DRAMA II Modern Drama

1. DRAMA IIModern Drama Lecture 32

2. Pygmalion Review

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

4. Pygmalion The Myth Behind the Play

5. 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.

6. The Myth Behind the Play • 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

7. The Myth Behind the Play • 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.

8. 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.

9. Pygmalion Contextual Background

10. 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

11. Pygmalion: Background The class structure in England at this time was very rigid. upper class middle class working class

12. Pygmalion: Background 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.

13. Pygmalion George Bernard Shaw’s Philosophy

14. George Bernard Shaw • “I must warn my readers that my attacks are directed against themselves, not against my stage figures.” • -Shaw

15. 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.

16. Likewise, how we behave impacts what people think about us. In turn, this affects how others behave towards us. What we believe influences how we behave Ultimately, how they behave towards us reinforces what we believed about ourselves in the first place http://www.meghanwilliams.com/ugb.html Meg Williams

17. Pygmalion Plot Overview

18. 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.

19. Pygmalion: Introduction 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

20. Pygmalion: Introduction 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.

21. Pygmalion: Introduction 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.

22. Pygmalion: Introduction 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.

23. Pygmalion: Introduction 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.

24. Pygmalion: Introduction Will Eliza and Henry Higgins become friends, or will their differences drive them apart? If Higgins’s experiment succeeds, where will Eliza go from there? Will learning to speak like a duchess allow her to live like one?

25. Characters, Role, Relationship, Conflicts & Significance A Look at the Play

26. Eliza Doolittle

27. Mr. Higgins

28. Col. Pickering

29. Mrs. Pearce

30. Freddy Hill

31. PYGMALION Class Representation

32. impatient, rude, confident, superior, self-important kind, polite, generous, enthusiastic, eager, confident anxious, eager, emotional, ambitious, unsure

33. Behaviour: respectful to people of higher class Lower class Language: calls gentleman “sir” and “cap’in” (or captain) which is a compliment

34. Behaviour: rude (and patronizing) to lower class; polite to same or upper class Middle class Language: calls Eliza “you silly girl” and Pickering “my dear man” (an equal and friend)

35. Behaviour: generally confident and polite; but ignores Eliza Upper class Language: prepared to begin a conversation with Henry, whom he does not know; generous with praise to him

36. Words to know • Phonetics • Dialect • Cockney • Dramatist • Fin de siecle • Social satire • Aestheticism • Fabian society • Shavian • Naturalism Fabian Society

37. Pygmalion Themes and the Major Conflicts

38. Major Conflicts

39. 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.

40. 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.

41. Major Conflicts2. Gender Relations/Differences • The relationship between genders • “No, no, no, you two infinitely stupid male creatures!”

42. 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.

43. Major Conflicts3. Self-consciousness Self Perception • Eliza’s sense of worth • She is infected with the lie.

44. Major Conflicts3. Self-consciousness • 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.

45. 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?

46. 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

47. Plot themes PYGMALION

48. Themes

49. Themes

50. 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.