house with an unusual, amazing aura
Mazzini at the point of a revolver leads a thief detained by him in the house of Captain Shatever. Moreover, all the characters present in the scene, again behave uncharacteristically for such a situation. Once again, the peculiarity of the miracle house affects.
Everyone is trying to act and speak honestly. The thief does not want to run away, but declares that he wants to fall into the hands of justice after entering the house where hearts are broken. A brief summary of the actions and phenomena of the play also contains an amazing example of the generosity of the captain's family and guests. Thieves want to let go home, supplying money in an amount sufficient to learn a new specialty. However, the captain recognizes in the detainee his former boatswain Bill Dan, who robbed him earlier, and locks him in the room.
In the further course of the play, motives of irrationality and apocalypticism are interwoven.
Everyone disagrees. Remain captain Shatover and Ellie. The owner of the house tells the girl about his difficult life, about the dream to achieve the seventh degree of contemplation, and advises her to still marry a millionaire to end her poverty.
Guests gather near the house. Everyone has an elevated, unusual, reveling mood. Suddenly, Mengen admits that he is not the owner of the money that he controls, but is only a manager in the service of the owners.
Ellie suddenly announces her refusal to marry Mengen, because she sympathizes with Captain Shatover, her spiritual father and husband. Hearing this confession, Hesion approves her friend’s decision.
Apocalyptic motive in the play
A telephone rings in the house. Police warn about the dangers of the bombing and ask to turn off the light. But Captain Châtover does the opposite: turns on all the lights and rips off the curtains. All but the thief and Mengen remain in the house. The two characters mentioned are hiding in a sand pit. They do not know that the captain hid dynamite there.
A German plane diving at a house throws a bomb. That falls into the pit, dynamite detonates. Mengen and the thief die. The plane flies away. However, the face of Hesion and her husband is a disappointment.
They themselves wanted to die from a bomb that got into the house. The eldest daughter of the captain feels insane inspiration. She wants the bomber to return again tomorrow and surely bomb her father’s house, destroying her too ..
Instead of a conclusion
He doesn’t end the play by Bernard Shaw in Chekhov’s Cherry Orchard (“A House Where Heart Breaks”). The summary confirms that in pre-war Britain there is no hope that was felt in pre-revolutionary Russia. On the contrary, the assembly of the captain’s representatives of the middle world is not covered by repentance, but by the desire for suicide.
Therefore, the appearance of German bombers, marking the beginning of the war, the heroes of the play are met with painful enthusiasm, believing that an air attack will save them from a meaningless life.