Subtitled as ‘A Comedy and a Philosophy’, George Bernard Shaw published Man and Superman in 1903, and it was fully staged in 1915 at the Lyceum Theatre, Edinburgh. The title comes from Friedrich Nietzche’s ideas about the Ubermensch or ‘Superman’. The plot centers on John Tanner, and Ann Whitefield and her persistent efforts to make him marry her. Written in a response to a request for a ‘Don Juan’ play, it is based on his belief in the conflict between man as the spiritual creator and woman as the guardian of the biological continuity of the human race. Shaw, in this work, incorporates the concept of ‘life force’ and succeeds in painting a satirical view of the eternal battle of the sexes.
