a favorite ploy, when audience found themselves outraged by his subject matter, "to point with an air of injured innocence to the irreproachable conventionality of his construction and technique" (Spurling 139).
The paradox of Shaw's efforts was, therefore, that he was impressed by the efforts of Ibsen, and others, to create a naturalistic picture of life that spoke to the need for the audience to take some stand or action in regard to social problems yet never achieved the same kind of impact in his own work because of his inherent conventionality. Shaw preferred to present himself as a thinker rather than a mere playwright and the distinction he made between the two roles is obvious from the manner in which his ideas--socialism, the life force, the superman--seem to be imposed on his dramatic situations rather than inherent in them. His belief in Fabian socialism--which held that social change had to be gradual and was only accomplished by gifted leadership--rather than by the 'people' themselves--and his conviction regarding the existence of th
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