Dylan Siler Dr. Connors TAI 575 Pygmalion Response Paper October 26, 2015 A Response to Pygmalion George Bernard Shaw’s Pygmalion is based around the transformation of the main character, Eliza, through the course of the play. Eliza is transformed in many ways throughout the play, through her appearance, her speech, and her status. Eliza’s transformation is all due to Higgin’s and his male gaze of how a girl should look and act. In the very first act Eliza is a low-class flower girl who tries to con money from well-dressed gentleman. Eliza is shown as a low, vulgar-creature. Higgen’s cuts her down in the beginning, “A woman who utters such depressing and disgusting sounds has no right to be anywhere-no right to live” (I. 208-209). Shaw himself …show more content…
For example, she gets lessons from Pickering. She starts speaking more gracefully and is more mannered. However, throughout the time of her taking these lessons, she starts to dispose Higgin’s more and more. She even states towards the end of the play that Pickering taught her how to be more like a lady by teacher her how to be well mannered. Another way Shaw shows Eliza’s transformation is through the way people perceive Eliza throughout the play. For example, in Act I, Freddy pushes past Eliza and doesn’t even really recognize her. Then in Act III, when Eliza has went through her lessons and is all refined, Freddy can’t help but be fascinated with with her at Professor Higgin’s house. So it shows how her status and appearance through the play are affecting her life all due to Higgin’s. Eliza’s speech changes dramatically throughout the play as well. For instance in Act I, her speech is very poor and unintelligible. Her language is even described as “violating the english language” in Act I. Then throughout Act II, there are jokes that she doesn’t understand between Higgin’s and Pickering; Eliza offers Higgins a shilling for her to get lessons, he then comments to Pickering that a Eliza’s earnings are about the equivalent of about sixty pounds from a millionaire. Eliza freaks out thinking she has to pay more lump sums of money. Then by Act VI, Eliza stands up to
Eliza's assaults against True Womanhood are violations of the virtues submissiveness and purity. When Eliza refuses to ignore the gallantry of Major Sanford in favor of the proposals of Reverend Boyer despite the warnings of her friends and mother, she disregards submissiveness in favor of her own fanc...
You could see the helpless and powerless state of women even as far back as the 18th century. The story also exposes the fundamental injustices meted out to women by confining them to a limited domestic sphere. The society dictates the identity and role of the woman; “every young woman is expected to marry a suitable spouse” (Foster 818), take care of her husband and children, while having no voice or rights of her own. Any relationships outside the spheres of marriage is being frowned at. But the man can do as he pleases, even if he is married. While Eliza had to move away from her family and friends because she was pregnant and could not stand the shame and had “become a reproach and disgrace to friends” (Foster 906), Sanford is allowed to continue living his life probably with another vulnerable young woman in the society. While Sanford gets away with his womanizing acts, Eliza is the one who is branded as loose, and termed a coquette; she was the one who lost her life, trying to conceal a pregnancy that was conceived by two people. An unidentified source has this to write about her: “But let no one reproach her memory. Her life has paid the forfeit of her folly. Let that suffice” (Foster
Eliza Wharton has sinned. She has also seduced, deceived, loved, and been had. With The Coquette Hannah Webster Foster uses Eliza as an allegory, the archetype of a woman gone wrong. To a twentieth century reader Eliza's fate seems over-dramatized, pathetic, perhaps even silly. She loved a man but circumstance dissuaded their marriage and forced them to establish a guilt-laden, whirlwind of a tryst that destroyed both of their lives. A twentieth century reader may have championed Sanford's divorce, she may have championed the affair, she may have championed Eliza's acceptance of Boyer's proposal. She may have thrown the book angrily at the floor, disgraced by the picture of ineffectual, trapped, female characters.
The epistolary novel challenges gender roles because in a society where the most accepted form of female writing was letters, the epistolary novel gives a new voice to women. The letters written by the characters especially the women go hand in hand with new republican virtues of society. Women were becoming more educated and their letters became more frequent. The epistolary form gives a sense of realism. It allows the reader to dive head first into the lives and problems of the characters, it is set up in a way where the reader ultimately knows more than the character does. This style of writing allows us to get the story from each character as an individual, which is important because if told from another character, events and emotions might get lost in translation or become skewed. Through reading Eliza’s letters, the audience can get a grasp of her personality, her morals, her humor, and her intentions. Eliza’s voice is strong and as she begins to decline her voice starts to dwindle and become muffled and eventually lost. Through being able to see how her voice gets lost, the reader can get a real sense of her decline as a character. Eliza begins to fade and other characters start to step into the light. Eliza’s letters are what makes her relatable and without these snippets from Eliza, the audience might not want to side with her. William Brown Hill’s preface to The Power of
My fair lady is movie about a flower girl named Eliza Doolittle and a man named Henry Higgins of Phonetics. One night professor Higgins was at the Covent Garden market talking to his friend Colonel Pickering. While Eliza was selling flowers she overheard Higgins and Pickering talking. Higgins told Pickering that he can make anyone fluent in the English language the proper way. Eliza later found where Higgins lived and wanted to him to teach her how to speak like a proper lady in a flower shop. Higgins did not want to. Pickering at that time was at Higgins house and he bet that Higgins could not teach Eliza to how to speak as a proper lady and make her a duchess. Higgins at that moment bet. Higgins bet Pickering that he can teach Eliza to speak and be a duchess within 3 months. Over these several months Eliza who moved into Higgins household is put through depressive lessons. Eliza eventually was ready for the big day when she was tested in her skills. Eliza went to the embassy Ball. She was very beautiful, elegant and well-spoken and she proved to be very successful in Higgins and Pickering’s bet. She especially impressed a man named Freddy Eynsford-Hill falls in love with her. After the ball Higgins, Picke...
Eliza is a slave on a plantation that raises her to be a “good” Christian. To Eliza, her masters
In her final letter to her mother, Eliza admits her wrong doings. She tells her mother she ignored all the things she was told. All their advice fell on her deaf ears. She explains that she had fallen victim to her own indiscretion. She had become the latest conquest of “a designing libertine,” (Foster 894). She knew about Sanford’s reputation, she knew his intentions, and she knew that he was married, yet she still started a relationship with him. And her blatant disregard for facts and common sense caused her unwed pregnancy and premature demise. Eliza Wharton had nobody to blame for her situation but herself. She ignored warnings, advice, common sense, and other options available to her. She chose her ill fated path and had to suffer the consequences.
These differences in character, though seemingly small, lead the audience to draw two very different conclusions about the characters’ situations and why they are placed in them. The analyzation of the characters changes from Shakespeare’s written play to Hoffman’s rendering of A Midsummer Night’s
Through the years, countless film directors have adapted and recreated various novels and plays to make them ideal for the big-screen. In many cases, directors strive to keep their screenplay adaptations true to the original literature; however, viewers often find contrasts in certain areas of the film. George Bernard Shaw, author of the play Pygmalion, who had passed away prior to the production of My Fair Lady in 1964, therefore, he could not assist in the transition from play to musical. For this reason, director George Cukor has attempted to retain some similarities and also incorporate a few changes of his own. Although readers can discover numerous similarities between My Fair Lady and Pygmalion in certain aspects such as character interaction and the portrayal of social status, one can also detect several contradictions in the two plots, especially during the conclusion.
Higgins and Eliza still sharing the archetypes of the teacher and student get into an argument. The argument starts with Higgins explaining that he does not specifically treat her poorly but treats everyone poorly. Higgins explains, “the question is not whether I treat rudely, but whether you ever heard me treat anyone else better,” (Shaw, 77). Eliza threatened to leave although Higgins explained that she has no money or skill besides speaking properly and proposes that she marry someone rich. Insulted, Eliza threatened to marry Freddy which deeply bothers Higgins because he feels that the idea is a waste of his work on specifically on someone like him. This particular detail shows how Higgins does value his creation and work of art not wanting it to be wasted. In the end, Eliza leaves and later ends up marrying Freddy who together opens a flower shop. Even though there is some similarity in the theme of loving one’s own creation, Shaw’s Pygmalion does not compare to the archetypes in the myth Ovid’s Pygmalion as the movie did.
Higgins, a teacher of proprietary manners, lacks those very manners which others pay to learn from him. Ironically, Higgins believes that he is the greatest teacher of manners. He announces that in “three months [he] could pass [Eliza] off as a duchess.” Higgins thinks that he can take any lower class girl and pass her off as a duchess. He truly believes that he is capable of transforming Eliza. Once the teaching begins, Higgins shows no respect for others in his life. When he goes to see his mother, she reminds him that “[he] promised not to come on” her days when she is having guests. He ignores this promise to his mother because he believes that his newest experiment is more important than his mother’s insignificant visitors are. This behavior continues throughout the ...
People are always in the pursuit of erasing their flaws and becoming what society would say is "perfect." In the play Pygmalion by George Bernard Shaw the main character Eliza Doolittle was not content with her life and her lamentable speech and manners. In order to become what she considered "perfect" Eliza relied on Higgins to change her into a proper and sophisticated woman. Higgins pounded lessons of proper speech and how to conduct one 's self with eloquence into Eliza 's head minute after minute and day after day. Although Eliza was being transformed externally, as she continued to grow from her lessons, she also began to transform internally and realize that she deserved respect, whether she was a kerbstone flower girl or a duchess.
... first act they are seen dressed in elegant clothes and waiting for a taxi just like any rich person would do. When they meet Eliza in Mrs. Higgins' house, they are fooled by her appearance and they mistake her for a lady, Clara gets very impressed by Eliza's "new small talk" and Freddy falls for her.
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.
The traits men want in our women can never and will never be attainable by any person, no matter who they are. For many years, love has been kind of a lost cause. Men might look for a woman that could satisfy their needs in the present, but they had no thought of what she might be like in the future. Male and female relationships in the myth Pygmalion, the book Pygmalion, and in “real” life have many similarities. All the men look for the most desirable traits in women, and sometimes we don’t always get what we want. But with those similarities, comes a few differences.