George Bernard Shaw who was born in Dublin in 1856, was a renowned play writer and a talented platform speaker. He is most famously known for his successful play ‘Pygmalion’ which was widely accepted as one of the most noted comedies of the time. It was written two years before the 1st world war, at a time when society was divided and the poor were severely disadvantaged whilst the rich were idle and blindly living their life, unconcerned about the affairs of others. At the time, Britain had thriving economy and it was a successful country because of its industry, trade and empire. The poor lived without basic facilities such as electricity and water. George Bernard Shaw was a firm believer of equal rights for women, he took part in the meeting of the suffragettes and campaigned on their behalf. The suffragettes helped women to gain the vote and Shaw raised public awareness for this issue by revealing his opinions in the press. Shaw was also part of a movement which believed that individuals could attain a higher social status than that they were born into and this could be accomplished by people educating themselves and this transformation would be a true reflection of the person’s social class. This concept is outlined and explored in Pygmalion, in which Eliza Doolittle is passed off as a duchess at the end of the play. This was in contrast to the belief of the Victorians who were of the opinion that classes could not be alternated in a person’s life. Shaw also held the opinion that education was very significant and that educating people would lead to a more sophisticated and fair society. As in ‘Pygmalion’, Eliza transforms from a simple flower girl and at the end of the play, she is able to pass herself as a duchess. ... ... middle of paper ... ...class from being a flower girl to a middle-class woman, despite this she has not succeeded in becoming a lady because this would require marrying a lord or better and she would need to properly act like a lady in how she behaves and in her speech. However, Mr Higgins believes that Eliza has become a lady because of her improvement of speech. Eliza also fooled everyone at the ball into thinking she was a princess and she has adjusted her behaviour, speech and conduct with other people so in modern times, she has become a lady. Works Cited 1. http://www.quotesdaddy.com/quote/514351/george-bernard-shaw/life-isnt-about-finding-yourself-life-is-about-creating date accessed: 28/11/09 2. http://www.lycos.com/info/george-bernard-shaw--fabian-society.html date accessed: 28/11/09 3. http://www.englishclub.com/esl-articles/199909.html date accessed: 28/11/09
In examining how women fit into the "men's world" of the late eighteenth century, I studied Eliza Fenwick's novel Secresy and its treatment of women, particularly in terms of education. What I found to be most striking in the novel is the clash between two very different approaches to the education of women. One of these, the traditional view, is amply expressed by works such as Jean-Jaques Rousseau's Emile, which states that women have a natural tendency toward obedience and therefore education should be geared to enhance these qualities (Rousseau, pp. 370, 382, 366). Dr. John Gregory's A Father's Legacy to His Daughters also belongs to this school of thought, stating that wit is a woman's "most dangerous talent" and is best kept a well-guarded secret so as not to excite the jealousy of others (Gregory, p. 15). This view, which sees women as morally and intellectually inferior, is expressed in the novel in the character of Mr. Valmont, who incarcerates his orphaned niece in a remote part of his castle. He asserts that he has determined her lot in life and that her only duty is to obey him "without reserve or discussion" (Fenwick, p.55). This oppressive view of education served to keep women subservient by keeping them in an ignorant, child-like state. By denying them access to true wisdom and the right to think, women were reduced to the position of "a timid, docile slave, whose thoughts, will, passions, wishes, should have no standard of their own, but rise, or change or die as the will of the master should require" (Fenwick, 156).
...the poor were supposed to be upgraded by industrial innovations; but, on the other hand, company waste and inadequate working conditions, exploitation, took a severe toll on the very people this revolution was supposed to help. The mass presence of disease was due to the degradation of society. Poor conditions of various institutions, a side effect of the revolution, presented a dangerous risk of exposure for lower, working class families. Tuberculosis and typhus fever were painful, contagious, and long-lasting epidemics that killed people of all classes. Naturally, the lower classes suffered the most. The upper classes reaped the financial benefits from this new urban society, while the working classes were subjected to filthy, disease-ridden atmosphere. The impoverished have always been the disadvantaged, but in 19th century England, they paid with their lives.
For many, literature is an escape. It creates new worlds for us to explore and ultimately teaches us lessons that we take into our everyday life. One of the main topics literature focuses on is conformity. It challenges the values society attempts to place upon people. Similarly, in life people face many challenges. They have values and standards they are forced to uphold as well see a stigma surrounding the consequences if they fail to conform. In the novel Divergent by Veronica Roth and the play Pygmalion by Bernard Shaw the main characters break the barriers bestowed upon them in their own societies and ultimately become their own persons through gaining independence, standing up for what they think is right, and choosing the path they want for themselves. Without characters like this in novels, literature would be monotonous and stagnant. Everyone would be unoriginal since they conform to the same rules.
One of the roles Eliza must play is the role of a proper young woman. She is expected to behave a certain way, treat men a certain way, and be married by a certain age to a Reverend. She feels that she must do this in order to please her family and friends, “To them, of course, I sacrificed my fancy in this affair; determined that my reason should concur with theirs; and on that to risk my future happiness”(5). She is sacrificing her happiness so; therefore, she is conforming to the proper role of being a young woman in society.
Shaw, Bernard. Pygmalion. Rpt. in The Longman Anthology of British Literature. Ed. David Damrosch, et al. Vol. 2. New York: Addison-Wesley Educational Publishers Inc., 2003. 2,087-2,143.
In the time period of Queen Victoria's reign the population alone of Britain had grown from 10 million at the start of the 1800's to over 26 million by 1870. The British Empire grew and now held over a quarter of the world's population. When the empire was at its climax, it was the largest in history. The industrial revolution in Britain came with fantastic outcomes, such as huge technological revolutions and production of iron, coal, and cotton cloth increased dramatically. This increase in population and industrialization flooded the cities with peasants looking for jobs. Most of these people were living in poverty and hazardous conditions. This was when the first railway took form, allowing people to spread out and not crowd in the cities. Although people spread out, many still lived in slums and working conditions at the time were atrocious. Around 1833 through 1844 the Factory Act was finalized controlling child labor. Now children could not work...
The audiences during this period were often shocked by the topics included in some of the play, and if not shocked by the topics, question the topics in a political position, questioning their governments or governing figures ideals. Three of what are considered to be some of the most influential playwrights of the period were Henrik Ibsen (1828-1906), Anton Chekhov (1860-1904) and George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950) who were all notable in the theatrical industry during their time because of their new, shocking and what could be considered revolutionary thoughts and statements made by the characters in their performance
Men of the time were held to the standard of being active in society. They were expected to be active in politics and social activities outside of the home. Expectations for men were also for them to be respectful and proper, especially when women were present. The character, Jack Worthing, in The Importance of Being Earnest, is the representation of the perfect Victorian gentleman. For example, Jack says to Algernon in Act I, “...My dear fellow, the truth isn’t quite the sort of thing one tells to a nice, sweet, refined girl. What extraordinary ideas you have about the way to behave to a woman!” (Wilde 1.2.236). In this simple quote, Jack describes the high standards and expectations that Victorian gentlemen were held to. But not only men were held to high standards, women were expected to hold themselves in the most proper way as well. The point of a Victorian woman’s life was to marry and domestically support her family. Women had little rights and in fact, prior to the Married Women’s Property Acts of 1870, women were forced to give up all property that they held to their husbands upon marriage. (Appell 1). Within the play, Lady Bracknell, Gwendolen 's mother, is provided as a tool to explain the oppression put upon women of the time.
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.
Pygmalion by George Bernard Shaw is a play that shows a great change in the character Eliza Doolittle. As Eliza lives in poverty, she sells flowers to earn her living. Eliza does not have an education. This shows through the way that she does not have the most proper way of speaking. This happens through when Eliza is speaking to the other characters when she meets then when she is still at a low level of poverty in her life. To understand the reasons Eliza is able to change and be changed into an almost Cinderella like character. With Eliza going from and growing and changing through the hardship she faces. In the play Eliza begins with no confidence and works towards having a way to reach trough from learning during her life experiences. Learning through the other characters Eliza meets through out the play. Eliza grows stronger and shows how she is able to change her ways one can understand how she is able to change and makes these changes by seeing her through poverty, how she is interacting with the other characters in the play, and through the things she learns from the options that are provided to her. Eliza’s beginning education skills of learning to speak clearly through learning diction, etiquette, and looking proper for society. In addition, from how Eliza feels rich when she has money from the broken flowers and when she is able to be riding in the taxi, her ideas showing her strong will her insistence on marrying Freddy. Both Eliza and Cinderella grow up in poverty, have a stepmother figure, have a fairy godmother figure, arrive at the ball, show confidence, and married. By comparing and contrasting Eliza to Cinderella, we can better understand why and how Eliza changes.
“Manners are the happy way of doing things” according to Ralph Waldo Emerson. According to Emerson people use manners as a front to make themselves look better. Inherently, this will lead to a contradiction of the front and the reality. One such man who is most concerned with manners is the protagonist of Shaw’s Pygmalion, Professor Henry Higgins. Higgins is a man who displays contradictions within his character. He is in the business of teaching proper manners, although lacks them himself. In addition, Higgins is an intelligent man, and yet he is ignorant of the feelings of those around him. Another apparent contradiction is that Higgins’ outer charm serves to hide his bullying nature. He manipulates Eliza and others around him to serve his own purposes, without any regard for her feelings.
Pygmalion is one of Bernard Shaw’s most famous and beloved plays, which he published in London in 1912. This play was written during the Edwardian era which was characterised by major political, social and economical changes. Politically, the reign of king Edward VII witnessed a relative involvement of social segments such as labourers and women in political life. Socio-economically, the British society was marked by a strict and a clear-cut social class system in the early twentieth century. During this period and up to First World War, it was believed that 1% of the British population owned approximately 70% of the country’s wealth. As an outcome of the industrialisation and urbanisation processes, however, people increasingly started to get interested in socialist ideas and called for the improvement of women’s position. Given this historical background, Shaw was devoted to write a type of plays different from the Victorian plays which he regarded to be superficial and meaningless. In his view, drama has to be about ideas and conflicts and not about unimportant matters. Thus, Pygmalion can be considered as a social criticism on various topics such as social identity, social class and the power of language. This essay is an attempt to examine the themes of language, social class and gender in Pygmalion. Firstly, a brief summary of the play will be provided. Next, the theme of language and social class will be addressed. The last part will be devoted to the theme of gender and specifically the position of women.
In the first act of Pygmalion, Shaw chooses a setting that really helped shedding light on this theme, for he chose the st. portico square between the church and the theatre, a setting that embraced everybody from different classes and made them all clash under one place for shelter. The gathering of all those different characters, and the way Shaw introduced everybody not by their real names, but by other names, show us that society puts artificial barriers for the differentiation between the rich and the poor. But as the play progresses each character's point of view about the classes is presented in different situations.
Bernard Shaw's play, entitled Pygmalion, transcends the nature of drama as a medium to be utilized for sheer entertainment value. Shaw's play powerfully comments on the capacity for the individual to overcome the boundaries established by systems of class and gender. Dominant assumptions and expectations may essentially prevent an individual from becoming socially mobile within a seemingly rigid hierarchical social structure. However, Liza, the protagonist utilizes language as the tool which enables the her to escape the confines of the lower class and to be regarded as a human of a certain degree of worth within society. As Liza transforms from flower girl to duchess, the audience is witness to the many ways that an individual can be dehumanised through the socialisation process. Issues of both class and gender arise from the tensions within the play that surround the interactions between Higgins and Liza and the viewer is able to openly question the values that exist within a society that judges the character of a person on the basis of wealth and education.