Summary
The second act opens in the driveway of a country house, where a broken-down car is being repaired by a man in blue trousers. Tanner, who was standing in the drive watching someone fix the car, pulls the person out from underneath, introducing us to his chauffeur. The Chauffeur gets in the car and tests it, while bickering with Tanner about how fast he drives. Minutes later, Octavius Robinson arrives with Mr. Malone, an American who drives a steam car. Tanner introduces Octavius to the Chauffeur, who he calls Enry Straker. Although his name is actually Henry, Tanner notes that “this man takes more trouble to drop his aiches than ever his father did to pick them up.” At the same time, Tanner goes to lengths to clarify that Straker is highly educated and proud of his accent. We also learn that Straker is contemptuous of gentlemen, like Tanner and Octavius, who he thinks lacks the know-how to engage in everyday tasks. Octavius, who claims to be a socialist, makes a pandering remark to Straker about the dignity of labor, which Straker finds unconvincing. He leaves to deal with the car, which is being fixed up for a planned trip to Nice, in the south of France.
Octavius then reveals to Tanner that he proposed to Ann the previous night, which upset her because of how close it was to her father’s death. Octavius also tells Tanner that, because he and Ramsden are Ann’s guardians, she has demanded that he ask Tanner for her hand in marriage. Tanner grants him permission, but warns him that Ann is conniving and her life goal is to find a husband, while Octavius’ is to be a writer. To this, Octavius replies that he is unable to write without Ann, his muse. Tanner assures him that he will eventually lose interest in her, which Octavius refutes, saying that Tanner never understood love.
Straker returns and Octavius hands Tanner a note from Rhoda, Ann’s sister, telling him that she was prohibited by Ann from driving with Tanner. According to Octavius, Ann believes that he is “not a fit person for a young girl to be with,” a reference to Tanner’s progressive beliefs. Ann comes down from the house and asks Octavius to go help her mother entertain Mr. Malone, the American. It becomes clear that this was all part of Ann’s plan to trick Tanner into letting her join him in his car.
The conversation is interrupted by the entrance of Mrs. Whitefield and Hector Malone, who Shaw describes as a quintessential American, well-mannered and agreeable but also fiercely religious and prone to small talk. Hector offers to take Violet, Octavius’ sister, in his car; he seems to be enamored with her. However, Octavius informs him that Violet is already married and that her husband has forbidden her to tell anyone his name. Hector, who appears taken aback, agrees to keep the marriage a secret.
The group leaves Hector as Violet comes down the avenue. She gives Hector a kiss and he asks her to let him tell people about their marriage. Violet, we find out, has asked Hector to keep their marriage a secret because his father does not like the English middle class. He agrees to keep it a secret until they are financially stable and tells her about the trip to Nice. Tanner and Straker return and Hector and Violet pretend not to be acquainted. Somewhat formally, he offers to show her his American steam car and they leave together.
Tanner asks Straker if he would help push Ann to talk with Octavius, to help keep distance between Tanner and Ann. Straker agrees, but tells Tanner that he thinks Octavius doesn’t have a chance with Ann because she is interested in Tanner instead. Alarmed, Tanner tells Straker that they must leave at once. Tanner starts the car in a hurry and Straker jumps in as the car pulls away.
Analysis
It seems as if every character in this play is hiding something— each new pair of characters left onstage together turns out to have a shared, conspiracy-like secret. In this act, the greatest secret is the one between Hector and Violet. While all of the characters have known for a while that Violet has a secret husband, nobody except for the audience is let in on the fact that it’s Hector. In the meantime, throughout Act Two, the audience feels an additional tension because of the previous scene between Tanner and Ann. We, the audience and readers, know that Ann isn’t as innocent as she lets on. Therefore, when Octavius tells Tanner that she’s rejected his proposal, we know that the true reason has less to do with her father’s recent death, and more to do with her manipulative tendencies and possibly her attraction to Tanner. Tanner also knows this, though he doesn’t reveal it to Octavius. As a result, the audience feels a bond with Tanner, though we may disapprove of his actions. In general, George Bernard Shaw packs the play with dramatic irony—the audience knows everyone’s secrets, while the characters know only a few each.
This act also introduces us to two outsiders, which gives the audience the enjoyable experience of being able to laugh at both the outsiders and the insiders, who now appear even more absurd in contrast. Act One featured a cast entirely composed of upper-class Brits. Violet is shunned for her pregnancy and Tanner for his politics, but everyone seems to operate on a shared set of experiences, and everyone has known one another for a long time. Here, we meet the working-class “Enry,” Tanner’s chauffeur, and the American Hector. Each character reveals new biases and assumptions among the others onstage.
Straker prompts a flow of fetishistic commentary from Tanner and Octavius, both of whom believe themselves to be socialists, though it isn’t clear whether Octavius in particular links that label to any actual political beliefs. Tanner proudly defends his driver’s educational background, bewildering Straker himself. Octavius, meanwhile, praises the concept of labor, though Straker, an actual laborer, objects that he would prefer to work less rather than more. Even though Ramsden and Tanner spent most of Act One butting heads over politics, Act Two reveals that these wealthy Brits’ politics are more about self-image than actual practice.
Hector Malone, meanwhile, receives nearly an essay's-worth of description in Shaw’s stage directions. These directions poke fun at the British characters, though not as much as they poke fun at Malone and his countrymen. On the one hand, Shaw says, Malone’s lack of shame about being American causes Brits to like him more—not because they agree that being American is alright, but because they respect his honesty with regards to the obvious “defect” of his nationality. Considering that Shaw has spent a good amount of time making fun of British social mores, it seems that he’s using a touch of irony here: while Englishmen might look down on Americans, he hints, they’re not so perfect themselves.
That irony, in a quick sleight of hand, quickly turns to understatement after Shaw begins to make fun of Americans as a whole. Shaw points out that Americans like Malone think their taste superior to Brits’, but only because they’ve so recently discovered classic writers like Matthew Arnold, whom British readers have long since internalized. By comparing these two nationalities, Shaw highlights both British snobbery and American arrogance: While all this information is crammed into a stage direction, where the audience won’t see it, it gives actors a cue to highlight these national tendencies within their individual characters. For instance, Violet and Hector’s conversation provides a perfect opportunity to watch these attitudes play out. Hector’s parents would disapprove of their marriage, he says, because of his wife’s class and nationality, while Violet’s parents would feel the same way about her marrying the American son of a manufacturer. The stage directions also give everyone involved in the production an idea of the play’s general tone: arch, clever, and sharply observant.
Finally, in this act, we see another instance of Ann’s ability to skewer other characters, particularly Tanner, with her observations. While Ann might not be the most morally upright person in this play, she’s remarkably apt at pointing out Tanner’s flaws and hypocrisies. In a particularly memorable moment here, she remarks that Tanner can only speak about her in metaphors: he compares her at various points to a boa constrictor, a bee, a muffin, and an elephant. This observation is thought-provoking for the audience, if not for Tanner himself. Perhaps his metaphors are a symptom of his general affinity for abstraction—the same abstraction that causes him to valorize the working class without helping them in concrete ways. Or, possibly, it’s a sign that he just likes Ann more than he shows, and that she ignites his imagination. Regardless, the metaphors show us that Tanner is a talented speaker capable of vivid images, even if those images are sometimes empty.
