Psychological determinants for Shaw's intellectualized and desexualized Don Juan are found in his marriage to Charlotte Townsend and in his relationship to his mother. Shaw and Charlotte had agreed on an intellectual union of the spirits rather than one based on passion, an arrangement necessitated by Shaw's unconscious linking of Charlotte with his mother. The Don Juan dream begins with the playing of the Mozart strain of Don Giovanni, Shaw's favorite opera and one in which his mother performed during his childhood. The author sees Shaw's playwriting and interest in classical music, voice, and speech as sublimations of his feelings for his mother, in part identification with her and in part modified expressions of his oral conflicts.