Lecture 32.ppt

Transcript Lecture 32.ppt

DRAMA II MODERN DRAMA

Lecture 32

Review

PYGMALION

George Bernard Shaw



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

The Myth Behind the Play

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 beauty.

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 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 the workmanship of nature.

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 with great 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

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 then resumed 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.

Contextual Background

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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

Pygmalion: Background

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

upper class middle class working class

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.

George Bernard Shaw’s Philosophy

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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.

Likewise, how we behave impacts what people think about us. Ultimately, how they behave towards us reinforces what we believed about ourselves in the first place

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

Meg Williams

What we believe influences how we behave In turn, this affects how others behave towards us.

Plot Overview

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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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

Pygmalion: Introduction

Conflict

• Argues with the people of his society on his choice of Eliza.

Significance

• Gives hope to Eliza

Class Representation

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

Character Position in society Evidence in the play Eliza Lower class Behaviour:

respectful to people of higher class

Language: calls

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

Character Position in society Henry Higgins Evidence in the play Middle class Behaviour: rude

(and patronizing) to lower class; polite to same or upper class

Language: calls

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

Character Position in society Colonel Pickering Evidence in the play Upper class Behaviour: generally

confident and polite; but ignores Eliza

Language: prepared

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

Words to know

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

Themes and the Major Conflicts

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Major Conflicts

Status Divide Social Snobbery Conflicts Gender Relations Self Consciousness

Major Conflicts 1. 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 Conflicts 1. 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 Conflicts

2. Gender Relations/Differences

 

The relationship between genders

“No, no, no, you two infinitely stupid male creatures!”

Major Conflicts 2. 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 Conflicts 3. Self-consciousness



Self Perception

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

Major Conflicts 3. 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.

Major Conflicts 3. 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 Conflicts 4. 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

Manipulation Language & Communication Transformation Appearance Identity

Themes

Society and Class Women and Femininity Middle Class Morality Dreams, Hopes and Plans

Pygmalion 1. Theme of Language and Communication

   We hear language in all its forms in

Pygmalion

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

pays to read carefully; even something as small as a single word can define a person.

together, and it

Pygmalion 1. Theme of Language and Communication

Science of Language Misinterpretation Act of Speech Status Ambivalence

Pygmalion 1. Theme of Language and Communication

   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

Identity

Minor Details Gender Specific Attitudes Uncertainty Prejudice Prejudice

Pygmalion 3. Theme of Identity

Identity

Stereotypes Object vs. Subject Clash Within Multidimensionality Fallacies

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

Physical appeal Standards of appearance Behavior Deceptive attribute Language vs. Visual

4. Theme of Appearance

Awareness Genteel poverty Subject to change Conflict Acknowledgment

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

Manipulation

• ambitiousness • Entertainment • Behavior • Control • Rhetoric

5. Theme of Manipulation

Manipulation • Uncompassionate • Excitement • Fear • Reversibility • transformation

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 he does leave room for hope.

after

everything ends up wrong. He offers no quick fixes, but

Lecture 32.ppt

Transcript Lecture 32.ppt

DRAMA II MODERN DRAMA

Review

PYGMALION

George Bernard Shaw

The Myth Behind the Play

PYGMALION

The Myth Behind the Play

The Myth Behind the Play

The Myth Behind the Play

The Play Itself: PYGMALION

Contextual Background

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Pygmalion: Background

Pygmalion: Background

Pygmalion: Background

George Bernard Shaw’s Philosophy

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George Bernard Shaw

George Bernard Shaw

Plot Overview

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Pygmalion: Introduction

Pygmalion: Introduction

Pygmalion: Introduction

Pygmalion: Introduction

Pygmalion: Introduction

Pygmalion: Introduction

Pygmalion: Introduction

A Look at the Play

Eliza Doolittle Role

Relationship

Conflict

Significance

Mr. Higgins Role

Relationship

Conflict

Significance

Col. Pickering Role

Relationship

Conflict

Significance

Mrs. Pearce Role

Relationship

Conflict

Significance

Freddy Hill Role

Relationship

Conflict

Significance

Class Representation

Words to know

Themes and the Major Conflicts

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Major Conflicts

Major Conflicts 1. Status Divide

Major Conflicts 1. Status Divide

Major Conflicts

Major Conflicts 2. Gender Relations/Differences

Major Conflicts 3. Self-consciousness

Major Conflicts 3. Self-consciousness

PLOT THEMES

Themes

Themes

Themes

2. Theme of Transformation

2. Theme of Transformation

2. Theme of Transformation

Fear of unknown Control of Emotion Control of Manner

2. Theme of Transformation

Themes

4. Theme of Appearance

4. Theme of Appearance

4. Theme of Appearance

• ambitiousness • Entertainment • Behavior • Control • Rhetoric

6. Theme of Society and Class

Review

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