Pygmalion, a play by George Bernard Shaw, the main characters, Professor Henry Higgins and flower girl Eliza Doolittle are discrete. Higgins is a successful linguist and member of the upper class, while Doolittle is a common flower girl who sells her flowers on the streets of London. Bernard Shaw utilizes Eliza’s speech as a derogatory towards British society, though this same criticism is cast upon the upper class. Throughout the story, Eliza Doolittle develops as a women, and rises to a higher ranking because of her expertise of Higgins and Pickering. Her father Alfred Doolittle has a much different perspective of the upper class than she does, which result in different perspectives of the bourgeoisie. Even though the theme of class is evident …show more content…
“Ow, eez yə-ooa san, is e? Wal, fewd dan y' də-ooty bawmz a mather should, eed now bettern to spawl a pore gel's flahrzn than ran awy athaht pyin. Will ye-oo py me f'them?' (Here, with apologies, this desperate attempt to represent her dialect without a phonetic alphabet must be abandoned as unintelligible outside London)." As this excerpt demonstrates, Shaw shrewdly uses dialect to not only criticize the lower class, but also the superficiality of the upper class. If we take a deeper look, Shaw is a self-proclaimed socialist, who claims that speech alone is what makes a difference between a flower girl and a duchess. In the novel it is clear through dialect that there is a major difference between the …show more content…
Pickering, shown as gentle and courteous, he is immediately touched by Eliza’s vulgarity and innocence by offering to pay for her lessons himself. Even Eliza appreciates Pickering, accrediting his treatment as a catalyst. "Your calling me Miss Doolittle that day when I first came to Wimpole Street," claims Eliza, "That was the beginning of self-respect for me" (79). Contrasting from Pickering, Higgins claims he has "created this thing out of squashed cabbage leaves of Covent Garden" in reference to Eliza (78). Pickering distinctly treats a lowly flower girl, Eliza Doolittle, the in the same fashion as he would treat a lady. He, in fact, eliminates the class distinction through treatment that does not take such distinctions into account. Higgins treats Eliza just as rudely and inconsiderately as he treats every other character in the play, including his mother and Mrs. Pearce. Eliza metamorphoses not only into the "duchess" Higgins promises, or the shop girl Eliza wants, but also rather into a self-reliant professional woman. Eliza originates as the "incarnate insult to the English language," according to Higgins, yet her personal evolution of character is dramatically shown by Shaw as a theme of favoritism
Class politics are introduced to the story when the Phonies arrive in Stella Street. The Phonies are disliked as soon as they arrive in Stella Street because of the renovations they make on Old Aunt Lillie’s house and the children of Stella Street make fun of the fact that the Phonies refurnish the house (p.13). Henni encourages the reader to make fun of the high class Phonies about the way they speak, because the Phonies use words such as ‘dinnah’ and ‘daaaarling’ (p.18). This shows the Phonies in a negative way enticing the audience to take Henni’s side or a middle class approach to the story. When the Phonies send a note from their lawyer to Frank’s family for a proposal of a new fence (p.22) they are once again looked at poorly.
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...
The Book was written near the end of world war 2 and the play was acted out in 1946, during his life, Britain was run by Capitalist Rules and as a socialist, he thinks that society then was unfair, during the rule of the capitalists, working classes had no rights but women in rich families avoid this and live a life of luxury, for working women, they need to
Before Eliza first encountered Mr. Higgins, she was simply a dirty, yet caring girl in the gutter of London. During her time with both Mr. Higgins and Colonel Pickering, Eliza did change, for the fist few weeks of her stay in Wimpole Street, she questioned everything that Higgins asked her to do, and generally couldn't see how they would help her. Later, Eliza begins to understand that Higgins, as harsh as he is, is trying to do his best to teach her, and therefore should be respected. After the ambassador's ball, we see more of the old Eliza resurfacing. She starts to worry again, and since she has grown attached to Higgins and Pickering, is devastated to see their finding her so trivial. Eliza's basic character remains relatively unchanged. We can still observe the old Eliza, under the upper-class persona. The play, "Pygmalion" brings out the message that looks can be extremely deceiving, while touching on the issue that self presentation really does change the way people look at you.
A. George Bernard Shaw’s Pygmalion is a representation of the literary movement “realism” that took place in the late 19th century. This movement can be described more as an attitude of playwrights who sought to “challenge [audiences], rather than please” (Puncher). Factors influencing this attitude include: “new technologies, scientific advancement, urbanism, the proliferation of nationalist movements, changing class relationships, an accelerating economic transition from agriculture to industry, and new theories of human nature” (Puncher). Romanticism inspired serious playwrights to write more controversial plays that were sometimes viewed as antagonizing to audiences. These plays challenges social norms and greatly influenced the culture during the 19th
Higgins and Eliza still sharing the archetypes of the teacher and student get into an argument. The argument starts with Higgins explaining that he does not specifically treat her poorly but treats everyone poorly. Higgins explains, “the question is not whether I treat rudely, but whether you ever heard me treat anyone else better,” (Shaw, 77). Eliza threatened to leave although Higgins explained that she has no money or skill besides speaking properly and proposes that she marry someone rich. Insulted, Eliza threatened to marry Freddy which deeply bothers Higgins because he feels that the idea is a waste of his work on specifically on someone like him. This particular detail shows how Higgins does value his creation and work of art not wanting it to be wasted. In the end, Eliza leaves and later ends up marrying Freddy who together opens a flower shop. Even though there is some similarity in the theme of loving one’s own creation, Shaw’s Pygmalion does not compare to the archetypes in the myth Ovid’s Pygmalion as the movie did.
The basic storyline progresses at a leisurely tempo, leaving room for music and songs that compliment the storyline. The focal storyline concerns Eliza, a poor Cockney from Covent Garden who is transformed into a lady under the tutelage of Higgins. When he first encounters her, an unwashed girl with a grating voice selling flowers, he forms an opinion of her and calls her, among other things, a "squashed cabbage leaf" and an "incarnate insult to the English language." His conviction has not changed when, the next morning, she shows up at his house, asking him to teach her how to speak properly and be a lady. Although at first reluctant, Higgins, intrigued by the challenge of re-making a woman, agrees. He tells her that she is stay there for six months learning to speak beautifully, like a duchess. Higgins also tells her that, “At the end of six months you will be taken to an embassy ball in a carriage, beautifully dressed. If the king finds out you are not a lady, you will be taken
On the other hand, in ‘Pygmalion’ G. B. Shaw speaks something very similar. In the preface itself he makes his purpose very clear and tells that as a phonetician one can change the life of a layman. The reformation of the inner soul is possible if proper and systematic training could be provided to the countrymen. A planned rigorous linguistic training can bring a sea-change in the character of the person. He tells that English language can uplift the status of the person in the society. In the first act he introduces a Notetaker who is interested in noting down the speech of different class of people in the throng. The Notetaker feels that these people are not correct users of English language and in a way they are insulting the whole country. He is aware of all the hurdles in making them fluent speakers but as a humanitarian he never looses his hope. Hoping against hope he lives in the expectation that one day the change will come. The Flower Girl is also someone who ...
Eliza seems to have stood up for herself against Higgins and support Shaw's theory of Victorian women breaking the ideals of the housewife and child-rearer but once she is married to Freddy, or to anyone else, and starts a family she will have to go behind the scenes and keep the house and tend to her children. Pulling Eliza from the gutter and making her into a duchess revolves around a friendly bet between Higgins and Pickering. Eliza is passed off as a duchess but as the play draws to a close the bet is uncovered and Higgins and her squabble. The play ends ambiguously, we are told she is going to marry Freddy but their marriage is left up to the reader. However, it is with the understanding of Victorian ideals the reader can hypothesize what is going to happen once they are married; which is taking on the original roles of men and women in the Victorian era.
Long ago there was city called Cyprus, an island in ancient Greece. The patron deity of the city was the beautiful goddess of love, Aphrodite. Aphrodite was not a fan of the city of Cyprus, specifically the women there. The women that lived within Cyprus neglected to pay homage to the beautiful goddess, fuling her animosity towards the women. Because of the neglect shown by the women Aphrodite cast a curse upon all of the women that they may only live the forsaken loveless life of being a prostitute. Of course this raised concern for the men of Cyprus, the only women they had to share their lives with were doomed with a life a prostitution. However, there was one man, Pygmalion, a sculptor living on the edge of town, who hated this about all the women so much that he refused to be with women and had accepted a life of companionless solace.
One of the reasons why Shaw made the play was due to whether he believed in love or not. During the construction of the play, Shaw spoke of love repeatedly as he was a man who was in love when he wrote it. At that time, George Bernard Shaw was having an affair with an actress Patrick Campbell; the love he had for Patrick Campbell was very intimate or so that’s how Shaw thought it was. When it did not work out, He became very angry; Pygmalion was the result of how it did not work. At the end of the play, Shaw kept the readers guessing in controversy whether or not true love does exist.
He thinks that his habits of walking over everyone around him and being outrageously blunt are too ingrained in him to be changed. However, the whole play is about how he transforms Eliza. He believes he can change her so dramatically that she can pass as a duchess, but he does not believe that even he can start to act like a decent person. Shaw's depiction of Eliza's transformation from a Cockney flower girl to a duchess is rather interesting. Higgins' irony and comedic relief adds a light-hearted tone to the serious themes presented in the play.
flowers to a bystander who becomes disgusted by her when she calls a man by his first name(“Freddy, look wh’ y’ goin’ deah” Shaw 12). Moments later she tries to sell flowers to two men named Henry Higgins and Colonel Pickering, whom turn away from her and speak openly about her awful pronunciations and the way she carried herself. Throughout the story, the two men help Eliza Doolittle better her speech and improve the way that she presents herself in public. By doing so, the book shows many transitions of one characters tremendous growth, and the attitudes of everyone around her when she is portrayed in two different lights. Because of the circumstances in the book, the conflict, diction, and point-of-view are important elements used in Pygmalion.
George Bernard Shaw's play Pygmalion is the story of Henry Higgins, a master phonetician, and his mischievous plot to pass a common flower girl, Eliza Doolittle, off as a duchess at the Embassy Ball. In order to achieve his goal, Higgins must teach Eliza how to speak properly and how to act in upper-class society. The play looks at middle class morality and upper-class superficiality, and reflects the social ills of nineteenth century England, and attests that all people are worthy of respect and dignity.
George Bernard Shaw was born on the twenty-six day of July in 1856. “Bernard Shaw was the third child and only son of George Carr Shaw and Lucinda Elizabeth (Gurly) Shaw” (Carr 7). “Bernard Shaw had two sisters, the youngest of whom died of tuberculosis at the age of twenty-one and Lucy the eldest child, made a career as a singer in light opera” (Morgan 102). “George Shaw was a rather typical Irishman of his day in that he was given more to drinking than to achieving” (Carr 7). George Shaw being of Anglo-Irish Ascendency was part of the upper middle class because of his English parentage.