Ramsden's study
The opening scene, in which the play's first moments of action take place, is packed with images that tell us all we need to know about Roebuck Ramsden himself and the society he's a part of. Readers of the play experience these images via stage direction, while viewers of a stage version will experience the images directly, seeing them as part of a set. The room is immaculately clean, letting the audience know that Ramsden is a meticulous person, and possibly a wealthy one, with servants to help clean up after him. His large study with its well-made furniture also gives us a clue as to his wealth, while his books and framed depictions of writers and thinkers tell the audience that Ramsden cares a great deal about knowledge and intellectual growth. Before the play's action even begins, this group of images gives the reader essential information about the segment of society the play focuses on: we know they're likely to be rich, respectable, and interested in personal and social improvement.
Granada Hills
The play's final act is set in Granada, and Shaw uses the natural setting to articulate some differences between Spanish and British culture. The hills of Granada, he writes in stage directions, are the same size as the Surrey Hills in England. Yet in spite of this similarity, the hills project completely different attitudes and create different moods. While the English ones are unimpressive and, as Shaw jokes, would be more appropriately called "protuberances," the Spanish versions have all the grandiosity of mountains even with their smaller size. These contrasting images are consistent with Shaw's other depictions of Spanish and English culture, in which Englishness is depicted as somewhat awkward and mundane, while Spanishness is portrayed as grander, though perhaps sillier.
Musical Imagery
This play contains an action-packed scene set entirely within one of Jack Tanner's dreams, and George Bernard Shaw needs a way to signal to his audience that they are entering a separate realm. He uses music to signal this shift, combining it with visual images of a dark mountain night. The music is ghostly and otherworldly, beginning quietly, with a "faint throbbing buzz," before violins and wind instruments join the song. Many scenes in this play take advantage of elaborate sets, but this is the only scene in which music has a prominent role, which lets audiences know that it must be different in other ways. This music not only sets the ethereal mood of the dream-scene, but also makes the transition from reality to dreams less confusing for audience members, since they can use the music as a clue to understand what is happening on stage.
Ann's Mourning Clothes
Since two characters' competing love for Ann drives so much of this play's actions, the imagery used to describe Ann serves an important purpose, cluing us into what, exactly, these men find so irresistible in her. Shaw's description of Ann is notable precisely because it contains so few concrete images. Instead, he builds up suspense by pointing out that Ann's beauty is, essentially, in the eye of the beholder: Shaw writes that Ann's beauty or lack thereof is dependent on the viewer's age, sex, and taste, and he crowds her entrance with abstract ideas, explaining, for instance, that she has "ensnaring eyes and hair." The only specific imagery provided is about Ann's clothes. She wears a mourning dress of black and violet, which is both very appealing and polite, and the slightest bit surprising with its additional color. By keeping an air of mystery around Ann with the exception of her outfit, Shaw emphasizes that Ann herself cultivates an air of mystery even while carefully choosing clothes and mannerisms that make others admire her.
Blackened Mother's Milk
When explaining to Octavius why he thinks artists should avoid marriage, Tanner tells his friend that the ideal artist "steals the mother's milk and blackens it to make printer's ink..." This metaphorical image is memorable and impactful because of its dramatic, stark use of color. The typically white liquid, milk, which is associated with nourishment and domesticity as well as femininity, is reversed and becomes black as it turns into ink, a substance associated with masculinity and the arts. This visual contrast lets us know that Tanner sees the realms of the feminine and masculine, the private and the public, as mutually exclusive and opposed.
