Shaw's Pygmalion

Shaw's Pygmalion

Pygmalion can be classified as a comedy. The objects of the comedy

centralize around the people, the ideas and the attitudes. The first

humorous part of the play is with Mrs Eynsford-Hill and her daughter

Clara waiting for Clara's brother Freddy to get them a taxi as it was

pouring with rain. They get annoyed so Clara asks, 'do you expect us

to go and get one ourselves?'. The audience/reader of this play finds

this humorous because the Eynsford-Hills are stereotypical of middle

class people who stick rigidly to their position in society. They

appear fussy and pathetic due to their frustration at not being able

to get a taxi. Therefore seeing how people act in certain situations

and their different attitudes creates the humour. The next part of

humour in this story line is when Eliza's (the flower girl) accent is

introduced. It is the contrast between the Eynsford-Hills accent and

Eliza's accent that makes the reader laugh as in the time when this

play was first performs and written, around 1914, the audience would

have been more used to hearing the Eynsford-Hills accent and so would

have found Eliza's 'strange' accent very strange. For example: -

The Flower Girl [Eliza]: Theres menners f'yer! Ta-oo banches o voylets

trod into the mad.

Mrs Higgins' 'At Home day' causes the audience, once again to see the

Eynsford-Hills as humorous characters because of the way they stick

rigidly to the etiquette that matches their social class position. The

restricted topics of conversation such as health and weather makes the

audience laugh because of the ridiculous restrictively of the

conversation. The number of times 'how d...

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nowadays, due to the ways in which ways of life have changed.

Therefore what modern day audiences would think of as humorous in the

play, the 1912/4 audience wouldn't have thought so, and vice versa.

For example the audience in 1912/4 wouldn't have found the restricted

conversation at Mrs Higgins' 'At Home day' amusing, whilst we, as a

modern day audience, do find it amusing as we are not used to this way

of life and the different sorts of etiquette. Although the themes such

as the social class system are not as defined in modern day society

however certain accents are still discriminated against, in today's

society, and Received Pronunciation is still seen as the preferred way

and the educated way of speaking. I feel that Pygmalion is still

effective in presenting Shaw's ideas even though it is over 90 years

old.