The Lesser Of Two, By George Bernard Shaw

The Lesser of Two
Major Barbara by George Bernard Shaw, is a play that toys with the ideas of rich vs. poor and good vs. evil. From one comes the other. Undershaft runs a very lucrative business that is closely tied to war. His family who he has been excluded from because of a tradition of the passing down of the family business does not agree with his ways. They are brought to a point where they must accept more of his “blood money” in order to continue, it is then that Undershaft shows them how money can save them, and that 's where their allegiance should lie.
The play starts out with Lady Britomart talking to her son Stephen and bringing him up to date on her/their financial status. Her daughters are getting ready to be married, to men she believes will not be able to provide for them, or at least won 't be able to in the beginning. She is trying to figure out how to make ends meet, which brings her to after years of not seeing her husband inviting him into her home in order to ask for extra money. She tells him, “My dear Stephen: where is the money to come from? It is easy enough for you and the other children to live on my income as long as we are in the same house; but I can 't keep four families in four separate houses… You see, Stephen, your father must be fabulously …show more content…
In the bible lazarus is a beggar who lies as a rich man 's gate suffering. After both of their deaths, the rich man found himself in hell suffering from thirst, begs to have Lazarus, who was happily in heaven, give him a cool drink. This story was made to console the poor in their immediate suffering. While they may suffer on earth at the hands of the rich, that will change in the afterlife. The poor are rich in virtue while the rich are poor in it. As Shaw notes, many agree with this notion over and against the gospel Undershaft brings on the