Blog #11: Doolittle's Needs vs. Character

DOOLITTLE. I don't need less than a deserving man: I need more. I dont eat less hearty than him; and I drink a lot more. I want a bit of amusement, cause I'm a thinking man. I want cheerfulness and a song and a band when I feel low. Well, they charge me just the same for everything as they charge the deserving. What is middle class morality? Just an excuse for never giving me anything...I'm playing straight with you. I aint pretending to be deserving. I'm undeserving; and I mean to go on being undeserving. (46)

Alfred Doolittle's views on Victorian class structure present the social condition of a poor man who does not strive for the rewarded pretensions of "middle class morality." His words appear at first to succumb to the very vices a man of his stature would espouse: greed, gluttony, drink, etc. But then he begins to describe pleasures any man would enjoy: activities to exercise his intellect, lift his spirits...but laments that they are just as or if not more difficult to obtain than his "deserving" counterparts. Because they are from time to time graced with the charity of a higher society that deems them deserving, these men are given a subsidy in life that a man like Doolittle doesn't receive, though they face similar financial troubles.

Doolittle, like any other man, aspires to the same life they do, but is put at a disadvantage because he has to work harder for it...all because he doesn't fit a mandated description of "deserving." What can he do? Doolittle is honest about his faults but the woman who receives "money out of six different charities in one week for the death of the same husband" might not admit that she's been given too much. Doolittle puts forth conviction in his interests--he is who he is, and how can he help that? He argues that he will continue to be undeserving because he is upfront about himself, and what he receives (or doesn't) as a result is unfair because "middle class morality" controls the variable of an easier life: a nebulous construction of personal character as opposed to an inculpable financial plight. His statement implies that society should equate the undeserving and deserving on the basis of a man's concrete needs, not his character (which seems to hold no bearing on his wealth...look at Professor Higgins)--echoing Shaw's own socialist views and acting as his mouthpiece for social criticism.