Bernard Shaw's Pygmalion The passage taken from Act 2 of Bernard Shaw’s Pygmalion marks a critical turning point in the plot line and character development of the novel. The characters of Eliza Doolittle and Henry Higgins, who have met earlier by mere coincidence, have now deliberately begun a relationship, due to various motives. Eliza wants to move up in the hierarchy of society and Henry wants to prove his talent to Colonel Pickering. The extract is significant because it initiates a long learning process for Eliza and because Henry changes the next six months of his life, if not the rest of it. Act 1 served as an initiation of the play and now, this passage from Act 2 presents itself as one of the fundamental turning points in the play. Shaw creates a story line where the relationships have an intriguing turning point as Eliza is deciding on whether she should leave or stay in Henry’s home. Through the use of language, character development, not to mention stage directions, Shaw makes this excerpt interesting as well as remarkable. As mentioned briefly above, this passage is about Eliza’s decision in the play concerning her potential departure. There is a lot of character development within this passage as we see the selfishness in Henry and the weakness in Eliza. It starts by Henry retaining a selfish and crude attitude towards Eliza. This is also where some of the humor within the passage comes in. Henry jokes about Eliza lacking any form of feelings and Eliza constitutes that “[she has her] feelings same as anyone else”, Henry disrupts the conversation and addresses only Pickering asking if he “see[s] the difficulty […] to get her to talk grammar”. This proclamation by Henry is extremely rude and it shows how little respect he has for Eliza and people of her standards. It is only when Eliza threatens to leave that he softens up and offers her chocolates. This is because his interest in proving himself to Pickering makes him realize that he needs to be gentler to Eliza in order of achieving anything with her. While Henry is rude, we see that Eliza is weak, most likely caused by her struggle and despair. While Eliza lives a life where she scrapes together whatever she can find, it becomes impossible for her not to accept the offers from Henry. While she might not seem to enjoy something, there is no doubt that she must accept it.
It was difficult for me to find many parallels between this play and the works that we studied in Canadian Literature because this play does not follow a plot line and does not include many elements that could be relatable to the works we studied. It also does not relate to the themes that were emphasized in our course. However, I found the close analysis of the final scene of a play, acted out forty- three different times to be reflective of the close analysis’ we have done many times in class with poetry and prose. It was interesting to watch these close analysis’ to understand all of the possible interactions these characters could have had. It led me to question the endings of the works that ...
My book “Robert Gould Shaw and the Black 54th Massachusetts regiment” was a great resource to learn more about the 54th Regiment Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry, one of the first official African-American military units of the nation during the Civil War . Often referred as the “swamp angels”, the regiment was created in 1863 by John Albion Andrew, governor of Massachusetts at the time. Led by Colonel Robert Gould Shaw, the unit fought for political freedom, social freedom, and equality of all citizen, including colored people. This text is great because it tells the story of the regiment through the lens of the unit’s leader, Robert Gould Shaw. The book is basically a biography of Robert Gould Shaw. Shaw was born in October 10, 1837, Boston, Massachusetts, U.S. He was given birth as a white child and more importantly, wealthy-thus having a lot of privileges at the time.
In conclusion, this mid-play excerpt of a character in a Shakespearean play tells the reader much about his current thoughts, as well as exposing a small glimmer of what took place in his past. Though the text is limited, there are enough details and elements to lead the reader to a sensible conclusion of what this character is really
Eliza faced many hardships in the novel “the Coquette”. One of Eliza biggest hardship and the lead to her downfall was when her fiancé died. Eliza lost her fiancé, and this opened new doors for her it was a very sad and bad time in her life, but she did her best to bring herself out of the bad in the situation and into the good she powered herself through her fiancé death and eventually moved on. Eliza now a free woman was very eager, and she was ready to give new life and move on from her fiancé death. Eliza writes to her friend Lucy about the two men that have interest in her major Stanford and Mr., Boyer, she writes about how she enjoys both of the men but doesn't want to marry at this time, during the time Eliza is in a difficult situation
Eliza’s blatant disregard for the concern of those around her contributed heavily to her demise. Had she listened to her friends and family when they told her to marry Mr...
'I've a right to be here, same as you' (p. 27) through Act Five 'I
As to the relationship with their teachers, both students become more self-confident and their teachers become dependent on them, be it in a materialistic or personal way. Yet it is Eliza who complains about Higgins ignorance and carelessness whereas Frank reproaches Rita for her superficiality. At the end Eliza has regained her pride and improved her standard of living although Eliza remaining a social misfit.
Myrtle’s ambition proves to be her fatal flaw in being the tragic hero. The goal of her ambition is to lead her to a higher social status. In pursuit of her ambition she expresses that her husband, George Wilson, serves as an obstacle since he is in the opposite direction of where she wishes to be. She expresses disgust in George for committing actions that are considered lowly by her standards. She was particularly unenthused with her husband after it is revealed that “he borrowed somebody’s best suit to get married” without telling her. (35) She expresses her marriage as regretful, which illustrates her ambition to strive for better, being Tom. Essentially it illustrates that she would rather be treated with little respect to achieve status, rather than to be treated with respect without status. Myrtle not only exudes her ambition through her pompous attitude, but also in the manner in which she carries herself. She is a young woman in her “middle thirties, and faintly stout, but (carries) her surplus flesh sensuously,” and although she is not attributed with beauty she is somewhat charismatic. (25) The way in which she carries herself may be considered sexual, and her persona is alluring for men such as Tom. Her seducing persona illustrates her ambition in being a temptress in order to move up the social ladder.
that the class system is all in the mind of the beholder and how it is
streets of London & was as clean as she could afford to be but to the
An important lesson that has been learned throughout life and the beginning of time is to respect the individual’s content and not their image. It is shown throughout George Bernard Shaw’s play, Pygmalion, that different people can be brought together in the same circumstance, being a heavy rain shower in London, but distance themselves so effusively because of outer appearances. The situation between the nonintellectual flower-girl and the sophisticated Pickering, Higgins, and the Mother-daughter is drawn out over the judgment of her poor speech and her value as a person as she constantly defends herself against their prejudice. Shaw uses Pygmalion to show how language shallowly reflects the importance of social classes within the Victorian era through the portrayal of characters, their conflicts, and transformation in the first act of the play.
Eliza seems to have stood up for herself against Higgins and support Shaw's theory of Victorian women breaking the ideals of the housewife and child-rearer but once she is married to Freddy, or to anyone else, and starts a family she will have to go behind the scenes and keep the house and tend to her children. Pulling Eliza from the gutter and making her into a duchess revolves around a friendly bet between Higgins and Pickering. Eliza is passed off as a duchess but as the play draws to a close the bet is uncovered and Higgins and her squabble. The play ends ambiguously, we are told she is going to marry Freddy but their marriage is left up to the reader. However, it is with the understanding of Victorian ideals the reader can hypothesize what is going to happen once they are married; which is taking on the original roles of men and women in the Victorian era.
...for her. This is also comical as Shaw uses words like ' good girl' which suggests that Higgins is talking to a small child. This could mean that Higgins feels slightly sympathetic towards Eliza as treating her like a child might suggest that he is more concerned. The comedy in this is that Higgins is treating Eliza like a small child and he is unaware of doing so.
I don’t matter, I suppose’” (Berst 99). Eliza’s actions can be felt as a Cinderella impulse coming from her (Berst 99). Eliza worked hard to get through the lessons with Higgins and had won that bet, so she deserves the credit for the hard work she put in. It seems that Eliza at this point is lonely and probably wanted someone in her life to tell her she was doing the right thing, she has accomplished things she wanted to do for herself.
...nd an upper-class gentleman while she is ignorant and a lower-class flower girl. The man is superior, intelligent and reasonable whereas the woman is inferior, stupid and emotional. However, in Act 5, which can be considered as a climax, Eliza begins to disobey Mr. Higgins and oblige him to treat her equally and respectfully. This shows Eliza’s independence and maturity. This self-confidence and revolution against the existing conventions is a plain criticism of Shaw on the existing ideas at that time.