Explanation of best quotes of Pygmalion
Character Sketch Eliza Doolittle
Pygmalion as a Problem Play
Pygmalion is a richly complex play written by
George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950). It encloses within itself assumptions of
social superiority and inferiority that underlie the class system. Shaw
demonstrates how speech and etiquette preserve class distinctions. Disgusted
with the misspelt of the language he speaks in the preface,
The English have no respect for their
language and will not teach their children to speak it… It is impossible for an
Englishman to open his mouth without making some other Englishman hate or
despise him.
The play combines a central story of
the transformation of a young woman with elements of myth, fairy tale and
romance, while also combining an interesting plot with an exploration of social
identity, the power of science, relation between men and women and other issues.
Change is central to the plot and theme of the play, which of course revolves
around Professor Higgins’s transformation of Eliza from a flower girl who
speaks a coarse Cockney dialect into a lady who passes as a duchess in genteel
society. The importance of transformation in Pygmalion at first appears to rest
upon the power Higgins expresses by achieving his goal. But you have no
idea, he says, drawing attention to his talent,
how
frightfully interesting it is to take a human being and change her into a quite
different human being by creating a new speech for her.
Shaw calls the play as a romance in
five acts. He says,
The
rest of the story need not be shown in action and indeed would hardly need
telling if our imagination were not so enfeebled…now the history of Eliza
Doolittle though called a romance because the trans-figuration it records seems
exceedingly improbable in common enough.
Several elements in the play can be termed
under the word ‘romance’ except its betrayal from the tradition- happy ending.
The scene was very romantic when Freddy and Eliza met for first time.
Lightening was followed by thunder as he collides with her,
A
blinding flash of lightening followed instantly by a rattling peal of thunder,
orchestrates the incident.
There is an element of romance and
fairy tale in Eliza’s transformation. It is ironically parallel to the story of
Cinderella, especially its dramatic beginning- the torrents of heavy summer
rain, cab whistles blowing frantically in all directions.
Also Shaw makes good use of the
convention of comic reversal. In the play he deals mainly with verbal comic
elements; sometimes it also includes comedy of situations. Doolittle, Eliza’s
father was an eminent dustman but Higgins declared him as,
the
most original moralist at present in England.
We find laughter on reply of Eliza to
Higgins,
I
don’t want to talk grammar. I want to talk like a lady.
Similar kind of verbal comedies
enrich the play. Comedy of situation is also beautifully knit. Humour arises
when Eliza misunderstood Higgins as a policeman and also when Shaw describes
her physical appearance. She was no doubt as clean as she can afford, but
compared to ladies she was very dirty.
We find the play also introduces
novelistic techniques such as extended descriptions of characters, the absence
of a list of dramatic personae and detailed narration in the writers own voice
at the end that is in the epilogue. Shaw introduces Higgins as,
He
is of the energetic, scientific type, heartily even violent, interested in
everything that can be studied as a scientific subject and careless about
himself and other people, including their feelings…
The play has a significant absentee
character namely Mrs Doolittle, Eliza’s stepmother. She never appears on the
stage, though we often hear about her from Doolittle and Eliza. The long
epilogues in the play as well as in the preface give it a novelistic touch.
Hence, the mingling of the genres in
Shaw’s Pygmalion is superb.
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