George Bernard Shaw and His Play : Pygmalion

George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950)

• He was England's most important dramatist since the Renaissance
•  In 1882, Shaw's life changed with hearing a lecture by the American political theorist Henry George. It made Shaw read Karl Marx's "Das Kapital."
• This set Shaw to work on the problems of capitalist society.

• Shaw and his friends found the Fabian Society and then he worked on changing the British society for the rest of his life.

FABIAN SOCIETY :  It was founded in 1883-1884 in London, having as its goal the establishment ot a democratic socialist state in Great Britain. The Fabians put their  faith in evolutionary socialism rather than in revolution.The name of the society derived from the Roman general Fabius cunctator,whose patient and elusive tactics in avoiding pitched battles secured his ultimate over stronger forces.It aims to promote greater equality of power, wealth, and opportunity, the value of collective action and public service, liberty,human rights.

• Bernard Shaw thought that he could use the theater as a vehicle for serve his own idea.

He was only person to have been awarded both a Nobel Prize in Literature and on Oscar, for his contributions to literature and for his work on the film of his play Pygmalion.

PYGMALION // The source of the title

The myth of Pygmalion and Galatea

       

      Pygmalion's title came from ancient Greek myth with the same name Pygmalion. Pygmalion was a talented and famous sculptor who could find nothing good in women and never fell in love with a women. He spent most of his days at home sculpting beautiful things.

He resolved to live out his life unmarried until he create his beautiful statue with an image of "perfect women"

His statue was so perfect that no living being could possibly its equal and he fell in love with his own  creation.

He put clothes on it, gave it jewelry and named it Galatea.Consequently at festival, he prayed to goddess of beauty and love Aphrodite,  that he might have the statue come to life.

When he reached home, he found that his wish had been fullfilled then he wanted to marry his statue.

• Shaw's Pygmalion Professor  Henry Higgings is the most renowned man of phonetics of his time. Higgings is also like Pygmalion view of woman-cynical and derogotary 

Higgins says : " I find that the moment that I let a women make friends with me, she becomes jealous,exacting, suspicious and a damned nuisance."

In the myth, Pygmalion carved sth beautiful and raw stone and gave it lafe. Shaw's Higgins takes a "gutternipe", "squashed cabbage leaf" up out of the slums and makes her into exquisite work of art.

Pygmalion is a play which includes  crucial values such as social-criticism, self-improvement, humanitarian grounds. It reflects the social system of its era.

HERE IS MY ANALYSİS OF PYGMALION PLAY

       If Pygmalion is thought as a social criticism, Bernard Shaw, tries to demonstrate us the segregation between  the upper class and the lower class people.  That's kind of hiearachy. Both Shaw's stage direction and  expressions about lower class apparently reveal the social discrimination. Additionally, there is a character who reach his ideal state thanks to will of power, it emphasizes the power of self improvement. Bernard Shaw as a socialist,criticizes the British Society' circumstances. We witness Eliza Doolitle's self developmen in process  .By this respect we understand the frustration of human regarding of their social class. Shaw prove us that the people havent got inferiorty because of their inheritance, they are responsible for themselves throughout their life and they have the capability of develeoping themselves properly. At the beginning of the play Shaw displays us Liza is manipulated to grow up as a lady just because of simple  bet  which come true due to Pickering and Higginns' quarrel.

 Also we are over against the behaviour which scorn human's feeling and just exploit them as an object for the sake of their personal satistaction.

Bernard Shaw , beginning of the play named the character according to their jobs. Especially Lize is given " flower girl"   and her speech and peculiar language display that she belongs to lower class . The nickname of flower girl lay stress on the proper aim of the play in a sense.

Moreover , Shaw harshly criticize the commercial system  in those times. When Alfred Doolitle , Liza's father, comes to stage ,  he consent to sell his daughter to Mr. Higgins for the sake of gaining even 5 pounds. It is a bitter truthness regardings of not to caring about their own family member for the aim of  gaining money.

The social dignity   is one of the stressed matters in this play. In the quarrel between Mrs. Higgins and Liza , she says social marriage is nothing better than the exchange of sex for the money like what one sees among prostitutes. Liza indicates that an upper-class marriage market as more degraded than her previous profession of selling flowers. Here Shaws expresses the deepest condemnation of society. It can be understood that Shaw frames Liza's words intentionally to draw attention about the pathetic conditions of those times and the working class can and often do have more dignity than the hypocritical segments of upper class.

Furthermore, Eliza's final declaration of independence might have a political connotation . We can deduce as a socialist, Bernard Shaw, founded Fabian Society to defend human's right and protect people from oppression as a defender of human rights. Since the beginning of the play, Shaw often bring up style of language an location have been mentioned. The fact that English forced their language on the Gaelic-speaking Irish, after invading Ireland , where we witness a male forcibly teaching a female to speak.

As a conclusion, Shaw tries to reveal the barrier's between classes arent natural and can be broken down and if one want something  by heart , ıt can come true (  Liza ). Shaw , in this play, comments on the capacity for the individual to overcome the boundaries established by system of class and gender. The dominant assumptions and expectations, may essentially prevent on individual from beginning socially mobile withing a seemingly rigid hieararchical socail structure.