In the play “Pygmalion”, a flower girl named Eliza Doolittle, who is looked upon as dirty and uncivilized , is at the center of a bet between two old rich men. Professor Higgins, a phonetics scientist, decides to take on the task of “turning a flower girl into a duchess”.
But what Higgins does is beyond physical attributes and speaking abilities, far more important than he thought he was capable of. Why, a young woman who had been stripped of her freedom of speech, demoted to a social status level of dirt, and bound to a life as a merchant, Eliza was given great gifts that changed her as a whole. Higgins manages to take Eliza and give her the status of a human with her basic unalienable rights!
Of course, elite women would be more well off than a woman of Eliza’s status, but yet still face the impacts and ideals of a sexist, patriarchal society. I believe that rather than turning a flower girl into a duchess, this play is about how Eliza goes from a woman to a human being. This
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She now sees the power she has within herself now. Eliza now has the skills to be elite, a romantic interest, and a newly rich father. She has bigger and better things besides Professor Higgins. “ELIZA. You see, really and truly, apart from the things anyone can pick up (the dressing and the proper way of speaking, and so on), the difference between a lady and a flower girl is not how she behaves, but how she 's treated. I shall always be a flower girl to Professor Higgins, because he always treats me as a flower girl, and always will; but I know I can be a lady to you, because you always treat me as a lady, and always will.” This truth from Eliza expands to a patriarchal society. The way women are treated to be inferior is what keeps them inferior, not how women act. Eliza is lucky to have the opportunity to hold herself to a higher image that is given the respect she always deserved. If only all women were not treated like flower girls, and like
Eliza's assaults against True Womanhood are violations of the virtues submissiveness and purity. When Eliza refuses to ignore the gallantry of Major Sanford in favor of the proposals of Reverend Boyer despite the warnings of her friends and mother, she disregards submissiveness in favor of her own fanc...
Eliza Wharton has sinned. She has also seduced, deceived, loved, and been had. With The Coquette Hannah Webster Foster uses Eliza as an allegory, the archetype of a woman gone wrong. To a twentieth century reader Eliza's fate seems over-dramatized, pathetic, perhaps even silly. She loved a man but circumstance dissuaded their marriage and forced them to establish a guilt-laden, whirlwind of a tryst that destroyed both of their lives. A twentieth century reader may have championed Sanford's divorce, she may have championed the affair, she may have championed Eliza's acceptance of Boyer's proposal. She may have thrown the book angrily at the floor, disgraced by the picture of ineffectual, trapped, female characters.
Another factor in the storyline is society's attitude to class differences. Higher classed people were never allowed to socialise with people below their class. For example, Alice who is a young girl born to a rich high-classed family queries why she cannot marry Thomas, a lower classed boy. This is answered by "'Cos he's not a gentleman." Higher classed people were not permitted to marry out of their class. If they did it would be considered shameful and parents would often disown their children. Another example is, "Never was he more ashamed than when he saw their eyes scan his heavy jacket and breeches, his hob-nailed boots and cotton shirt and these were his best clothes" this is when Thomas visits Alexander's house. Alexander is much higher classed. It shows how he feels to be in the company of those higher classed.
According to Elizabethan society, the center of Olivia’s dilemma with her marriage was ensuring her wealth, not marrying a man she loved (Joseph 170). Social class increases division among individuals in society. This play “ is not the story of a Juliet's or an Orlando's love .., but of the very realistic struggles and intrigues over the betrothal of a rich Countess, whose selection of a mate determines the future” (170). Readers looking past these boundaries created by class and gender, can find striking similarities in emotions characters have for each other. The personal struggles the characters face in this play demonstrate the obstacles that individuals faced because of their gender or place in the social hierarchy.
The White apron is a powerful play about socioeconomic problems and inequality in our community. In the play we are introduce to two main characters, the madam and the house cleaner. Secondary characters include the distinguish gentleman and swimmers on the beach. The play takes place on the beach during the month of March. In the beginning of the play, the author reminds us the readers the immediate difference between the physical appearances of the two women. We are also made aware that there are not only physical differences between the two women, but also that of social status and financial stability. The madam is a woman of her thirty; she has light hair and has a somewhat attractive face. We also know that the madam has a husband and a young son. Whereas the maid is in her twenties, she has a fair complexion, black hair, placid and pleasant face. She is from a lower social class.
Eliza’s blatant disregard for the concern of those around her contributed heavily to her demise. Had she listened to her friends and family when they told her to marry Mr...
her is inferior to Rochester and others of high class. She is forced into this social
Shakespeare’s Much Ado about Nothing is, on the surface, a typical romantic comedy with a love-plot that ends in reconciliation and marriage. This surface level conformity to the conventions of the genre, however, conceals a deeper difference that sets Much Ado apart. Unlike Shakespeare’s other romantic comedies, Much Ado about Nothing does not mask class divisions by incorporating them into an idealized community. Instead of concealing or obscuring the problem of social status, the play brings it up explicitly through a minor but important character, Margaret, Hero’s “waiting gentlewoman.” Shakespeare suggests that Margaret is an embodiment of the realistic nature of social class. Despite her ambition, she is unable to move up in hierarchy due to her identity as a maid. Her status, foiling Hero’s rich, protected upbringing, reveals that characters in the play, as well as global citizens, are ultimately oppressed by social relations and social norms despite any ambition to get out.
In Arcadia, The Importance of Being Earnest, and Look Back in Anger, the women characters play distinct roles in the dramas. However, the type of roles, the type of characters portrayed, and the purpose the women’s roles have in developing the plot and themes vary in each play. As demonstrated by The Importance of Being Earnest and Look Back in Anger, the majority of women’s roles ultimately reflect that women in British society were viewed to be unequal to men in love and in relationships and generally the weaker sex, emotionally, physically and intellectually. However, I have found an exception to this standard in the play Arcadia, in which Thomasina Coverly plays the role of a young genius.
At the start of the novel, Eliza Haywood places her protagonist in a very interesting, unique position, with regards to society of the time. The nameless main character is first illustrated in a playhouse, observing the interactions of the strangers around her. She notices a prostitute, surrounded by a swarm of men. “She could not help testifying her contempt of men who...threw away their time in such a manner, to some Ladies...the greater was her wonder, that men, some of whom she knew were accounted to have wit, should have tastes for very depraved” (257-258.) “Fantomina”, as she later comes to be called, oversees all of this. Haywood seems to put her above this crowd of men and prostitutes, while she observes and makes judgments on the nature of their behaviors. She expresses that she is disgusted by the mindlessness of the men in this situation. One might argue that this depicts a reversal of gender roles. Typically, men would look at women in this way, and the male character wo...
I shall endeavour to explore and analyse how women are presented in Shakespeare’s “Romeo and Juliet”, Marvell’s “To His Coy Mistress” and Duffy’s “Human Interest”.
...ve been suffering mental abuse by their husband. This play presents the voice of feminism and tries to illustrate that the power of women is slightly different, but can be strong enough to influence the male dominated society. Although all women are being oppressed in the patriarchal society at that time, Glaspell uses this play as a feminist glory in a witty way to win over men. Mrs. Hale and Mrs. Peters solve the crime by reflecting on Minnie Wright’s unhappy marriage that leads her to murdering. Using the relationship between female and male characters throughout the play, Glaspell speaks up to emphasize how the patriarchal society underestimated women’s rights and restricted women’s desires.
This fact plays a crucial role in the mood of the play. If the reader understands history, they also understand that women did not really amount to any importance, they were perceived more as property.
Victorian women lived according to strict social conventions, which dictated their actions, emotions, and beliefs. These conventions were often presented in antithetical pairs: private versus public spheres, the angel in the house versus the fallen woman. One of the most complex paradoxes for women to master was that of beauty versus vanity. Society’s rules required a young lady to be attractive, but not provocative; diligent about her appearance, but not overly so; aware of her beauty, and simultaneously unconscious of it. Balancing these meticulous distinctions, then, became an almost unattainable feat, but a crucial one, as success or failure directly translated into a woman’s moral status. In Adam Bede, George Eliot contrasts the idealized preacher Dinah with the fallible dairymaid Hetty by illustrating two very different examples of feminine beauty. Eliot directly addresses the complicated understanding of “moral” Victorian beauty through her physical presentation of these women and their actions throughout the story.
...nd an upper-class gentleman while she is ignorant and a lower-class flower girl. The man is superior, intelligent and reasonable whereas the woman is inferior, stupid and emotional. However, in Act 5, which can be considered as a climax, Eliza begins to disobey Mr. Higgins and oblige him to treat her equally and respectfully. This shows Eliza’s independence and maturity. This self-confidence and revolution against the existing conventions is a plain criticism of Shaw on the existing ideas at that time.