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List Containing Books Heartbreak House

Title	:	Heartbreak House
Author	:	George Bernard Shaw
Book Format	:	Paperback
Book Edition	:	Anniversary Edition
Pages	:	Pages: 160 pages
Published	:	June 29th 2000 by Penguin Classics (first published 1919)
Categories	:	Plays. Drama. Classics. Fiction. Theatre. European Literature. Irish Literature

Heartbreak House

George Bernard Shaw

Paperback | Pages: 160 pages

Rating: 3.74 | 2030 Users | 92 Reviews

Chronicle Concering Books Heartbreak House

Entertaining allegory examines apathy, confusion and lack of purpose as causes of major world problems.

One of the distinguished comic dramatist's more somber plays, this entertaining allegory examines apathy, confusion and lack of purpose as causes of major world problems, with larger-than-life characters representing the evils of the modern world.

The house could arguably be a metaphorical reference to a ship which must be guided capably, not only by its crew, but also its passengers. Each character in the house represents some facet of British society, Mangan being the nouveau riche capitalist, Hesione the flighty Bohemian, Ellie a struggling member of the lower class and so on.

One of Shaw's most important and evident themes is reality versus appearances. By the end of the play, each character is revealed to be nothing like who they appeared to be in the beginning. Mangan, who was reported to be "a Napolean of industry" is revealed in the third act to be virtually penniless and incapable of running his own businesses. It is in fact Mazzini who runs Mangan's businesses although he at first appears mild and incompetent.

Present Books To Heartbreak House

Original Title:	Heartbreak House
ISBN:	0140437878 (ISBN13: 9780140437874)
Edition Language:	English
Characters:	Ellie Dunn, Nurse Guinness, Captain Shotover, Lady Utterword, Hesione Hushabye, Mazzini Dunn, Hector Hushabye, Arthur Mangan, Randall Utterword, Billy Dunne

Rating Containing Books Heartbreak House

Ratings: 3.74 From 2030 Users | 92 Reviews

Evaluation Containing Books Heartbreak House

This was an interesting blend of satire, drama, and political and social commentary. I saw this play performed at The Shaw Festival last season, and it was difficult enough to watch, let alone read. This is an experimental play. It starts out "normal" and then teeters into absurd, and then ultimately plummets into confusing. It's fascinating, and a few of the characters really stand out, but overall I found the play too confusing, a little preachy, and not as enjoyable as Shaw's other works

This is one of my favourite Shaw plays -- a motley crew of English aristos gather and chatter blithely about their lives and loves until the bombs drop. Written just after the First World War, it's rather like Ravel's La Valse put in the form of a comedy of manners. Somehow Absurdist and Chekhovian at the same time, with that wonderful, ringing Shavian wit.

George Bernard Shaw is notorious for writing lengthy prefaces to his plays, but all the same, Im surprised that I enjoyed the preface to Heartbreak House more than the play itself. In the preface, Shaw excoriates the war delirium that took over the British public from 1914 to 1918, and gives me a better sense than I ever had before about what life was really like on the home front during World War I. (I had no idea there were German air raids on London in WWI I thought that was only a WWII

Complete with an author's introduction almost as long as the text of the play, Shaw shows his astonishing capacity to be very angry, very humanistic, and very funny at the same time. He's like a more modern Dr. Swift. The play itself is funny at parts but verges off into the weird and depressing by the end. But then he's trying to write an allegory for English society in war time, so I suppose weird and depressing is the way to be.

quirky.Shaw at his best as a critic of Western hypocrisy.

I was pleasantly surprised to open this play and find the author's Preface which was not entirely about the play itself. Refreshing, really, because those pesky Prefaces and Introductions can contain spoilers which leads to the reader feeling pretty bummed out. But then I read the Goodreads description of the book and was spoiled anyway because whoever wrote it SUCKS.Do not be discouraged by the Preface. I almost was because it took me three nights just to read it which, in the long run, is