Editing Man and Superman (section)

=== Ideas ===
Although ''Man and Superman'' can be performed as a light [[comedy of manners]], Shaw intended the drama to be something much deeper, as suggested by the title, which comes from [[Friedrich Nietzsche]]'s philosophical ideas about the "[[Übermensch]]" (although Shaw distances himself from Nietzsche by placing the philosopher at the very end of a long list of influences).<ref name=dedication/><ref>{{cite book|editor1-last=Pasley|editor1-first=Malcolm|editor-link=Malcolm Pasley|title=Nietzsche: Imagery and Thought: A Collection of Essays|date=1978|publisher=University of California Press|location=Oakland, California|isbn=978-0-520-03577-5|page=[https://archive.org/details/nietzscheimagery00pasl/page/246 246]|url=https://archive.org/details/nietzscheimagery00pasl/page/246}}</ref><ref>{{cite news|last1=Billington|first1=Michael|title=Man and Superman review – Ralph Fiennes masters Shaw's contrary male|url=https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2015/feb/26/man-and-superman-review-ralph-fiennes-national-theatre|work=The Guardian|date=26 February 2015|quote=Shaw…holding the mirror up to Nietzsche}}</ref> As Shaw notes in his "Epistle Dedicatory" (dedication to theatre critic [[Arthur Bingham Walkley]]) he wrote the play as "a pretext for a propaganda of our own views of life".<ref name=dedication>''Man and Superman'' dedication</ref> The plot centres on John Tanner, author of "The Revolutionist's Handbook and Pocket Companion", which is published with the play as a 58-page appendix. Both in the play and in the "Handbook" Shaw takes Nietzsche's theme that mankind is evolving, through [[natural selection]], towards "superman" and develops the argument to suggest that the prime mover in selection is the woman: Ann Whitefield makes persistent efforts to entice Tanner to marry her yet he remains a bachelor. As Shaw himself puts it: "Don Juan had changed his sex and become Dona Juana, breaking out of the Doll's House and asserting herself as an individual".<ref name=dedication/><ref>{{cite book|last1=Singh|first1=Devendra Kumar|title=The idea of the superman in the plays of G. B. Shaw|date=1994|publisher=Atlantic Publishers and Distributors|location=New Delhi|isbn=8171563902|pages=18–21}}</ref> This is an explicit, intended reversal of [[Tirso de Molina]]'s play ''[[The Trickster of Seville and the Stone Guest]]'', more widely known as the source of [[Lorenzo Da Ponte|Da Ponte's]] ''[[Don Giovanni]]''; here Ann, representing Doña Ana, is the predator – "Don Juan is the quarry instead of the huntsman," as Shaw notes.<ref name=dedication/><ref>{{cite book|last1=Grey|first1=Thomas S|editor1-last=Goehr|editor1-first=Lydia|editor2-last=Herwitz|editor2-first=Daniel|title=The Don Giovanni moment : essays on the legacy of an opera|date=2008|publisher=Columbia University Press|location=New York|isbn=978-0231137553|page=100}}</ref>

Ann is referred to as "the [[Energy (esotericism)|Life Force]]" and represents Shaw's view that in every culture, it is the women who force the men to marry them rather than the men who take the initiative.<ref name=dedication/> Sally Peters Vogt proposes: "Thematically, the fluid Don Juan myth becomes a favorable milieu for [[George Bernard Shaw#CITEREFReligion: Creative Revolutionary: Time, December 1950|Creative Evolution]]", and that "the legend&nbsp;... becomes in ''Man and Superman'' the vehicle through which Shaw communicates his cosmic philosophy".<ref name=creative>Vogt, Sally Peters. "Ann and Superman: Type and Archetype". In ''Modern Critical Views: George Bernard Shaw'', edited with an introduction by [[Harold Bloom]]. New York: Chelsea House Publishers, 1987. p. 221.</ref>