DRAMA II Modern Drama

DRAMA IIMODERN DRAMA

Lecture 32

PYGMALION

Review

George Bernard Shaw

George Bernard grew up in an atmosphere of genteel poverty, which to him was more humiliating than being merely poor

PYGMALION

The Myth Behind the Play


There is never any overt reference in the play to Pygmalion; Shaw assumes a classical understanding.

According to the Mythology Guide “Pygmalion saw so much to blame in women that he came at last to abhor the relation with them, and resolved to live unmarried. He was a sculptor, and had made with wonderful skill a statue of ivory, so beautiful that no living woman could be compared to it in beauty.

It was indeed the perfect sem-blance of a maiden that seemed to be alive, and only prevented from moving by modesty. His art was so perfect that it concealed itself, and its product looked like theworkmanship of nature.


Pygmalion admired his own work, and at last fell in love with the counter-feit creation. Oftentimes he laid his hand upon it, as if to assure himself whether it were living or not, and could not even then believe that it was only ivory.

The festival of Venus was at hand, a festival celebrated withgreat pomp at Cyprus. Victims were offered, the altars smoked,and the odor of incense filled the air.

When Pygmalion had performed his part in the solemnities, he stood before the altar and timidly said, "Ye gods, who can do all things, give me, I pray you, for my wife" he dared not say "my ivory virgin," but said instead "one like my ivory virgin." Venus, who was present at the festival, heard him


While he stands astonished and glad, though doubting, and fears he may be mistaken, again and again with a lover's ardor he touches the object of his hopes.

It was indeed alive! The veins when pressed yielded to the finger and thenresumed their roundness. Then at last the votary of Venus found words to thank the goddess, and pressed his lips upon lips as real as his own.

The Play Itself: PYGMALION

One of the most popular plays of Bernard Shaw, first performed in 1913 in Vienna and published and performed in London in 1916.

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Contextual Background

Pygmalion: Background

Pygmalion is set in London, England, around the beginning of the twentieth century.

During this time in London, working-class people like Eliza Doolittle

• lived in slums

• had no heat or hot water

• had to put coins in a meter to get electric light


The class structure in England at this time was very rigid.

upper class

middle class

working class


The government did provide some schooling.

However, an education did not teach the proper speech that was considered a sign of the upper class.

The way that many working-class people spoke was an obstacle to their becoming middle class.

PYGMALION

George Bernard Shaw’s Philosophy

George Bernard Shaw

“I must warn my readers that my attacks are directed against themselves, not against my stage figures.”

-Shaw

George Bernard Shaw

• Shaw wanted to force his viewers to face the reality of unpleasant events.

• He promoted the “unpleasant” plays by publishing a long preface in which he could argue his views.

• Shaw was awarded the Nobel Prize for literature in 1925.

• He continued to write until he was 94.

http://www.meghanwilliams.com/ugb.html

Meg Williams

What we believe influences how we behave

What we believe influences how we behave

Likewise, how we behave impacts what people think

about us.

Likewise, how we behave impacts what people think

about us.

In turn, this

affects how

others behave towards

us.

In turn, this

affects how

others behave towards

us.

Ultimately, how they behave towards us

reinforces what we believed about ourselves in the first

place

Ultimately, how they behave towards us

reinforces what we believed about ourselves in the first

place

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Plot Overview

Pygmalion: Introduction

In this play, George Bernard Shaw uses humor and lively characterization to explore how

language,

class structure,

education,

and gender

influence how people are seen by society.


The two main characters are• Eliza Doolittle—a poor

but proud flower girl with a cockney accent—a way of speaking associated with the working classes.

• Henry Higgins—an arrogant and insensitive linguistics professor


Eliza comes to Higgins’s house to ask him to give her speech lessons.

She wants to learn to speak properly so that she can get a job in a flower shop instead of selling flowers on the street.


Higgins decides to take the girl on as a professional challenge.

He boasts to his associate Colonel Pickering that with six months of lessons, Eliza could be passed off as a duchess.


Higgins has Eliza move into his home.

With the help of Pickering and the housekeeper, Mrs. Pearce, he teaches Eliza the proper speech and manners of the upper class.


Although Eliza wants to learn, there is tension between her and Higgins.

She also wants to be treated with respect—as a person.

Higgins, however, persists in treating her as a project and an object.


If Higgins’s experiment succeeds, where will Eliza go from there?

Will Eliza and Henry Higgins become friends, or will their differences drive them apart?

Will learning to speak like a duchess allow her to live like one?

Characters, Role, Relationship, Conflicts & Significance

A Look at the Play

Eliza Doolittle

Mr. Higgins

Col. Pickering

Mrs. Pearce

Freddy Hill

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Class Representation

kind, polite, generous, enthusiastic, eager, confident

impatient, rude, confident, superior, self-important

anxious, eager, emotional, ambitious, unsure

Character Position in society

Evidence in the play

ElizaLower class Language: calls

gentleman “sir” and “cap’in” (or captain) which is a compliment

Behaviour: respectful to people of higher class



Henry Higgins Language: calls Eliza

“you silly girl” and Pickering “my dear man” (an equal and friend)

Behaviour: rude (and patronizing) to lower class; polite to same or upper classMiddle

class



Colonel Pickering

Upper class

Language: prepared to begin a conversation with Henry, whom he does not know; generous with praise to him

Behaviour: generally confident and polite; but ignores Eliza

Words to know

• Phonetics• Dialect• Cockney• Dramatist• Fin de siecle • Social satire• Aestheticism • Fabian society• Shavian• Naturalism

Fabian Society

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Themes and the Major Conflicts

Major Conflicts

Major Conflicts1. Status Divide

The nature of class structure

Upper Class: Higgins, Col. Pickering, Mrs. Higgins, Mrs. Clair and Freddy Eynsford Hill.

Middle Class: Mrs. Pierce She does not, however, represent “middle-class morality” alone. In many ways that is also a quality of Higgins’ and Col. Pickering’s class.

Lower Working Class: Eliza, Alfred Doolittle and his never seen but often heard about “wife.” and Eliza’s step-mother.

Major Conflicts1. Status Divide A vast gulf between the poor and even

the lower upper class. Higgins’ “cast-off” change is a fortune

to Eliza who assumes later that he must have been drunk.

Eliza’s belief that riding in a taxi is the ultimate badge of upper class quality of life.

Major Conflicts2. Gender Relations/Differences

The relationship between genders “No, no, no, you two infinitely stupid male creatures!”

Major Conflicts2. Gender Relations/Differences

Gender Differences Neither Col. Pickering nor Henry Higgins have a

clue about the situation they are putting Eliza or themselves into.

Mrs. Pierce recognizes that Higgins is immorally using the power granted him by his patriarchal culture to pressure Eliza, a presser which if she gives in could lead her to a life of wickedness.

Major Conflicts3. Self-consciousness

Self Perception Eliza’s sense of worth She is infected with the lie.

Eliza learns that women in the upper classes in fact do not have the independence that women of the lower classes do. They must be connected to a man in some way to be respectable within “middle-class morality.”

Eliza rejects being a “gold-digger” and Higgins rejects female “puppy-dog” tricks.

Only a working skill frees Eliza.

Major Conflicts3. Self-consciousness

Major Conflicts3. Self-consciousness Eliza has a powerful sense of her value: “I’m a

good girl I am!” Therefore she will never become a “kept woman.”

She has ambition willing to give up two thirds of her daily income to improve herself.

But she is infected with class-prejudice Put the girls in their place just a bit You’re going to allow yourself to marry that low born

woman?

Major Conflicts4. Social Snobbery

Eliza’s Struggle To work at a flower-shop She is infected by social snobbery herself. Discovers that a rise in culture means a loss of

independence (as does her step-mother). Eventually achieves independence.

Probably the most Important conflict in the play: the class system is Eliza’s primary antagonist

PLOT THEMES

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Themes

Pygmalion 1. Theme of Language and Communication We hear language in all its forms in Pygmalion:

everything from slang and "small talk," to heartfelt pleas and big talk about soul and poverty.

Depending on the situation, and depending on whom you ask, language can separate or connect people, degrade or elevate, transform or prevent transformation. Language, we learn, doesn't necessarily need to be "true" to be effective; it can deceive just as easily as it can reveal the truth.

It is, ultimately, what binds Pygmalion together, and it pays to read carefully; even something as small as a single word can define a person.

Pygmalion 1. Theme of Language and Communication

Themes

2. Theme of Transformation This one may seem like a no-brainer: Pygmalion's all about turning a poor girl into a duchess, right? Well, sure, and Eliza's metamorphosis is stunning.

You could even go so far as to call it a Cinderella story. But remember: Cinderella turned back into a poor girl before she finally found her prince.

Pay attention and you'll notice that not all the attempts at transformation here are successful. There are plenty of false starts and false endings. By play's end, Shaw's made one thing very clear: be careful what you wish for.

2. Theme of Transformation

Themes

Pygmalion 3. Theme of Identity Every single day we talk about ourselves, saying

"I did this," "I did that," "I am," and "I'm not," but we don't usually think about what "I" means.

In Pygmalion, Shaw forces us to think this through. Some characters want to change who they are, others don't want to change at all.

Things get even more complicated when identities are made up, constructed. The play wants us to ask ourselves what I really means to think about different versions of the self, and whether that self can ever really be changed.

Pygmalion 3. Theme of Identity

4. Theme of Appearance

Is beauty only skin deep? Is it in the eye of the beholder? Or is it the consequence of social circumstances? Shaw's more interested in dealing with the big questions – like that last one – than with old saws.

In Pygmalion, anything from a pair of boots to a bath to an expensive dress can tell us important stuff about a character, like their place in the world or their state of mind.

They can reveal what might normally be hidden from view, or hide that which might normally be obvious. So appearances can be deceiving, and the trick is learning how to judge what is true and what is false. The thing is, it's not an easy skill to pick up.

4. Theme of Appearance

5. Theme of Manipulation In Pygmalion, we see different types of

influence and control, sometimes literal and other times metaphorical: the teacher training his student, the artist shaping his creation, the con artist fleecing his mark, the child playing with his toy.

That said, these roles aren't always well-defined; they can change easily, without warning. Sometimes the master becomes the slave and the slave the master, in the blink of the eye, while other times the two simply become equals.

Shaw wants us to observe the consequences of control, to see how these changes occur.

5. Theme of Manipulation

6. Theme of Society and Class In Pygmalion, we observe a society divided,

separated by language, education, and wealth. Shaw gives us a chance to see how that gap can be bridged, both successfully and unsuccessfully.

As he portrays it, London society cannot simply be defined by two terms, "rich" and "poor."

Within each group there are smaller less obvious distinctions, and it is in the middle, in that gray area between wealth and poverty that many of the most difficult questions arise and from which the most surprising truths emerge.

7. Theme of Women and Femininity A lot, as you've probably guessed, has changed in

the last century. Back when Shaw wrote Pygmalion, women could not vote in the United Kingdom; in 1918 women over the age of 30 were given the right, and it took another ten years for all women to be given a voice.

Shaw's depiction of women and attitudes toward them is impressively and sometimes confusingly varied. They are shown in conventional roles – as mothers and housekeepers – and as strong-willed and independent.

The play pays special attention to the problem of women's "place" in society (or lack thereof), and Shaw offers no easy answers to the tough questions that arise.

Pygmalion Theme of Dreams, Hopes, and Plans Mick Jagger is right when he sings, "You can't

always get what you want." It's true, sometimes just by trying you can get

what you need, but that's not always the way it works. What if you get what you want only to find out it isn't what you imagined it would be?

What if your dreams come true, only to turn into nightmares? They say the best laid plans of mice and men often go astray. Well, in Pygmalion that's true.

That said, Shaw also shows us what happens after everything ends up wrong. He offers no quick fixes, but he does leave room for hope.

PYGMALION

Review

DRAMA II Modern Drama

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