Pygmalion by g.b. shaw
- 1. George Bernard Shaw
- 2. Shaw was born in Dublin in 1856 and came to London at the age of twenty. At first, he dedicated his life in dramatic criticism. He was so admiring of Henrik Ibsen‟s works, that he wrote in 1891 The Quintessence of Ibsenism (one of his most famous critical works). He was an active supporter of social justice and women‟s rights movement and, in 1884, he joined the Fabian Society, an organization promoting socialism. His affection to these social struggles made him write an essay called „The Intelligent Woman‟s Guide to Socialism and Capitalism‟. All Shaw‟s plays have a Life preface telling about the theme the author wants to convey to. The most Important plays by Shaw are „Man and Superman‟ (1903),„Pygmalion‟ (1913) and „Back to Methuselah‟. In 1925 Shaw won the Nobel Prize. He died in 1950.
- 3. Shaw‟s masterpiece is “Pygmalion” whose title is inspired by “Metamorphoses” by Ovid, a ..inspirati Greek legend telling about a sculptor who scorns a statue of a woman and falls in love with it; Aphrodite (the goodness of love) transforms the sculpture into a real woman and, at the end, the artist marries his creation. 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, as a duchess at the Embassy Ball. Higgins, to reach his goal, has to teach the language and behavior used in the high society. The play looks at middle class morality and upper-class superficiality, and on reflects the social evils of nineteenth-century England, and attests that all people are worthy of respect and dignity. .
- 4. ‘You have no idea’, Higgins tells his mother, ‘how frightfully interesting it is to take a human being and change her into a quite different human being by creating a It’s filling up the new speech for her. deepest gulf that separates class from class and soul from soul.’ This has—particularly, perhaps, in England—its social truth and comic potentiality.
- 5. HIGGINS on the one hand can be described as a rude, careless and impolite character, ..Charact but at the same time likeable because of his fascination and dedication to his work. His rudeness may be revealed when he says about Eliza: "A woman who utters such depressing and disgusting sounds has no right to be anywhere - no right to live. Remember that you are a human being with a soul and the divine gift or ers articulate speech: that your native language is the language of Shakespeare and Milton and The Bible; and don't sit there crooning like a bilious pigeon." Higgins‟s mother holds a great fascination for him, she speaks properly, has good manners and is the only woman Higgins adores. In general, he appears small-minded and doesn't reflect about problems Eliza might be confronted with.
- 6. ELIZA, on the other hand, is willing to learn and does her best to please Higgins. When she becomes aware of Higgins' goals she eventually gets disappointing and angry. She feels as the subject of the experiment, while Higgins, never reflecting about her feelings, treats her in an impersonal way and can't understand her. Eliza‟s father is a dustman, he play a little role which is pretty important, in fact he is the most important moral character. The first impression we get of Eliza’s is a poor flower girl that has a very strong, whiny personality. "I ain't done nothing wrong by speaking to the gentleman. I've a right to sell flowers if I keep off the kerb." This is our first view of Eliza standing up for her self and not being outspoken. This foreshadows a girl that would not be good in a relationship because in the time this book is set, a woman was to obey the man and let him do the big talk.
- 8. The protagonist of Pygmalion is the character of Henry Higgins, an eccentric professor of phonetics. The story begins when the flower girl tries in all ways of selling flowers to passersby, and attracts the attention of Henry Higgins, a man who begins to take notes on her. a passerby warns the girl who becomes hysterical. The next morning the flower girl decides to go to Higgins’ and take lessons. Higgins initially shocked, makes a bet with Colonel Pickering, a leading scholar of Indian dialects, to be able to teach the good pronunciation to the little flower girl, Eliza Doolittle, who talks awfully cockney, and that Eliza will learn so well that he could manage to make her pass for a duchess. Professor Higgins decides that she will help his mother in her house. While there Eliza meets Freddy Eynsford-Hill who is fascinated by her. Higgins introduces her to a party at the Embassy passing it off successfully for a Romanian princess: he won the bet. Eliza, however, no longer wants to be treated like a guinea pig and tells him she will leave and marry Freddy: an end deliberately and polemically anti-romantic.
- 9. Shaw‟s Pygmalion became the basis of the musical My Fair Lady by Alan Jay Lerner and music by Frederick Loewe. The show's 1956 Broadway production was a smash hit, setting a new record for the longest run of any major theatre production in history. It was followed by a hit London production, a popular film version, and numerous revivals.
- 10. Aphorisms Who among us knows what to do? And knowing this, you would be willing to do it? Pygmalion, 1912 The secret of being miserable is to have enough time to worry if it is happy or not Misalliance , 1910 The people who complain about their status they always blame the circumstances. People that go on in this world are those that are busyand trying circumstances they want and if they can not find them, create them. Mrs. Warren's Profession, 1894