Social Problems in the Comedy “Pygmalion” by B. Shaw

THE MINISTRY OF HIGHER AND SECONDARY SPECIAL EDUCATION OF THE REPUBLIC OF UZBEKISTAN

THE UZBEK STATE WORLD LANGUAGES UNIVERSITY II ENGLISH PHILOLOGY FACULTY WORLD LITERATURE AND THEORY OF LITERATURE DEPARTMENT QUALIFICATION PAPER

on the theme:

Social problems in the comedy “Pygmalion” by B. Shaw

Written by the student of The 4 th course group 439 B Khudayberdiyeva Saniyam ______

Scientific supervisor: BagdagulyantsE.G ______

This qualification paper is admitted to defense by the head of the department protocol № _____of ______2011

TASHKENT 2011 3

Content:

I. Introduction…………………………………………………………3-5 II. Main part……………………………………………………………6-59 Chapter I. The genres of literature ……………………………………6-19 1.1 Genres in literature and their usage …………………………………6-14 1.2 Comedy genre in literature ………………………………………….14-19 Chapter II Bernard Shaw as an English writer ………………………...20-36 2.1 The creation of the writer ……………………………………….20-33 2.2 The origin of the comedy “Pygmalion” by Shaw ……………….33-36 Chapter III The analysis of the comedy “Pygmalion” …………………37-59 3.1 The plot of the comedy …………………………………………...37-41 3.2 The main characteristics to the heroes of the comedy ……………41-46 3.3 Social problems described in the comedy “Pygmalion” ………….46-59 III. Conclusion…………………………………………………………..60-61 IV/ Used Literature…………………………………………………….62-64

I. Introduction This Qualification paper is devoted to the analysis of Bernard Shaw’s comedy “Pygmalion” The theme of this Qualification paper is “ Social problems in the comedy “Pygmalion” by B. Shaw”. The actuality of the Qualification Paper is that after the Independence great importance is attached to the study and teaching of foreign languages as our President I.A.Karimov said “The right to receive education is given to all irrespective of sex, language, age, race, nationality, politics, region, social origin, occupation class, social status, place of residence or length of residence in the Republic of Uzbekistan, and we should prepare in our country in the shortest time the methods of intensive foreign language learning based on our national peculiarities” 1. While learning any foreign language we should study lexicology, grammar, phonetics, stylistics, history of that language and of course literature. The aim of this qualification paper is to give analysis about social problems in Bernard Shaw’s comedy “Pygmalion”. Comparative and analytical methods have been used in this qualification paper . The subject matter of this given qualification paper is to analyse the characters and dialogues about the social problems depicted in Pygmalion by Bernard Shaw The object of this qualification paper is the comedy “Pygmalion” by Bernard Shaw and different books about English literature. According to the general aim there put forward the following tasks: 1) to learn the genres in literature . 2) to introduce with Bernard Show’s life and his works. 3) to analyse the main characters in “Pygmalion”

1 I.Karimov ”Harmoniously developed generation is the basis of progress of Uzbekistan”.Tashkent.Sharq.1997.p56

4) to show the depiction of social life in the comedy “Pygmalion” by Bernard Shaw . The theoretical value of this work is that we’ve given a lot of theoretical information about the literary genres and analysis of depiction of social life in the comedy “Pygmalion”. The practical value of this research is that the material and the results of the given qualification paper can serve as the material for theoretical courses of English literature as well as can be used for practical lessons in translation, literature, conversational practice. The novelty of the present work is representing the most important information about Bernard Shaw’s creation and his well known comedy which will be comprehensive for all learners, especially students, who are interested in English literature. In this work there were used the following methods of linguistic analysis : word’s definitions analysis, contextual-situation and text analysis for revealing its significant place in Bernard Shaw’s works. The source of literature includes:

a)The comedy of Bernard Shaw “Pygmalion” b)The scientific literature on the history of English literature c)Different types of dictionaries such as: Macmillan Essential Dictionary. V.K.Muller. “New English –Russian Dictionary”Moscow.2009.Sh.Butaev and A Irisqulov “English-Uzbek dictionary”Tashkent. The Qualification paper consists of introduction, three chapters and conclusion which are followed by the bibliographic list of the literature used in the course of research. Introduction gives proof to the choice of the theme of the research, determines the aim and language material of the methods of it’s analyses, the practical and theoretical value of the research and indicates the perspective for the further investigation in this sphere.

Chapter 1 presents the information about the genres of literature The first paragraph of this chapter gives information about the literary genres and their usage in literature. In the second paragraph of this chapter we gave information about comedy genre in literature Chapter 2 presents the role of Bernard Shaw and his works in the English Literature. The first paragraph gives information about the outstanding English writer Bernard Shaw and his role in English literature. In the second paragraph of this chapter we gave information about the origin of the comedy “Pygmalion” by Shaw Chapter 3 entitled The analysis of the comedy “Pygmalion” In the first paragraph of this chapter we gave the plot of the comedy The second paragraph the main characteristics to the heroes of the comedy In the third paragraph of this chapter we analyzed the social problems described in the comedy “Pygmalion” In the Conclusion the results of the research are generalized. In Bibliography we gave the list of used literature.

II. Main part. Chapter I. The genres of literature 1.1 Genres in literature and their usage

A literary genre is a category of literary composition. Genres may be determined by literary technique, tone, content, or even (as in the case of fiction) length. Genre should not be confused with age category, by which literature may be classified as either adult, young-adult, or children's. They also must not be confused with format, such as graphic novel or picture book. The distinctions between genres and categories are flexible and loosely defined, often with subgroups. The most general genres in literature are (in loose chronological order) epic, tragedy,2 comedy, novel, short story, and creative nonfiction. They can all be in the genres prose or poetry, which shows best how loosely genres are defined. Additionally, a genre such as satire, allegory or pastoral might appear in any of the above, not only as a sub-genre (see below), but as a mixture of genres. Finally, they are defined by the general cultural movement of the historical period in which they were composed. The concept of "genre" has been criticized by Jacques Derrida.3 Genres are often divided into sub-genres. Literature, for instance, is divided into three basic kinds of literature, the classic genres of Ancient Greece, poetry, drama, and prose. Poetry may then be subdivided into epic, lyric, and dramatic. Subdivisions of drama include foremost comedy and tragedy, while e.g. comedy itself has sub-genres, including farce, comedy of manners, burlesque, satire, and so on. However, any of these terms would be called "genre", and its possible more

2 Bakhtin, Mikhail M. (1983). "Epic and Novel". In Holquist, Michael. The Dialogic Imagination: Four Essays . Austin: University of Texas Press . p232

3 Derrida, Jacques; Ronell, Avital (Autumn 1980). "On Narrative: The Law of Genre". Critical Inquiry (The University of Chicago Press) 7 (1): p55-81.

8 general terms implied. Dramatic poetry, instance, might include comedy, tragedy, melodrama, and mixtures like tragicomedy. This parsing into sub-genres can continue: "comedy" has its own genres, including, for example, comedy of manners, sentimental comedy, burlesque comedy, and satirical comedy. Creative nonfiction can cross many genres but is typically expressed in essays, memoir, and other forms that may or may not be narrative but share the characteristics of being fact-based, artistically-rendered prose. Often, the criteria used to divide up works into genres are not consistent, and may change constantly, and be subject of argument, change and challenge by both authors and critics. However, even a very loose term like fiction ("literature created from the imagination, not presented as fact, though it may be based on a true story or situation") is not universally applied to all fictitious literature, but instead is typically restricted to the use for novel, short story, and novella, but not fables, and is also usually a prose text. Semi-fiction spans stories that include a substantial amount of non-fiction. It may be the retelling of a true story with only the names changed. The other way around, semi-fiction may also involve fictional events with a semi-fictional character, such as Jerry Seinfeld Genres may easily be confused with literary techniques, but, though only loosely defined, they are not the same; examples are parody, frame story, constrained writing, stream of consciousness. Genres of literature are important to learn about. The two main categories separating the different genres of literature are fiction and nonfiction. There are several genres of literature that fall under the nonfiction category. Nonfiction sits in direct opposition to fiction. Examples from both the fiction and nonfiction genres of literature are explained in detail below. This detailed genres of literature list is a great resource to share with any scholars.

Narrative Nonfiction is information based on fact that is presented in a format which tells a story.

Essays are a short literary composition that reflects the author’s outlook or point. A short literary composition on a particular theme or subject, usually in prose and generally analytic, speculative, or interpretative. A Biography is a written account of another person’s life. An Autobiography gives the history of a person’s life, written or told by that person. Often written in Narrative form of their person’s life. Speech is the faculty or power of speaking; oral communication; ability to express one’s thoughts and emotions by speech, sounds, and gesture. Generally delivered in the form of an address or discourse. Finally there is the general genre of Nonfiction . This is Informational text dealing with an actual, real-life subject. This genre of literature offers opinions or conjectures on facts and reality. This includes biographies, history, essays, speech, and narrative non fiction. Nonfiction opposes fiction and is distinguished from those fiction genres of literature like poetry and drama which is the next section we will discuss. Drama is the genre of literature that’s subject for compositions is dramatic art in the way it is represented. This genre is stories composed in verse or prose, usually for theatrical performance, where conflicts and emotion are expressed through dialogue and action. Poetry is verse and rhythmic writing with imagery that evokes an emotional response from the reader. The art of poetry is rhythmical in composition, written or spoken. This genre of literature is for exciting pleasure by beautiful, imaginative, or elevated thoughts. Fantasy is the forming of mental images with strange or other worldly settings or characters; fiction which invites suspension of reality. Humor is the faculty of perceiving what is amusing or comical. Fiction full of fun, fancy, and excitement which meant to entertain. This genre of literature can

10 actually be seen and contained within all genres. A Fable is a story about supernatural or extraordinary people Usually in the form of narration that demonstrates a useful truth. In Fables, animals often speak as humans that are legendary and super natural tales. Fairy Tales or wonder tales are a kind of folktale or fable. Sometimes the stories are about fairies or other magical creatures, usually for children. Science Fiction is a story based on impact of potential science, either actual or imagined. Science fiction is one of the genres of literature that is set in the future or on other planets. Short Story is fiction of such briefness that is not able to support any subplots. Realistic Fiction is a story that can actually happen and is true to real life. Folklore are songs, stories, myths, and proverbs of a person of “folk” that was handed down by word of mouth. Folklore is a genre of literature that is widely held, but false and based on unsubstantiated beliefs. Historical Fiction is a story with fictional characters and events in a historical setting. Horror is an overwhelming and painful feeling caused by literature that is frightfully shocking, terrifying, or revolting. Fiction in which events evoke a feeling of dread in both the characters and the reader. A Tall Tale is a humorous story with blatant exaggerations, swaggering heroes who do the impossible with an here of nonchalance. Legend is a story that sometimes of a national or folk hero. Legend is based on fact but also includes imaginative material. Mystery is a genre of fiction that deals with the solution of a crime or the unraveling of secrets. Anything that is kept secret or remains unexplained or unknown. Mythology is a type of legend or traditional narrative. This is often based in part on historical events, that reveals human behavior and natural phenomena by its symbolism; often pertaining to the actions of the gods. A body of myths, as that of

11 a particular people or that relating to a particular person. Fiction in Verse is full-length novels with plot, subplots, themes, with major and minor characters. Fiction of verse is one of the genres of literature in which the narrative is usually presented in blank verse form. The genre of Fiction can be defined as narrative literary works whose content is produced by the imagination and is not necessarily based on fact. In fiction something is feigned, invented, or imagined; a made-up story. The Oxford English Dictionary is a great place to consult for any further definitions of the different genres of literature explained here. 4 Drama is the specific mode of fiction represented in performance.5 The term comes from a Greek word meaning "action" (Classical Greek: δρ ᾶα , drama ), which is derived from "to do" (Classical Greek: δράω , drao ). The enactment of drama in theatre, performed by actors on a stage before an audience, presupposes collaborative modes of production and a collective form of reception. The structure of dramatic texts, unlike other forms of literature, is directly influenced by this collaborative production and collective reception. 6 The early modern tragedy Hamlet (1601) by Shakespeare and the classical Athenian tragedy Oedipus the King (c. 429 BC) by Sophocles are among the supreme masterpieces of the art of drama. 7 The two masks associated with drama represent the traditional generic division between comedy and tragedy. They are symbols of the ancient Greek Muses, Thalia and Melpomene. Thalia was the Muse of comedy (the laughing face), while Melpomene was the Muse of tragedy (the weeping face). Considered as a genre of poetry in general, the dramatic mode has been contrasted with the epic and the lyrical modes ever since Aristotle's Poetics (c. 335 BC)—the earliest work of dramatic theory.

4 www.google.ru.genres in literature 5 Elam, Keir. 1980. The Semiotics of Theatre and Drama . New Accents Ser. London and New York: Methuen. 6 Pfister, Manfred. 1977. The Theory and Analysis of Drama . Trans. John Halliday. European Studies in English Literature Ser. Cambridige: Cambridge University Press, 1988.p34-45 7 Fergusson, Francis. 1949. The Idea of a Theater: A Study of Ten Plays, The Art of Drama in a Changing Perspective. Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton UP, 1968p2-3

The use of "drama" in the narrow sense to designate a specific type of play dates from the 19th century. Drama in this sense refers to a play that is neither a comedy nor a tragedy—for example, Zola's Thérèse Raquin (1873) or Chekhov's Ivanov (1887). It is this narrow sense that the film and television industry and film studies adopted to describe "drama" as a genre within their respective media. "Radio drama" has been used in both senses—originally transmitted in a live performance, it has also been used to describe the more high-brow and serious end of the dramatic output of radio . Drama is often combined with music and dance: the drama in opera is sung throughout; musicals include spoken dialogue and songs; and some forms of drama have regular musical accompaniment (melodrama and Japanese Nō, for example). In certain periods of history (the ancient Roman and modern Romantic) dramas have been written to be read rather than performed. In improvisation, the drama does not pre-exist the moment of performance; performers devise a dramatic script spontaneously before an audience. 8 Western drama originates in classical Greece.9 The theatrical culture of the city- state of Athens produced three genres of drama: tragedy, comedy, and the satyr play. Their origins remain obscure, though by the 5th century BC they were institutionalised in competitions held as part of festivities celebrating the god Dionysus.10 Historians know the names of many ancient Greek dramatists, not least Thespis, who is credited with the innovation of an actor (" hypokrites ") who speaks (rather than sings) and impersonates a character (rather than speaking in his own person), while interacting with the chorus and its leader (" coryphaeus "), who were a traditional part of the performance of non-dramatic poetry (dithyrambic, lyric and epic). 11 Only a small fraction of the work of five dramatists, however, has survived to this day: we have a small number of complete texts by the tragedians Aeschylus,

8 Banham, Martin, ed. 1998. The Cambridge Guide to Theatre. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.p14-15 9 Brown, Andrew. 1998. "Ancient Greece." In The Cambridge Guide to Theatre. Ed. Martin Banham. Cambridge: Cambridge p441 10 Brockett, Oscar G. and Franklin J. Hildy. 2003. History of the Theatre . Ninth edition, International edition. Boston: Allyn and Baconp p13-15 11 Banham, Martin, ed. 1998. The Cambridge Guide to Theatre. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.p441-444

Sophocles and Euripides, and the comic writers Aristophanes and, from the late 4th century, Menander. Aeschylus' historical tragedy The Persians is the oldest surviving drama, although when it won first prize at the City Dionysia competition in 472 BC, he had been writing plays for more than 25 years. The competition (" agon ") for tragedies may have begun as early as 534 BC; official records (" didaskaliai ") begin from 501 BC, when the satyr play was introduced. Tragic dramatists were required to present a tetralogy of plays (though the individual works were not necessarily connected by story or theme), which usually consisted of three tragedies and one satyr play (though exceptions were made, as with Euripides' Alcestis in 438 BC). Comedy was officially recognized with a prize in the competition from 487 to 486 BC. Five comic dramatists competed at the City Dionysia (though during the Peloponnesian War this may have been reduced to three), each offering a single comedy. 12 Ancient Greek comedy is traditionally divided between "old comedy" (5th century BC), "middle comedy" (4th century BC) and "new comedy" (late 4th century to 2nd BC). 13 Following the expansion of the Roman Republic (509–27 BC) into several Greek territories between 270–240 BC, Rome encountered Greek drama.14 From the later years of the republic and by means of the Roman Empire (27 BC-476 AD), theatre spread west across Europe, around the Mediterranean and reached England; Roman theatre was more varied, extensive and sophisticated than that of any culture before it. While Greek drama continued to be performed throughout the Roman period, the year 240 BC marks the beginning of regular Roman drama. From the beginning of the empire, however, interest in full-length drama declined in favour of a broader variety of theatrical entertainments. The first important works of Roman literature were the tragedies and comedies that Livius Andronicus wrote from 240 BC. Five years later, Gnaeus Naevius also began to write drama. No plays from either writer have survived. While both dramatists composed in

12 Brockett, Oscar G. and Franklin J. Hildy. 2003. History of the Theatre . Ninth edition, International edition. Boston: Allyn and Bacon 13 Banham, Martin, ed. 1998. The Cambridge Guide to Theatre. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.p14-15 14 Brockett, Oscar G. and Franklin J. Hildy. 2003. History of the Theatre . Ninth edition, International edition. Boston: Allyn and Bacon.p43

14 both genres, Andronicus was most appreciated for his tragedies and Naevius for his comedies; their successors tended to specialize in one or the other, which led to a separation of the subsequent development of each type of drama. By the beginning of the 2nd century BC, drama was firmly established in Rome and a guild of writers ( collegium poetarum ) had been formed. The Roman comedies that have survived are all fabula palliata (comedies based on Greek subjects) and come from two dramatists: Titus Maccius Plautus (Plautus) and Publius Terentius Afer (Terence). 15 In re-working the Greek originals, the Roman comic dramatists abolished the role of the chorus in dividing the drama into episodes and introduced musical accompaniment to its dialogue (between one-third of the dialogue in the comedies of Plautus and two-thirds in those of Terence). The action of all scenes is set in the exterior location of a street and its complications often follow from eavesdropping. Plautus, the more popular of the two, wrote between 205 and 184 BC and twenty of his comedies survive, of which his farces are best known; he was admired for the wit of his dialogue and his use of a variety of poetic meters. All of the six comedies that Terence wrote between 166 and 160 BC have survived; the complexity of his plots, in which he often combined several Greek originals, was sometimes denounced, but his double-plots enabled a sophisticated presentation of contrasting human behaviour. No early Roman tragedy survives, though it was highly regarded in its day; historians know of three early tragedians—Quintus Ennius, Marcus Pacuvius and Lucius Accius. From the time of the empire, the work of two tragedians survives—one is an unknown author, while the other is the Stoic philosopher Seneca. Nine of Seneca's tragedies survive, all of which are fabula crepidata (tragedies adapted from Greek originals); his Phaedra , for example, was based on Euripides' Hippolytus . Historians do not know who wrote the only extant example of the fabula praetexta (tragedies based on Roman subjects), Octavia , but in former times it was mistakenly attributed to Seneca due to his appearance as a character in the tragedy.

15 Brockett, Oscar G. and Franklin J. Hildy. 2003. History of the Theatre . Ninth edition, International edition. Boston: Allyn and Bacon.pp48-49

In the Middle Ages, drama in the vernacular languages of Europe may have emerged from religious enactments of the liturgy. Mystery plays were presented on the porch of the cathedrals or by strolling players on feast days. Miracle and mystery plays, along with moralities and interludes, later evolved into more elaborate forms of drama, such as was seen on the Elizabethan stages. 16

One of the great flowerings of drama in England occurred in the 16th and 17th centuries. Many of these plays were written in verse, particularly iambic pentameter. In addition to Shakespeare, such authors as Christopher Marlowe, Thomas Middleton, and Ben Jonson were prominent playwrights during this period. As in the medieval period, historical plays celebrated the lives of past kings, enhancing the image of the Tudor monarchy. Authors of this period drew some of their storylines from Greek mythology and Roman mythology or from the plays of eminent Roman playwrights such as Plautus and Terence.

1.2. Comedy genre in literature Comedy (from the Greek: κω ῳδία , kōmōidía ), as a popular meaning, is any humorous discourse generally intended to amuse, especially in television, film, and stand-up comedy. This must be carefully distinguished from its academic definition, namely the comic theatre, whose Western origins are found in Ancient Greece. In the Athenian democracy, the public opinion of voters was remarkably influenced by the political satire performed by the comic poets at the theaters.17 The theatrical genre can be simply described as a dramatic performance which pits two societies against each other. Northrop Frye famously depicted these two opposing sides as a "Society of Youth" and a "Society of the Old", 18 but this dichotomy is seldom described as an entirely satisfactory explanation. A later view characterizes comedy as a struggle between a relatively powerless youth and the societal conventions that pose obstacles to his hopes; in this sense, the youth is

16 Williams (1993, 25–26) and Moi (2006, 17). 17 Henderson, J. (1993) Comic Hero versus Political Elite pp.307-19 18 Anatomy of Criticism, (1957)pp323

16 understood to be constrained by his lack of social authority, and is left with little choice but to take recourse to ruses which engender very dramatic irony which provokes laughter.19 Much comedy contains variations on the elements of surprise, incongruity, conflict, repetitiveness, and the effect of opposite expectations, but there are many recognized genres of comedy. Satire and political satire use ironic comedy to portray persons or social institutions as ridiculous or corrupt, thus alienating their audience from the object of humor. Satire is a type of comedy. Parody borrows the form of some popular genre, artwork, or text but uses certain ironic changes to critique that form within (though not necessarily in a condemning way). Screwball comedy derives its humor largely from bizarre, surprising (and improbable) situations or characters. Black comedy is defined by dark humor that makes light of so called dark or evil elements in human nature. Similarly scatological humor, sexual humor, and race humor create comedy by violating social conventions or taboos in comic ways. A comedy of manners typically takes as its subject a particular part of society (usually upper class society) and uses humor to parody or satirize the behavior and mannerisms of its members. Romantic comedy is a popular genre that depicts burgeoning romance in humorous terms, and focuses on the foibles of those who are falling in love. The word "comedy" is derived from the Classical Greek κω ῳδία kōmōithía , which is a compound either of κῶος kômos (revel) or κώη kṓmē (village) and ᾠδή ōid ḗ (singing); it is possible that κῶος itself is derived from κώη , and originally meant a village revel. The adjective "comic" (Greek κωικός kōmikós), which strictly means that which relates to comedy is, in modern usage, generally confined to the sense of "laughter-provoking". 20 Of this, the word came into modern usage through the Latin comoedia and Italian commedia and has, over time, passed through various shades of meaning.

19 Marteinson, Peter (2006). On the Problem of the Comic: A Philosophical Study on the Origins of Laughter . Ottawa: Legas Press. http://www.chass.utoronto.ca/french/as-sa/editors/origins.html 20 Francis MacDonald Cornford, The Origin of Attic Comedy, 1934.p43

Greeks and Romans confined the word "comedy" to descriptions of stage- plays with happy endings. In the Middle Ages, the term expanded to include narrative poems with happy endings and a lighter tone. In this sense Dante used the term in the title of his poem, La Divina Commedia . As time progressed, the word came more and more to be associated with any sort of performance intended to cause laughter. During the Middle Ages, the term "comedy" became synonymous with satire, and later humour in general, after Aristotle's Poetics was translated into Arabic in the medieval Islamic world, where it was elaborated upon by Arabic writers and Islamic philosophers, such as Abu Bischr, his pupil Al-Farabi, Avicenna, and Averroes. Due to cultural differences, they disassociated comedy from Greek dramatic representation and instead identified it with Arabic poetic themes and forms, such as hija (satirical poetry). They viewed comedy as simply the "art of reprehension", and made no reference to light and cheerful events, or troublous beginnings and happy endings, associated with classical Greek comedy. After the Latin translations of the 12th century, the term "comedy" thus gained a more general semantic meaning in Medieval literature.21 Comedy is one of the original four genres of literature defined by the philosopher Aristotle in the work Poetics . The other three genres are tragedy, epic poetry, and lyric poetry. Literature in general is defined by Aristotle as a mimesis, or imitation of life. Comedy is the third form of literature, being the most divorced from a true mimesis. Tragedy is the truest mimesis, followed by epic poetry, comedy and lyric poetry. The genre of comedy is defined by a certain pattern according to Aristotle's definition. All comedies begin with a low, typically with an "ugly" guy who cannot do anything right. By the end of the story or play, the "ugly" guy has won the "pretty" girl, or achieved some other goal. Comedies usually also have elements of the supernatural, typically magic and, for the Ancient Greeks, the gods. Comedy includes the unrealistic in order to portray the realistic. For the Greeks, all comedies ended happily which is oppos ite of tragedy, which ends sadly.

21 Webber, Edwin J. (January 1958). "Comedy as Satire in Hispano-Arabic Spain". Hispanic Review (University of Pennsylvania Press) p26

The Greco-Roman mask of Thalia, the Muse of comedy, in a Three Stooges 1935 short film title card . Aristophanes, a dramatist of the Ancient Greek Theater wrote 40 comedies, 11 of which survive and are still being performed. In ancient Greece, comedy seems to have originated in bawdy and ribald songs or recitations apropos of fertility festivals or gatherings, or also in making fun at other people or stereotypes. 22 Aristotle, in his Poetics, states that comedy originated in Phallic songs and the light treatment of the otherwise base and ugly. He also adds that the origins of comedy are obscure because it was not treated seriously from its inception. 23 That said, comedy had its own Muse: Thalia. In ancient Sanskrit drama, Bharata Muni's Natya Shastra defined humour ( hāsyam ) as one of the nine nava rasas , or principle rasas (emotional responses), which can be inspired in the audience by bhavas , the imitations of emotions that the actors perform. Each rasa was associated with a specific bhavas portrayed on stage. In the case of humour, it was associated with mirth ( hasya ). The phenomena connected with laughter and that which provokes it have been carefully investigated by psychologists. They agreed the predominant characteristics are incongruity or contrast in the object and shock or emotional seizure on the part of the subject. It has also been held that the feeling of superiority is an essential factor: thus Thomas Hobbes speaks of laughter as a "sudden glory". Modern investigators have paid much attention to the origin both of laughter and of smiling, as well as the development of the "play instinct" and its emotional expression. George Meredith, in his 1897 classic Essay on Comedy , said that "One excellent test of the civilization of a country ... I take to be the flourishing of the Comic idea and Comedy; and the test of true Comedy is that it shall awaken thoughtful laughter." Laughter is said to be the cure to being sick. Studies show that people who laugh more often get sick less.

22 Francis MacDonald Cornford, The Origin of Attic Comedy, 1934.p56 23 Aristotle, Poetics, lines beginning at 1449ap87

"Comedy", in its Elizabethan usage, had a very different meaning from modern comedy. A Shakespearean comedy is one that has a happy ending, usually involving marriages between the unmarried characters, and a tone and style that is more light-hearted than Shakespeare's other plays. Patterns in the comedies include movement to a "green world", 24 both internal and external conflicts, and a tension between Apollonian and Dionysian values. Shakespearean comedies tend to also include:

• A greater emphasis on situations than characters (this numbs the audience's connection to the characters, so that when characters experience misfortune, the audience still finds it laughable)

• A struggle of young lovers to overcome difficulty, often presented by elders

• Separation and re-unification

• Deception among characters (especially mistaken identity)

• A clever servant

• Tension between characters, often within a family

• Multiple, intertwining plots

• Use of all styles of comedy (slapstick, puns, dry humor, earthy humor, witty banter, practical jokes)

• Pastoral element (courtly people living an idealized, rural life), originally an element of Pastoral Romance, exploited by Shakespeare for his comic plots and often parodied therein for humorous effects

• Happy Ending, though this is a given, since by definition, anything without a happy ending can't be a comedy

Several of Shakespeare's comedies, such as Measure for Measure and All's Well That Ends Well, have an unusual tone with a difficult mix of humour and tragedy which has led them to be classified as problem plays. It is not clear whether the uneven nature of these dramas is due to an imperfect understanding of

24 Regan, Richard. "Shakespearean comedy". Retrieved on 11 January 2007.pp321

Elizabethan humour and society, a fault on Shakespeare's part, or a deliberate attempt by him to blend styles and subvert the audience's expectations. By the end of Shakespeare's life, he had written seventeen comedies.

Chapter II Bernard Shaw as an English outstanding writer 2.1 The creation of the writer George Bernard Show is an outstanding English playwright, one of the greatest satirists of the twentieth century. He was born in Dublin in an impoverished middle-class family. Until fourteen he attended a college, and from 1871 was employed in a land agent’s office. In 1876 he went to London, where he became a journalist and wrote music and dramatic critics for various periodicals. He was always in the midst of political life in Britain and took an active part in solving human problems. As literary critics state, Shaw’s manner of expression is based on real facts and ridicule. He exposes truth through satire and sarcasm. 25 George Bernard Shaw was an Irish .Although his first profitable writing was music and literary criticism, his talent was for drama, and he wrote more than 60 plays. Nearly all his writings deal sternly with prevailing social problems, but have a vein of comedy to make their stark themes more palatable. Shaw examined education, marriage, religion, government, health care and class privilege, and found them all defective. He was most angered by the exploitation of the working class, and most of his writings censure that abuse. An ardent socialist, Shaw wrote many brochures and speeches for the Fabian Society. He became an accomplished orator in the furtherance of its causes, which included gaining equal political rights for men and women, alleviating abuses of the working class, rescinding private ownership of productive land, and promoting healthful lifestyles. Shaw married Charlotte Payne-Townshend, a fellow Fabian, whom he survived. They settled in Ayot St. Lawrence in a house now called Shaw's Corner. Shaw died there, aged 94, from chronic problems exacerbated by injuries he incurred by falling. He is the only person to have been awarded both the Nobel Prize for Literature (1925) and an Oscar (1938). These were for his contributions to literature and for his work on the film Pygmalion , respectively. Shaw wanted to

25 Bakoyeva, Muratova English literature Tashkent 2006p 76

22 refuse his Nobel Prize outright because he had no desire for public honors, but accepted it at his wife's behest: she considered it a tribute to Ireland. He did reject the monetary award, requesting it be used to finance translation of Swedish books to English. George Bernard Shaw was born in Synge Street, Dublin in 1856 to George Carr Shaw (1814–1885), whose father was Bernard Shaw, an unsuccessful grain merchant and sometime civil servant, and Lucinda Elizabeth Shaw, born Gurly (1830–1913), a professional singer. He had two sisters, Lucinda Frances (1853– 1920), a singer of musical comedy and light opera, and Elinor Agnes (1854–1876). George briefly attended the Wesleyan Connexional School, a grammar school operated by the Methodist New Connexion, before moving to a private school near Dalkey and then transferring to Dublin's Central Model School. He ended his formal education at the Dublin English Scientific and Commercial Day School. He harbored a lifelong animosity toward schools and teachers, saying: "Schools and schoolmasters, as we have them today, are not popular as places of education and teachers, but rather prisons and turnkeys in which children are kept to prevent them disturbing and chaperoning their parents". 26 Shaw expressed this attitude in the astringent prologue to Cashel Byron's Profession where young Byron's educational experience is a fictionalized description of Shaw's own schooldays. Later, he painstakingly detailed the reasons for his aversion to formal education in his Treatise on Parents and Children .27 In brief, he considered the standardized curricula useless, deadening to the spirit and stifling to the intellect. He particularly deplored the use of corporal punishment, which was prevalent in his time. When his mother left home and followed her voice teacher, George Vandeleur Lee, to London, Shaw was almost sixteen years old. His sisters accompanied their mother but Shaw remained in Dublin with his father, first as a reluctant pupil, then

26 George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950), Anglo-Irish playwright, critic. Letter, August 7, 1919, to Thomas Demetrius O'Bolger. Sixteen Self Sketches: Biographers' Blunders Corrected , pp. 89–90. 27 Shaw, Bernard (1914). Misalliance, the Dark Lady of the Sonnets, and Fanny's First Play. With a Treatise on Parents and Children . London: Constable and Co.. pp. 210.

23 as a clerk in an estate office. He worked efficiently, albeit discontentedly, for several years. 28 In 1876, Shaw joined his mother's London household. She, Vandeleur Lee, and his sister Lucy, provided him with a pound a week while he frequented public libraries and the British Museum reading room where he studied earnestly and began writing novels. He earned his allowance by ghostwriting Vandeleur Lee's music column, which appeared in the London Hornet . His novels were rejected, however, so his literary earnings remained negligible until 1885, when he became self- supporting as a critic of the arts. Influenced by his reading, he became a dedicated Socialist and a charter member of the Fabian Society 29 , a middle class organization established in 1884 to promote the gradual spread of socialism by peaceful means. In the course of his political activities he met Charlotte Payne-Townshend, an Irish heiress and fellow Fabian; they married in 1898. In 1906 the Shaws moved into a house, now called Shaw's Corner, in Ayot St. Lawrence, a small village in Hertfordshire; it was to be their home for the remainder of their lives, although they also maintained a residence at 29 Fitzroy Square in London. Shaw's plays were first performed in the 1890s. By the end of the decade he was an established playwright. He wrote sixty-three plays and his output as novelist, critic, pamphleteer, essayist and private correspondent was prodigious. He is known to have written more than 250,000 letters. 30 Along with Fabian Society members Sidney Webb and Beatrice Webb and Graham Wallas, Shaw founded the London School of Economics and Political Science in 1895 with funding provided by private philanthropy, including a bequest of £20,000 from Henry Hunt Hutchinson to the Fabian Society. One of the libraries at the LSE is named in Shaw's honor; it contains collections of his papers and photographs.

28 Holroyd, Michael (1988). Bernard Shaw Vol. I, pp. 49–51 . New York: Random House. pp. 486. 29 Pease, Edward R.; Paavo Cajander (trans.) (2004). The History of the Fabian Society . Project Gutenberg.

30 Laurence, Dan H. (1965). Bernard Shaw: Collected Letters, 1874–1897 . London & Beccles: William Clowes & Sons, Ltd.. Introduction xi.

During his final years, Shaw enjoyed attending to the grounds at Shaw's Corner. His death, at 94, from renal failure, was precipitated by injuries incurred by falling while pruning a tree. 31 His ashes, mixed with those of his wife, were scattered along footpaths and around the statue of Saint Joan in their garden. 32 The International Shaw Society provides a detailed chronological listing of Shaw's writings. 33 Shaw became a critic of the arts when, sponsored by William Archer, he joined the reviewing staff of the Pall Mall Gazette in 1885. 34 There he wrote under the pseudonym "Corno di Bassetto" ("basset horn")—chosen because it sounded European and nobody knew what a corno di basseto was. In a miscellany of other periodicals, including Dramatic Review (1885–86), Our Corner (1885– 86), and the Pall Mall Gazette (1885–88) his byline was "GBS". From 1895 to 1898, Shaw was the drama critic for Frank Harris' Saturday Review , in which position he campaigned brilliantly to displace the artificialities and hypocrisies of the Victorian stage with a theater of actuality and thought. His earnings as a critic made him self-supporting as an author and his articles for the Saturday Review made his name well-known. Much of Shaw's music criticism, ranging from short comments to the book-length essay The Perfect Wagnerite , extols the work of the German composer Richard Wagner.35 Wagner worked 25 years composing Der Ring des Nibelungen, a massive four-part musical dramatization drawn from the Teutonic mythology of gods, giants, dwarves and Rhine maidens; Shaw considered it a work of genius and reviewed it in detail. Beyond the music, he saw it as an allegory of social evolution where workers, driven by "the invisible whip of hunger", seek freedom from their wealthy masters. Wagner did have socialistic sympathies, as Shaw carefully points

31 Holroyd, Michael (1991). Bernard Shaw. The Lure of Fantasy: 1918–1951 . Random House, New York. pp. pp.509–511.

32 Holroyd, Michael. "Bernard Shaw: The One-Volume Definitive Edition", Random House, 1998. ISBN 978- 0393327182 p515

33 Pharand, Michael (2004). "Chronology of (Shaw's) Works" . International Shaw Society. 34 Shaw, George Bernard (1949). Sixteen Self Sketches: Nine Years of Failure as a Novelist Ending in Success as Critic. (pp. 39–41) . London: Constable and Company, Ltd.. pp. 133. 35 Shaw, George Bernard (1909). The Perfect Wagnerite . New York: Brentano's. Brahms p. 143.

25 out, but made no such claim about his opus. Conversely, Shaw disparaged Brahms, deriding A German Requiem by saying "it could only have come from the establishment of a first-class undertaker". Although he found Brahms lacking in intellect, he praised his musicality, saying "...nobody can listen to Brahms' natural utterance of the richest absolute music, especially in his chamber compositions, without rejoicing in his natural gift". Shaw's writings about music gained great popularity because they were understandable and fair, as well as pleasantly light- hearted and free of affectation, thus contrasting starkly with the dourly pretentious pedantry of most critiques in that era. All of his music critiques have been collected in Shaw's Music .36 As the drama critic for the Saturday Review , a post he held from 1895 to 1898, Shaw championed Henrik Ibsen whose realistic plays scandalized the Victorian public. His influential Quintessence of Ibsenism was written in 1891. The first to be printed was Cashel Byron's Profession (1886), 37 which was written in 1882. Its eponymous character, Cashel, a rebellious schoolboy with an unsympathetic mother, runs away to Australia where he becomes a famed prizefighter. He returns to England for a boxing match, and falls in love with erudite and wealthy Lydia Carew. Lydia, drawn by sheer animal magnetism, eventually consents to marry despite the disparity of their social positions. This breach of propriety is nullified by the presaged discovery that Cashel is of noble lineage and heir to a fortune comparable to Lydia's. With those barriers to happiness removed, the couple settles down to prosaic family life with Lydia dominant; Cashel attains a seat in Parliament. In this novel Shaw first expresses his conviction that productive land and all other natural resources should belong to everyone in common, rather than being owned and exploited privately. The book was written in the year when Shaw first heard the lectures of Henry George who advocated such reforms. Written in 1883, An Unsocial Socialist was published in 1887. 38 The tale begins with a hilarious description of student antics at

36 Holroyd, Michael (1988). Bernard Shaw, Volume I (1856-1898) . New York: Random House. pp. pp.230–246. 37 Shaw, George Bernard (1886). Cashel Byron's Profession . London: The Modern Press.p223 38 Shaw, George Bernard (1887). An Unsocial Socialist . London: Swan Sonnenschein, Lowry pp123-128.

26 a girl's school then changes focus to a seemingly uncouth laborer who, it soon develops, is really a wealthy gentleman in hiding from his overly affectionate wife. He needs the freedom gained by matrimonial truancy to promote the socialistic cause, to which he is an active convert. Once the subject of socialism emerges, it dominates the story, allowing only space enough in the final chapters to excoriate the idle upper class and allow the erstwhile schoolgirls, in their earliest maturity, to marry suitably. Love Among the Artists was published in the United States in 1900 and in England in 1914, but it was written in 1881. In the ambiance of chit-chat and frivolity among members of Victorian polite society a youthful Shaw describes his views on the arts, romantic love and the practicalities of matrimony. Dilettantes, he thinks, can love and settle down to marriage, but otherwise availabl e. A collection of Shaw's artists with real genius are too consumed by their work to fit that pattern. The dominant figure in the novel is Owen Jack, a musical genius, somewhat mad and quite bereft of social graces. From an abysmal beginning he rises to great fame and is lionized by socialites despite his unremitting crudity. The Irrational Knot was written in 1880 and published in 1905. Within a framework of leisure class preoccupations and frivolities Shaw disdains hereditary status and proclaims the nobility of workers. Marriage, as the knot in question, is exemplified by the union of Marian Lind, a lady of the upper class, to Edward Conolly, always a workman but now a magnate, thanks to his invention of an electric motor that makes steam engines obsolete. The marriage soon deteriorates, primarily because Marian fails to rise above the preconceptions and limitations of her social class and is, therefore, unable to share her husband's interests. Eventually she runs away with a man who is her social peer, but he proves himself a scoundrel and abandons her in desperate circumstances. Her husband rescues her and offers to take her back, but she proudly refuses, convinced she is unworthy and certain that she faces life as a pariah to her family and friends. The preface, written when Shaw was 49, expresses gratitude to his parents for their support during the

27 lean years while he learned to write and includes details of his early life in London. 39 . Shaw's first novel, Immaturity , was written in 1879 but was the last one to be printed in 1931. 40 It relates tepid romances, minor misfortunes and subdued successes in the developing career of Robert Smith, an energetic young Londoner and outspoken agnostic. Condemnation of alcoholic behavior is the prime message in the book, and derives from Shaw's familial memories. This is made clear in the books' preface, which was written by the mature Shaw at the time of its belated publication. The preface is a valuable resource because it provides autobiographical details not short stories, The Black Girl in Search of God and Some Lesser Tales , was published in 1934. 41 The Black Girl , an enthusiastic but misguided convert to Christianity, goes searching for God, whom she believes to be an actual person. Written as an allegory, somewhat reminiscent of Bunyan's The Pilgrim's Progress , Shaw uses her adventures to expose flaws and fallacies in the religions of the world. At the story's happy ending, the Black Girl quits her searching in favor of rearing a family with the aid of a red-haired Irishman who has no metaphysical inclination. One of the Lesser Tales is The Miraculous Revenge (1885), which relates the misadventures of an alcoholic investigator while he probes the mystery of a graveyard—full of saintly corpses—that migrates across a stream to escape association with the body of a newly buried sinner. The story is so different from Shaw's ordinary style that it is hard to believe he wrote it. The texts of plays by Shaw mentioned in this section, with the dates when they were written and first performed can be found in Complete Plays and Prefaces .42 Shaw began working on his first play destined for production, Widowers' Houses , (1885) in collaboration with critic William Archer, who supplied the structure. Archer

39 Shaw, George Bernard (1905). The Irrational Knot, Being the Second Novel of His Nonage (revised) . New York; Brentano's. 40 Shaw, George Bernard (1931). Immaturity . London: Constable. 41 Shaw, George Bernard (1934). The Black Girl in Search of God and Some Lesser Tales . London: Constable. pp. 305. 42 Shaw, Bernard (1963). Complete Plays and Prefaces, Volumes I–VI . New York: Dodd, Mead & Company. p343

28 decided that Shaw could not write a play, so the project was abandoned. Years later, Shaw tried again and, in 1892, completed the play without collaboration. Widowers' Houses , a scathing attack on slumlords, was first performed at London's Royalty Theatre on 9 December 1892. Shaw would later call it one of his worst works, but he had found his medium. His first significant financial success as a playwright came from Richard Mansfield's American production of The Devil's Disciple (1897). He went on to write 63 plays, most of them full-length. Often his plays succeeded in the United States and Germany before they did in London. Although major London productions of many of his earlier pieces were delayed for years, they are still being performed there. Examples include Mrs. Warren's Profession (1893), Arms and the Man (1894), Candida (1894) and You Never Can Tell (1897).Shaw's plays, like those of Oscar Wilde, were fraught with incisive humor, which was exceptional among playwrights of the Victorian era; both authors are remembered for their comedy. However, Shaw's wittiness should not obscure his important role in revolutionizing British drama. In the Victorian Era, the London stage had been regarded as a place for frothy, sentimental entertainment. Shaw made it a forum for considering moral, political and economic issues, possibly his most lasting and important contribution to dramatic art. In this, he considered himself indebted to Henrik Ibsen, who pioneered modern realistic drama, meaning drama designed to heighten awareness of some important social issue. Significantly, Widowers' Houses — an example of the realistic genre — was completed after William Archer, Shaw's friend, had translated some of Ibsen's plays to English and Shaw had written The Quintessence of Ibsensism . As Shaw's experience and popularity increased, his plays and prefaces became more voluble about reforms he advocated, without diminishing their success as entertainments. Such works, including Caesar and Cleopatra (1898), Man and Superman (1903), Major Barbara (1905) and The Doctor's Dilemma (1906), display Shaw's matured views, for he was approaching 50 when he wrote them. From 1904 to 1907, several of his plays had their London premieres in notable productions at the Court

Theatre, managed by Harley Granville-Barker and J. E. Vedrenne. The first of his new plays to be performed at the Court Theatre, John Bull's Other Island (1904), while not especially popular today, made his reputation in London when King Edward VII laughed so hard during a command performance that he broke his chair. By the 1910s, Shaw was a well-established playwright. New works such as Fanny's First Play (1911) and Pygmalion (1912)—on which the award-winning My Fair Lady (1956) is based—had long runs in front of large London audiences. A musical adaptation of Arms and the Man (1894)—The Chocolate Soldier by Oscar Straus (1908)—was also very popular, but Shaw detested it and, for the rest of his life, forbade music of his work, including a proposed Franz Lehár operetta based on Pygmalion ; the Broadway musical My Fair Lady could be produced only after Shaw's death. 43 Shaw's outlook was changed by World War I, which he uncompromisingly opposed despite incurring outrage from the public as well as from many friends. His first full-length piece, presented after the War, written mostly during it, was Heartbreak House (1919). A new Shaw had emerged—the wit remained, but his faith in humanity had dwindled. In the preface to Heartbreak House he said: "It is said that every people has the Government it deserves. It is more to the point that every Government has the electorate it deserves; for the orators of the front bench can edify or debauch an ignorant electorate at will. Thus our democracy moves in a vicious circle of reciprocal worthiness and unworthiness." 44 Shaw had previously supported gradual democratic change toward socialism, but now he saw more hope in government by benign strong men. This sometimes made him oblivious to the dangers of dictatorships. Near his life's end that hope failed him too. In the first act of Buoyant Billions (1946–48), his last full-length play, his protagonist asks: "Why appeal to the mob when ninety-five per cent of them do not understand politics, and can do nothing but mischief

43 Minney, R. J. (1969). The Bogus Image of Bernard Shaw (pp. 66–7). London: Leslie Frewin Publishers,pp. 223. 44 Shaw, George Bernard; The Public Trustee (Executor of Shaw's Estate) (1962). Bernard Shaw: Complete Works with Prefaces, Volume I, p.452 . New York: Dodd, Mead & Company. pp. 804.

30 without leaders? And what sort of leaders do they vote for? For Titus Oates and Lord George Gordon with their Popish plots, for Hitlers who call on them to exterminate Jews, for Mussolinis who rally them to nationalist dreams of glory and empire in which all foreigners are ene mies to be subjugated." In 1921, Shaw completed Back to Methuselah , his "Metabiological Pentateuch". The massive, five-play work starts in the Garden of Eden and ends thousands of years in the future; it showcases Shaw's postulate that a "Life Force" directs evolution toward ultimate perfection by trial and error. Shaw proclaimed the play a masterpiece, but many critics disagreed. The theme of a benign force directing evolution reappears in Geneva (1938), wherein Shaw maintains humans must develop longer lifespans in order to acquire the wisdom needed for self- government. Methuselah was followed by Saint Joan (1923), which is generally considered to be one of his better works. Shaw had long considered writing about Joan of Arc, and her canonization supplied a strong incentive. The play was an international success, and is believed to have led to his Nobel Prize in Literature. He wrote plays for the rest of his life, but very few of them are as notable—or as often revived—as his earlier work. The Apple Cart (1929) was probably his most popular work of this era. Later full-length plays like Too True to Be Good (1931), On the Rocks (1933), The Millionairess (1935), and Geneva (1938) have been seen as marking a decline. His last significant play, In Good King Charles Golden Days has, according to St. John Ervine, passages that are equal to Shaw's major works. 45 Shaw's published plays come with lengthy prefaces. These tend to be more about Shaw's opinions on the issues addressed by the plays than about the plays themselves. Often his prefaces are longer than the plays they introduce. For example, the Penguin Books edition of his one-act The Shewing-up Of Blanco Posnet (1909) has a 67-page preface for the 29-page plays script. In a letter to

45 Ervine, St. John (1949). Bernard Shaw: His Life, Work and Friends . London: Constable and Company Limited. pp. 383.

Henry James dated 17 January 1909, 46 Shaw said: "I, as a Socialist, have had to preach, as much as anyone, the enormous power of the environment. We can change it; we must change it; there is absolutely no other sense in life than the task of changing it. What is the use of writing plays, what is the use of writing anything, if there is not a will which finally moulds chaos itself into a race of gods." Thus he viewed writing as a way to further his humanitarian and political agendas. His works were very popular because of their comedic content, but the public tended to disregard his messages and enjoy his work as pure entertainment. He was acutely aware of that. His preface to Heartbreak House (1919) attributes the rejection to the need of post-World War I audiences for frivolities, after four long years of grim privation, more than to their inborn distaste of instruction. His crusading nature led him to adopt and tenaciously hold a variety of causes, which he furthered with fierce intensity, heedless of opposition and ridicule. For example, Common Sense about the War (1914) lays out Shaw's strong objections at the onset of World War I. His stance ran counter to public sentiment and cost him dearly at the box-office, but he never compromised. 47 Shaw joined in the public opposition to vaccination against smallpox, calling it "a particularly filthy piece of witchcraft", 48 despite having nearly died from the disease when he contracted it in 1881. In the preface to Doctor’s Dilemma he made it plain he regarded traditional medical treatment as dangerous quackery that should be replaced with sound public sanitation, good personal hygiene and diets devoid of meat. Shaw became a vegetarian while he was twenty-five, after hearing a lecture by H. F. Lester. 49 In 1901, remembering the experience, he said "I was a cannibal for twenty-five years. For the rest I have been a vegetarian." As a staunch vegetarian, he was a firm anti- vivisectionist and antagonistic to cruel sports for the remainder of his life. The

46 Shaw, Bernard; Dan H. Laurence (editor) (1972). Collected Letters, 1898–1910 . New York: Dodd, Mead & Company. pp. 827–8. 47 Holroyd, Michael (1989). Bernard Shaw Vol. II The Pursuit of Power (p. 354) . New York: Random House, Inc.. pp. 420. 48 Tucker, Jonathan B. (2002). Scourge: The Once and Future Threat of Smallpox . Berkeley, California: Atlantic Monthly Press. p. 34. 49 Henderson, Archibald (1956). George Bernard Shaw: Man of the Century . New York: Appleton-Century-Crofts Inc..

32 belief in the immorality of eating animals was one of the Fabian causes near his heart and is frequently a topic in his plays and prefaces. His position, succinctly stated, was "A man of my spiritual intensity does not eat corpses." As well as plays and prefaces, Shaw wrote long political treatises, such as Fabian Essays in Socialism (1889), and The Intelligent Woman's Guide to Socialism and Capitalism (1912), a 495-page book detailing all aspects of socialistic theory as Shaw interpreted it. Excerpts of the latter were republished in 1928 as Socialism and Liberty , Late in his life he wrote another guide to political issues, Everybody's Political What's What (1944). 50 Shaw asserted that each social class strove to serve its own ends, and that the upper and middle classes won in the struggle while the working class lost. He condemned the democratic system of his time, saying that workers, ruthlessly exploited by greedy employers, lived in abject poverty and were too ignorant and apathetic to vote intelligently. 51 He believed this deficiency would ultimately be corrected by the emergence of long-lived supermen with experience and intelligence enough to govern properly. He called the developmental process elective breeding but it is sometimes referred to as shavian eugenics , largely because he thought it was driven by a "Life Force" that led women—subconsciously—to select the mates most likely to give them superior children. The outcome Shaw envisioned is dramatised in Back to Methuselah , a monumental play depicting human development from its beginning in the Garden of Eden until the distant future. 52 In 1882, influenced by Henry George's views on land nationalization, Shaw concluded that private ownership of land and its exploitation for personal profit was a form of theft, and advocated equitable distribution of land and natural resources and their control by governments intent on promoting the commonwealth. Shaw believed that income for individuals should come solely from the sale of their own labour and that poverty could be eliminated by giving equal pay to everyone. These concepts led Shaw to apply for

50 Shaw, George Bernard (1928). Intelligent Woman's Guide to Socialism and Communism . New York: Bretano's Publishers. 51 Shaw, George Bernard (1930). An UnsocialSocialist . New York: Wm. H. Wise & Company. pp. 269. 52 Shaw, George Bernard (2007). Back to Methuselah—a Metabiological Penateuch . Hicks press. pp. 388.

33 membership of the Social Democratic Federation (SDF), led by H. M. Hyndman who introduced him to the works of Karl Marx. Shaw never joined the SDF, which favoured forcible reforms. Instead, in 1884, he joined the newly formed Fabian Society, which accorded with his belief that reform should be gradual and induced by peaceful means rather than by outright revolution. 53 Shaw was an active Fabian. He wrote many of their pamphlets, lectured tirelessly on behalf of their causes and provided money to set up the The New Age , an independent socialist journal. As a Fabian, he participated in the formation of the Labour Party. The Intelligent Woman's Guide to Socialism and Capitalism provides a clear statement of his socialistic views. As evinced in plays like Major Barbara and Pygmalion , class struggle is a motif in much of Shaw's writing. Shaw opposed the execution of Sir Roger Casement in 1916. He wrote a letter "as an Irishman" to The Times, which they rejected, but it was subsequently printed by both the Manchester Guardian on 22 July 1916, and by the New York American on 13 August 1916.After visiting the USSR in the 1930s where he met Stalin, Shaw became an ardent supporter of the Stalinist USSR. The preface to his play On the Rocks (1933) is primarily an effort to justify the pogroms conducted by the State Political Directorate (OGPU). In an open letter to the Manchester Guardian , he dismisses stories of a Soviet famine as slanderous and calls reports of its exploited workers falsehoods. He wrote a defense of Stalin's espousal of Lysenkoism in a letter to Labour Monthly . In his old age, Shaw was a household name both in Britain and Ireland, and was famed throughout the world. His ironic wit endowed English with the adjective "Shavian", used to characterize observations such as: "My way of joking is to tell the truth. It's the funniest joke in the world." Concerned about the vagaries of English spelling, Shaw willed a portion of his wealth (probated at £367,233 13s) 54 to fund the creation of a new phonemic alphabet for the English language. However, the money available was insufficient to support the project, so it was

53 Shaw, George Bernard (1949). Sixteen Self Sketches: How I Became a Public Speaker, p. 58 . London: Constable and Company, Ltd.. pp. 133. 54 Holroyd, Michael (1998). Bernard Shaw: A Biography . Vintage.

34 neglected for a time. This changed when his estate began earning significant royalties from the rights to Pygmalion , once My Fair Lady —a musical adapted from the play by Alan Jay Lerner and Frederick Loewe—became a hit. However, the Public Trustee found the intended trust to be invalid because its intent was to serve a private interest instead of a charitable purpose, and as a non- charitablepurpose trust, it could not be enforced because it failed to satisfy the beneficiary principle. In the end an out-of-court settlement granted only £8600 for promoting the new alphabet, which is now called the Shavian alphabet. The National Gallery of Ireland, RADA and the British Museum all received substantial bequests. Shaw's home, now called Shaw's Corner, in the small village of Ayot St Lawrence, Hertfordshire is a National Trust property, open to the public. The Shaw Theatre, Euston Road, London, opened in 1971, was named in his honour. Near its entrance, opposite the new British Library, a contemporary statue of Saint Joan commemorates Shaw as author of that play. The Shaw Festival, an annual theater festival in Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ontario, began as an eight week run of Don Juan in Hell (as the long third act dream sequence of Man And Superman is called when staged alone) and Candida in 1962, and has grown into an annual festival with over 800 performances a year, dedicated to producing the works of Shaw and his contemporaries. 55 He is also remembered as one of the pivotal founders of the London School of Economics, whose library is now called the British Library of Political and Economic Science. The Fabian Window designed by Shaw, hangs in the Shaw Library in the main building of the LSE.

2.2 The origin of the comedy “Pygmalion” by Shaw

Pygmalion is a legendary figure of Cyprus. Though Pygmalion is the Greek version of the Phoenician royal name Pumayyaton, he is most familiar from Ovid's Metamorphoses, X, in which Pygmalion was a sculptor who fell in love with a statue he had carved.

55 Holmes (editor), Katherine (1986). Celebrating Twenty-Five Years on the Stage at the Shaw Festival . Erin Canada: Boston Mills Press. pp. 64

In Ovid's narrative, Pygmalion was a Cypriot sculptor who carved a woman out of ivory. According to Ovid, after seeing the Propoetides prostituting themselves (more accurately, they denied the divinity of Venus and she thus ‘reduced’ them to prostitution), he was 'not interested in women' but his statue was so fair and realistic that he fell in love with it. In the vertex, Venus (Aphrodite)'s festival day came. For the festival, Pygmalion made offerings to Venus and made a wish. Pygmalion married the ivory sculpture changed to a woman under Venus’ blessing. They had a son, Paphos, which he took from his home. "I sincerely wish the ivory sculpture will be changed to a real woman." However, he couldn’t bring himself to express it. When he returned home, Cupid, sent by Venus, kissed the ivory sculpture on the hand. At that time, it was changed to a beautiful woman. A ring was put on her finger. It was Cupid’s ring which made love achieved. Venus had granted Pygmalion's wish. Ovid's mention of Paphos suggests that he was drawing on a more circumstantial account than the source for a passing mention of Pygmalion in Pseudo-Apollodorus' Bibliotheke, a Hellenic mythology of the 2nd-century AD. Perhaps he drew on the lost narrative by Philostephanus that was paraphrased by Clement of Alexandria. Pygmalion is the Greek version of the Phoenician royal name Pumayyaton and figures in the founding legend of Paphos in Cyprus. The story of the breath of life in a statue has parallels in the examples of Daedalus, who used quicksilver to install a voice in his statues; of Hephaestus, who created automata for his workshop; of Talos, an artificial man of bronze; and, according to Hesiod, Pandora, who was made from clay at the behest of Zeus. The moral anecdote of the "Apega of Nabis", recounted by the historian Polybius, described a supposed mechanical simulacrum of the tyrant's wife, that crushed victims in her embrace. The discovery of the Antikythera mechanism suggests that such rumored, animated statues had some grounding in contemporary mechanical technology. The island of Rhodes was particularly known for its displays of

36 mechanical engineering and automata - Pindar, one of the nine lyric poets of ancient Greece, said this of Rhodes in his seventh Olympic Ode: "The animated figures stand Adorning every public street And seem to breathe in stone, or move their marble feet." The trope of a sculpture so lifelike it seemed about to move was a commonplace with writers on works of art in Antiquity that was inherited by writers on art after the Renaissance. The basic Pygmalion story has been widely transmitted and re-presented in the arts through the centuries. At an unknown date, later authors give as the name of the statue that of the sea-nymph Galatea or Galathea. Goethe calls her Elise, based upon the variants in the story of Dido/Elissa. In the Middle Ages Pygmalion was held up as an example of the excesses of idolatry, probably spurred by Clement of Alexandria's suggestion that Pygmalion had carved an image of Aphrodite herself. However, by the 18th century it was a highly influential love-story, seen as such in Rousseau's musical play of the story. By the 19th century, the story often becomes one in which the awakened beloved rejects Pygmalion; although she comes alive, she is initially cold and unattainable. A twist on this theme can also be seen in the story of Pinocchio where a wooden puppet is transformed into a real boy, though in this case the puppet possesses sentience prior to its transformation; it is the puppet and not the woodcarver (sculptor) who beseeches the miracle. William Shakespeare, in the final scene of The Winter's Tale (1611), presents what appears to be a tomb effigy of Hermione that is revealed as Hermione herself, bringing the play to a conclusion of reconciliations. George Bernard Shaw wrote a play titled "Pygmalion". In Shaw's play, the girl is brought to life by two men in speech — the goal for their masterpiece is for her to marry and become a duchess. It has an interesting spin on the original story and has a subtle hint of feminism. The story has been the subject

37 of notable paintings by Agnolo Bronzino, Jean-Léon Gérôme, Honoré Daumier, Edward Burne-Jones (four major works from 1868–1870, then again in larger versions from 1875–1878), Auguste Rodin, Ernest Normand, Paul Delvaux, Francisco Goya, Franz von Stuck, François Boucher, and Thomas Rowlandson, among others. There have also been numerous sculptures of the "awakening". Ovid's Pygmalion has inspired several works of literature. Popularity for the Pygmalion myth surged in the 19th century.

Chapter III The analysis of the comedy “Pygmalion” 3.1 The plot of the comedy It is the story of Professor Henry Higgins, a professor of phonetics, who wagers that he can turn a Cockney flower girl, Eliza Doolittle, into the toast of London society merely by teaching her how to speak with an upper-class accent. In the process, he becomes fond of her and attempts to direct her future, but she rejects his domineering ways and marries a young aristocrat. The original stage play shocked audiences by Eliza's use of a swear word. Humour is drawn from her ability to speak well, but without an understanding of the conversation acceptable to polite society. For example, when asked whether she is walking home, she replies, 'Not bloody likely!' The actress Mrs Patrick Campbell, for whom Shaw wrote the role, was thought to risk her career by uttering the line. One rainy night in London's Covent Garden market, a crowd of people gathers in front of the church to wait out the storm. Among them are two ladies (Mrs. Eynsford Hill and Miss Eynsford Hill), Freddy, their son/brother, a flower girl (Eliza Doolittle), a gentleman (Colonel Pickering), and The Note Taker (Henry Higgins). A commotion starts after Eliza mistakes Higgins for a policeman and protests her innocence. Higgins steps forward and reveals himself to be a gifted linguist. He and Pickering, another gifted linguist who just so happens to be in town to see Higgins, introduce themselves. Higgins tells Pickering he could turn Eliza into a duchess in six months. They give Eliza some money, and she takes a cab home. The next day, Higgins and Pickering are sitting in Higgins's laboratory when Eliza comes in and demands speech lessons. Pickering bets Higgins he can't turn Eliza into a duchess; Higgins takes the bet. Mrs. Pearce, Higgins's housekeeper, is a bit disturbed, but she can't do anything. Alfred Doolittle, Eliza's father, comes in and demands some cash in exchange for, well, the right to teach his daughter. He's a smooth talker and he's soon got the money, but his exit is interrupted by the

39 appearance of Eliza, now clean (and beautiful). Everyone gapes in awe, Doolittle leaves, and Higgins and Pickering decide they've got a lot of work to do. A couple months pass. Higgins visits his mother and asks for her help. Mrs. Higgins is having a party, and he wants to bring Eliza along to it to see if she can handle herself like a lady in public. Mrs. Higgins objects, but Eliza comes in anyway. Her speech is flawless, but her grammar is not. When she deviates from the script, she shocks and amuses those in attendance: the Eynsford Hills, Colonel Pickering, Higgins, and…well, that's it. Higgins gives Eliza the signal to leave and, after the party's over, Mrs. Higgins warns him and Pickering about the possible dangers of their little experiment. They, of course, don't listen. A few more months pass. Higgins, Pickering, and Eliza return from a night of partying. Higgins, it seems, has won the bet, and he and Pickering are so busy discussing the evening that they forget to even congratulate Eliza. When Higgins is about to head off to bed, Eliza gets angry and throws his slippers at him. The two argue for a while – it seems Eliza's worried about her future – until Eliza annoys Higgins so much that he nearly hits her. She smiles, delighted to have made him so angry. The next morning, Higgins shows up at his mother's house in a fury. Eliza is missing, and he can't do anything without her. Mrs. Higgins tells him to act his age, but their conversation is interrupted by the appearance of Doolittle, who's come into a lot of money since the last time we saw him. Mrs. Higgins says Doolittle can take care of Eliza now that he has money. Higgins objects. Eliza comes down – turns out she was upstairs the whole time – and proceeds to ignore Higgins. When everybody leaves to go see Doolittle get married for the umpteenth time, Higgins and Eliza get into another argument. She still doesn't know what to do with herself. Higgins suggests she get married, maybe even to Pickering. Eliza says no way, and threatens to marry Freddy, or maybe even go into competition with him as a speech teacher. Higgins nearly strangles her, only to

40 realize that her anger has now made her his equal. Eliza says goodbye for what she says is the last time, but Higgins is sure she'll be back. Shaw used Pygmalion from Roman mythology as the basis for his play. Shaw's play also owes something to the legend of "King Cophetua and the beggar maid"; in which a King lacks interest in women, but one day falls in love with a young beggar-girl, later educating her to be his Queen. Pygmalion: A Romance in Five Acts (1912) is a play by Irish playwright George Bernard Shaw. Professor of phonetics Henry Higgins makes a bet that he can train a bedraggled Cockney flower girl, Eliza Doolittle, to pass for a duchess at an ambassador's garden party by teaching her to assume a veneer of gentility, the most important element of which, he believes, is impeccable speech. The play is a sharp lampoon of the rigid British class system of the day and a comment on women's independence, packaged as a romantic comedy. In ancient Greek mythology, Pygmalion was the creator of a sculpture which came to life and was a popular subject for Victorian era English playwrights, including one of Shaw's influences, W. S. Gilbert, who wrote a successful play based on the story in 1871, called Pygmalion and Galatea . Shaw also would have been familiar with the burlesque version, Galatea, or Pygmalion Reversed . Shaw created Eliza Doolittle specifically for Mrs Patrick Campbell, partly as a flirtatious challenge and partly to tease her for her social pretensions, which he felt hampered her growth as an artist. 56 Her affected diction onstage (even in Shakespeare), which both he and Oscar Wilde instantly recognized as that of a suburban social climber, was at odds with her considerable abilities. The idea came to him in 1897, when "Mrs. Pat" was under contract to Johnston Forbes-Robertson and at the height of her youthful fascination and glamour. Writing to Ellen Terry in September of that year, he mentions Forbes's "rapscallion flower girl"; the next sentence is, "Caesar and Cleopatra has been driven clean out of my head by a play I want to write for them in which he shall be a west end gentleman and she an east

56 Dent, Alan (1961). Mrs. Patrick Campbell. London: Museum Press Limited.

41 end dona in an apron and three orange and red ostrich feathers." 57 "The reformer England needs today is an energetic phonetic enthusiast: that is why I have made such a one the hero of a popular play." The success of Pygmalion drew attention to the science of phonetics and speculation arose over whether a model for Henry Higgins existed. Shaw never named an inspiration for the man or the professor. However, in the Preface to the 1916 edition he writes at length about the respected philologist and phonetician Henry Sweet, with whom he communicated for years regarding phonetics and shorthand. Dr. Sweet would stand before a group of speakers, taking furious notes on their phonetic conversation; he categorized voice sounds and accents, sent postcards to friends written in a unique shorthand or in the symbols of his "Broad Romic" system of phonetic notation, could pronounce seventy-two vowel sounds, and "unfortunately was of a rather difficult disposition." Nevertheless, "Higgins is not a portrait of Sweet... still, as will be seen, there are touches of Sweet in the play." 58 Shaw also knew and may have consulted with Daniel Jones, the leading phonetician of the time. In a few years Jones would codify a standard of English speech, Received Pronunciation, "the accent most commonly associated with the British 'upper crust'...based on a sixteenth-century, upper-class London accent"; the steps to learning and teaching such an accent would have been of paramount importance to the playwright. It's also possible that Dr. Jones's laboratory equipment inspired Higgins's, but Jones's biographer concludes that "the Higgins character...would appear to have taken on a vivid life of its own during the writing of the play." Shaw was friends with the author Arthur Mee who lived in the village of Eynsford in Kent. Mee lived in a large house built on the hill overlooking the village, the house was called Eynsford-Hill. Shaw wrote the play in the spring of 1912 and read it to Mrs. Campbell in June. She came on board almost immediately, but her mild nervous breakdown (and its

57 Terry, Ellen and G.B. Shaw, edited by Christopher St. John (1932). Ellen Terry and Bernard Shaw: A Correspondence. New York: G.P. Putnam's Sons.pp321 58 Wainger, Bertrand M. "Henry Sweet — Shaw's Pygmalion." Studies in Philology, Oct. 1930 vol. 27, no. 4. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press.

42 doctor-enforced leisure, which led to a quasi-romantic intrigue with Shaw) contributed to the delay of a London production. Pygmalion premiered at the Hofburg Theatre in Vienna on October 16, 1913, in a German translation by Shaw's Viennese literary agent and acolyte, Siegfried Trebitsch. Its first New York production opened March 24, 1914 at the German-language Irving Place Theatre. It opened in London April 11, 1914 at Sir Herbert Beerbohm Tree's His Majesty's Theatre and starred Mrs. Campbell as Eliza and Tree as Higgins. Shaw directed the actors through stormy rehearsals often punctuated by at least one of the three flinging out of the theater in a rage. Shaw was conscious of the difficulties involved in staging a complete representation of the play. Acknowledging in a "Note for technicians" that such a thing would only be possible "on the cinema screen or on stages furnished with exceptionally elaborate machinery", he marked some scenes as candidates for omission if necessary. Of these, a short scene at the end of Act One in which Eliza goes home, and a scene in Act Two in which Eliza is unwilling to undress for her bath, are not described here. The others are the scene at the Embassy Ball in Act Three and the scene with Eliza and Freddy in Act Four. Neither the Gutenberg edition referenced throughout this page nor the Wikisource text linked below contain these sequences. 3.2 The main characteristics to the heroes of the comedy The basic Pygmalion story has been widely transmitted and re-presented in the arts through the centuries. At an unknown date, later authors give the name of the statue as the sea-nymph Galatea or Galathea. Goethe calls her Elise, based upon the variants in the story of Dido/Elissa. In the Middle Ages Pygmalion was held up as an example of the excesses of idolatry, probably spurred by Clement of Alexandria's suggestion that Pygmalion had carved an image of Venus herself. But by the 18th century it was a highly influential love-story, seen as such in Rousseau's musical play of the story. By the

19th century, the story often becomes one in which the awakened beloved rejects Pygmalion; although she comes alive, she is initially cold and unattainable. The story has been the subject of notable paintings by Jean-Léon Gérôme, Honoré Daumier, Edward Burne-Jones (four major works from 1868-1870, then again in larger versions from 1875-1878), Auguste Rodin, Ernest Normand, Paul Delvaux, Francisco Goya, Francois Boucher, and Thomas Rowlandson, among others. There have also been numerous sculptures of the 'awakening'. Ovid's Pygmalion has also provided inspiration for several works of literature, including William Morris's Earthly Paradise, and Friedrich Schiller's Ideals. Both Morris and Schiller described the statue as made of marble. There have also been successful modern stage-plays such as: W. S. Gilbert's Pygmalion and Galatea (1871); George Bernard Shaw's Pygmalion (1912, staged 1914); and My Fair Lady (1956). Shaw's play also owes something to the legend of "King Cophetua and the beggar maid"; in which a King lacks interest in women, but one day falls in love with a young beggar-girl, later educating her to be his Queen. Notable 20th century feature films are My Fair Lady (1964, based on the stage play); Mighty Aphrodite by director Woody Allen; and the film Mannequin, a remake of the 1948 classic One Touch of Venus. The popular horror genre in film has also had an interest in 'bringing to life' waxwork figures and show-room dummies. Professor Henry Higgins - Henry Higgins is a professor of phonetics who plays Pygmalion to Eliza Doolittle's Galatea. He is the author of Higgins' Universal Alphabet, believes in concepts like visible speech, and uses all manner of recording and photographic material to his phonetic subjects, reducing people and their dialects into what he sees as readily understandable units. He is an unconventional man, who goes in the opposite direction from the rest of society in most matters. Indeed, he is impatient with high society, forgetful in his public graces, and poorly considerate of normal social niceties--the only reason the world

44 has not turned against him is because he is at heart a good and harmless man. His biggest fault is that he can be a bully. Henry Higgins is a phonetic expert and a scientist who loves anything that can be studies as a scientific subject. His enthusiasm for the study masks his human qualities. Through Pygmalion Higgins is seen as a very rude man, while one may expect a well educated man such as Higgins, to be a gentleman. Higgins believes that how you treat some one is not important, as long as you treat everyone equal. The greater secret, Eliza, is not having bad manner or good manner or any other particular sort of manner, but having the same manner for all human souls. Higgins presents this theory to Eliza, in hope of justifying his treatment of her; this theory would be fine if Higgins himself lived by it, and however he lives by a variety of variation of this philosophy. Higgins could never see the "new Eliza" Higgins only saw the dirty flower girl that become his 'experiment' much like an author never sees a work as finished, since Higgins knew where Eliza came form it was difficult for him to make her parts fit together as a masterpiece that he respect. Part of Higgins' problem in recognizing the "new Eliza is his immaturity. He does not sees her as what she is, he only sees her as what she was. Psychology plays a significant role in Higgins' relationship with Eliza. Although everybody wants somebody to love, they don't seem to be capable of a close relationship. Higgins on the one hand can be described as a rude, careless and impolite character, but at the same time likeable because of his fascination and dedication to his work. His mother holds a great fascination for him; she speaks properly, has good manners and is the only woman Higgins adores. In general, he appears small- minded and doesn't reflect about problems Eliza might be confronted with. Eliza, on the other hand, is willing to learn and does her best to please Higgins. When she becomes aware of Higgins' goals she eventually gets disappointing and angry. She

45 feels as the subject of the experiment, while Higgins, never reflecting about her feelings, treats her in an impersonal way and can't understand her. There can't be a relationship, in which both obtain an equal position. Henry and Eliza don't fit together because of their strong characters. Eliza Doolittle - "She is not at all a romantic figure." So is she introduced in Act I. Everything about Eliza Doolittle seems to defy any conventional notions we might have about the romantic heroine. When she is transformed from a sassy, smart-mouthed flower girl with deplorable English, to a (still sassy) regal figure fit to consort with nobility, it has less to do with her innate qualities as a heroine than with the fairy-tale aspect of the transformation myth itself. In other words, the character of Eliza Doolittle comes across as being much more instrumental than fundamental. The real (re-)making of Eliza Doolittle happens after the ambassador's party, when she decides to make a statement for her own dignity against Higgins' insensitive treatment. This is when she becomes, not a duchess, but an independent woman; and this explains why Higgins begins to see Eliza not as a mill around his neck but as a creature worthy of his admiration. Eliza knows that she can't go back to her old life, but otherwise, she has no firm position in society. Instead of fetching Higgins's slippers, she marries Freddy who has a weaker character. Perhaps Freddy would fetch her slippers, but she is keen to work, too. Her rebellion becomes more obvious in comparison to Higgins. She shows that she is not a mere subject, but a freethinking individual. In a realistic manner, she finds Higgins' weak point and overrules his subjections. She doesn't want to be intimidated. Colonel Pickering - Colonel Pickering, the author of Spoken Sanskrit, is a match for Higgins (although somewhat less obsessive) in his passion for phonetics. But where Higgins is a boorish, careless bully, Pickering is always considerate and a genuinely gentleman. He says little of note in the play, and appears most of all to be a civilized foil to Higgins' barefoot, absentminded crazy professor. He helps in the Eliza Doolittle experiment by making a wager of it, saying he will cover the

46 costs of the experiment if Higgins does indeed make a convincing duchess of her. However, while Higgins only manages to teach Eliza pronunciations, it is Pickering's thoughtful treatment towards Eliza that teaches her to respect herself. Alfred Doolittle - Alfred Doolittle is Eliza's father, an elderly but vigorous dustman who has had at least six wives and who "seems equally free from fear and conscience." When he learns that his daughter has entered the home of Henry Higgins, he immediately pursues to see if he can get some money out of the circumstance. His unique brand of rhetoric, an unembarra ssed, hypocritical advocate of drink and pleasure (at other people's expense), is amusing to Higgins. Through Higgins' joking recommendation, Doolittle becomes a richly endowed lecturer to a moral reform society, transforming him from lowly dustman to a picture of middle class morality--he becomes miserable. Throughout, Alfred is a scoundrel who is willing to sell his daughter to make a few pounds, but he is one of the few unaffected characters in the play, unmasked by appearance or language. Though scandalous, his speeches are honest. At points, it even seems that he might be Shaw's voice piece of social criticism (Alfred's proletariat status, given Shaw's socialist leanings, makes the prospect all the more likely). Mrs. Higgins - Professor Higgins' mother, Mrs. Higgins is a stately lady in her sixties who sees the Eliza Doolittle experiment as idiocy, and Higgins and Pickering as senseless children. She is the first and only character to have any qualms about the whole affair. When her worries prove true, it is to her that all the characters turn. Because no woman can match up to his mother, Higgins claims, he has no interest in dallying with them. To observe the mother of Pygmalion (Higgins), who completely understands all of his failings and inadequacies, is a good contrast to the mythic proportions to which Higgins builds himself in his self- estimations as a scientist of phonetics and a creator of duchesses. Freddy Eynsford Hill - Higgins' surmise that Freddy is a fool is probably accurate. In the opening scene he is a spineless and lackey to his mother and sister. Later, he is comically bowled over by Eliza, the half-baked duchess who still

47 speaks cockney. He becomes lovesick for Eliza, and courts her with letters. At the play's close, Freddy serves as a young, viable marriage option for Eliza, making the possible path she will follow unclear to the reader .Pygmalion remains Shaw's most popular play. The play's widest audiences know it as the inspiration for the highly romanticized 1956 musical and 1964 film. Ironically, Pygmalion has transcended cultural and language barriers since its first production. The British Museum contains "images of the Polish production...; a series of shots of a wonderfully Gallicised Higgins and Eliza in the first French production in Paris in 1923; a fascinating set for a Russian production of the 1930s. There was no country which didn't have its own 'take' on the subjects of class division and social mobility, and it's as enjoyable to view these subtle differences in settings and costumes as it is to imagine translators wracking their brains for their own equivalent of 'Not bloody likely'." 59 Joseph Weizenbaum named his artificial intelligence computer program ELIZA after the character Eliza Doolittle.

3.3 Social problems described in the comedy “Pygmalion”

Pygmalion – Celebrated sculptor of mythological antiquity and king of Cyprus He fell in love with a statue of Galatea which he had in ivory, at his prayer Aphrodite gave it life.

Pygmalion is often accepted as a symbol of the power to breathe life and soul into inanimate things. The main hero of this play, Professor Henry Higgins, is presented, rather ironically, as a kind of modern Pygmalion. In actual fact the satire implied in the play is directed against Professor Henry Sweet, the well-known English philologist and phonetician.

As Higgins demonstrates his phonetics to Pickering, the housekeeper, Mrs. Pearce, tells him that a young girl wants to see him. Eliza is shown up, and she tells Higgins she will pay for lessons. He shows no interests in her, but she reminds

59 "The lesson of a Polish production of 'Pygmalion.'" The Independent on Sunday, July 3, 2001

48 him of his boast the previous day, so she can talk like a lady in a flower shop. Higgins claimed that he could pass her for duchess. Pickering makes a bet with him on his claim, and says that he will pay for her lessons if Higgins succeeds. She is sent off to have a bath. Mrs. Pearce tells Higgins that he must behave himself in the young girl’s presence. He must stop swearing and improve table manners. He is, at a loss to understand why she should find fault with him. Then Alfred Doolittle, Eliza’s father, appears with the sale purpose of getting money out of Higgins. He has no interest in his daughter in a paternal way. He has an eccentric view of life, brought about by a lack of education and an intelligent brain. He sees himself as member of the undeserving poor, and means to go on being undeserving. He is also aggressive and when Eliza, on her return, sticks her tongue out at him, he goes to hit her, but is prevented by Pickering. The scene ends with Higgins telling Pickering that they really have got a difficul t job on their hands. The description of common people and the meeting of Eliza with professor Higgins we can see in the beginning of the play in the following dialogues: Mrs. Pearce – A young woman asks to see you, sir. Higgins – A young woman! What does she wants? Mrs. Pearce – Well, sir, she says you’ll be glad to see her when you know what she has come about she’s quite a common girl, sir, very common in deed. I should have sent her away, only I thought perhaps you wanted her to talk into your machines. I hope I’ve not done wrong: but really you see such queer people sometimes – you’ll excuse me, I’m sure sir. Higgins – Oh, that’s all right, Mrs. Pearce has she an interesting accent? Mrs. Pearce – Oh, something dreadful, sir, really, I don’t know how you can take an interest in it. 60 Here the author described the attitude of people towards the common people. In the beginning of the comedy there is the first conversation of the flower girl with Freddy:

60 Bernard Shaw: Complete Works with Prefaces, Volume I, p.452 . New York: Dodd, Mead & Company. pp. 804.

The Flower Girl: (picking up her scattered flowers and replacing them in the basket). - There’s manner f’yer! Te-oo banches o vaylets trot into the mad. 61

Perhaps the author’s main aim was to criticize the irritated people with the main hero.

He described the flower girl:

The flower ostrich feathers, orange, sky blue, and red. She has a nearly clean apron, and the shoddy coat has been tidied a little. The pathos of this deplorable figure, with its innocent vanity and consequential air, touches Pickering, who has already straightened himself in the presence of Mrs. Pearce.

Mrs. Higgins’s drawing room. Higgins bursts in and tells him mother he has picked up a “common flower girl” whom he has been teaching Mrs. Higgins is not very impressed with her son’s attempts to win her approval because it is her “at home” day, in which she is entertaining visitors.

The visitors are the Eynsford – Hills. Higgins is rude to them on their arrival Eliza enters and soon falls into talking about the weather and her family.

Let’s analyze the meeting of Liza with Higgins:

Higgins – What’s your name?

The flower girl – Liza Doolittle

Higgins (Declaiming gravely) – Eliza, Elizabeth, Betsy and Bess. They went to get a bird’s nest.

Pickering – they found a nest with four eggs in it.

61 Bernard Shaw: Complete Works with Prefaces, Volume I, p.453 . New York: Dodd, Mead & Company. pp. 805.

Higgins- They took one a piece and left three in it. They laugh heartily at their own fun.

Liza – Oh, don’t be silly.

Mrs. Pearce (placing herself behind Eliza’s chair)

- You mustn’t speak to the gentlemen like that.

Liza- Well, why won’t he speak sensible to me?

Higgins- Come back to business. How much do you propose to pay me for the lessons?

Liza- Oh, I know what’s right. A lady friend of mine gets French lessons for eighteen pence an hour from a real French gentlemen Well, you wouldn’t have face to ask me the same foe teaching me my own language as you would for French; so I won’t give more than a shilling. Take it or leave it. 62

Whilst she is now able to speak in beautifully modulated tones , the substance of what she says remains unchanged from the gutter. She confides her suspicions that her father killed her aunts, to whom gin was “mother’s milk”, and that her father himself was always more cheerful after a good amount of gin. The Eynsford-Hills are curiously unperturbed by this, which Higgins passes off as “the small talk” and Freddy is in raptures. When she is leaving, he asks her if she is going to walk across the park to which she replies “Walk! Not bloody likely….” (This is the most famous line from the play and for many years after, to use the word “’bloody’’ was known as a Pygmalion) After she and the Eyns ford-Hills are curious and leave , Henry asks for his mother’s opinion. She says the girl is not the presentable and she is very concerned about what will happen to the girl, but neither

62 Bernard Shaw: Complete Works with Prefaces, Volume II, p533 . New York: Dodd, Mead & Company. pp. 845.

Higgins nor Pickering understand her criticism and leave feeling confident and excited about how Eliza will get on. This leaves Mrs. Higgins feeling exasperated and she says “Men! Men!! Men!!!”

When Liza and Higgins were discussing about the lessons the Professor began:

- It’s almost irresistible. She’s so deliciously low

- So horrible dirty –

Liza – AH-ah-ah-ow-ow-oo-oo!!! I’m not dirty; I washed my face and hands afore I come, I did. Then Professor began teaching her but when Mrs. Pearce asked him how long he was going to teach her he answered: Higgins – In six month-in three if she has a good ear and a quick tongue – I’ll take her away and clean her, Mrs. Pearce, Man key Brand, if it won’t come off any other way? Is there a good fire in the kitchen? Mrs. Pearce – (protesting) Yes: but – Higgins – (storming on) Take all her clothes off and burn them. Ring up whitely or somebody for new ones. Wrap her up in brown paper till they come. Liza – you’re no gentleman, you’re not, to talk of such things. I’m a good girl, I’m and I know what the like of you are, I do. Liza was very disappointed and wanted to call the police but Higgins ordered to put her in the dustbin. But Bernard Show didn’t want to tell the professor Higgins was so cruel he was very polite man. We can see in this conversation; Higgins – (with professional exquisiteness of modulation) I walk over everybody! My dear Mrs. Pearce, my dear Pickering. I never had the slightest intention of walking over anyone. All I propose is that we should kind to this poor girl. We must help her to prepare and fit herself for her new station in life. If I did not express myself clearly it was because I didn’t wish to hurt her delicacy or yours. Liza – Well, what if I did? I’ve as good a right to take a taxi as anyone else.

Higgins – at her age! Nonsense! When you have not enough time to think about future. No, Eliza: do as this Lady does: think of other people’s future; but never think of your own. Think of chocolates, and taxis and gold and diamonds. Liza – No: I don’t want no gold and diamond I’m a good girl; I am. Higgins – (Looking at Mrs. Pearce)Give her orders that’s enough for her Eliza: you are to live for the next six months, learning how to speak beautifully, like a lady in a florist’s shop. If you’re good and do whatever you’re told, you shall sleep in a proper bedroom, and have lots to eat and money to buy chocolates and take rides in taxis. If you’re naughty and idle you will sleep in the back kitchen among the black beetles and be walloped by Mrs. Pearce with a broomstick. At the end of six months you shall go to Brickingham Palace in a carriage, beautifully dressed. If the king finds out you’re not a lady, you will be taken by the police to the Tower of London, where your head will be out off a warning to other presumptuous flower girls. If you’re not found out, you shall have a present of seven-and-six pence to start life with as a lady in a shop. If you refuse this offer you’ll be a ungrateful wicked girl: and the angels will weep for you. Liza – I don’t. It’s not natural: it would kill me. I’ve never had both in my life: not what you’d call a proper one. Mrs. Pearce – Now stop to cry and go back into your room and take off your clothes. Then wrap yourself in this and come back to me. I will get the bath ready. Liza – I can’t. I won’t. I’m not used to it. I’ve never took off my clothes before. It’s not right: it’s not decent. Mrs. Pearce – Nonsense, child. Don’t you take off all your clothes every night when you go to bed? Liza – No, Why should I? I should catch my death. Of course I take off my skirt. Mrs. Pearce – Do you mean that you sleep in the underclothes you wear in the day time?

Liza – What else have I to sleep in? Mrs. Pearce – You will never do that again as long as you live here. I will get you a proper night dress. Higgins works hard and before six months are over, she is well prepared to be introduced into society. Higgins wins his bet. When the game is over the girl doesn’t know where to go. She doesn’t want to return to her previous life, but at the same time she is not admitted to the high society as she is poor. Shaw, annoyed by the tendency of audiences, actors, and even directors to seek “romantic” reinterpretations of his ending, later wrote an essay for inclusion with subsequent editions, in which he explained precisely why it was impossible for the story to the end with Higgins and Eliza getting married. Some subsequent adaptations have changed this ending. Despite Shaw’s insistence that the original ending remain intact, producer Gabriel Pascal provided a more ambiguous end to the 1938 film: instead of marrying Freddy, Eliza apparently reconciles with Higgins in the final scene, implying that they probably will get married Shaw amended the ending subsequent to the 1938 film and it is this later version that is described above: in the original ending, Eliza merely retorts “Buy them yourself” in response to Higgins` list of errands. 63 Higgins is unperturbed and the play ends with him left alone in Mrs. Higgins` drawing room, serenely confident that Eliza will, in fact, do as he asks. The musical version My Fair Lady and its 1964 film have similar endings to the 1938 film. Thanks to Pygmalion, George Bernard Shaw was the first person to have been awarded both a Nobel Prize (Literature - 1925) and Academy Award (Pygmalion - 1939). Pygmalion is the inspiration for The Simpsons episode entitled Pygmalion in which infamously ugly character Moe, of Moe’s Tavern to me, is transformed to a gentleman.

63 Brown, G.E. “George Bernard Shaw” Evans Brothers Ltd, 1940p76

The conflict reaches its climax when Higgins suggests that Eliza should marry. As to Eliza's situation, she has to decide between marrying and going out to work. This reflect the contemporary beliefs that it wad degrading of women to earn their own living. However, Eliza begins to rebel against Higgins by tossing the slippers at him. That can be seen as a way of release to the other ladies. Eliza's behavior stands for women who struggled for their rights in those days. Eliza Doolittle, is an uneducated, streetwise cockney flower girl, Eliza's intelligence allows her to recognize her won self-worth and the worth of others. Before Eliza first encountered Mr. Higgins, she was simply a dirty, during her time with both Mr., Higgins and Colonel Pickering, Eliza did change, for the first few weeks of her stay in Wimpole Street, she questioned everything that Higgins asked her to do, and generally couldn’t see how they would help her, later, Eliza begins to understand that Higgins, as harsh as he is trying to do his best to teach her, and therefore should be respected. Eliza's basic character remains relatively unchanged. We can still observe the old Eliza, under the upper-class persona. When the play opens, the audience is shown a brief glimpse of the world that Eliza occupies as a flower girl as she tries to wheedle a few coins in return for violets from the group of people seeking shelter under the Portico of St. Paul's church. She is forced by her circumstances to coax money out of prospect veers. Eliza however can express her feeling of wonder and fear only by crying out an indistinguishable sounding "Ah-ah-ah-ow-ow-ow-oo!" A little later when she receives a handful of coins she goes almost wild with delight and lacking the ability to express her feelings articulately can again only utter a baffling "Ah-ah- ow-ow-oo!" For Eliza, pain, wonder, fear and delight become an indiscriminate sound of vowels. At this point the audience is not aware that beneath this dirt and terrible speech lies the ability to evolve into a polished human being. However, even in this pathetic state Eliza is not totally depraved. She is self- sufficient and capable of earning her living by selling flowers. She exhibits cleverness and a degree of resourcefulness to get the maximum value possible for

55 her flowers. The cab acts as the vehicle that carries her over the threshold from the shabby indigent world to the comforts of genteel life in Act Two. Wearing an ostrich feather hat and a shabby worn out coat, Eliza strikes one as a pathetic and odd figure. She haughtily demands that Higgins teach her to speak properly so that she can become a lady in a flower shop instead of selling flowers. Evidently at this stage Eliza only craves the economic security and social respectability that would come with her ability to speak correctly. She does not know that this desire for security and respectability only constitutes the second small step in her larger quest for self-realization. However she is required to purge both her body and soul before she can ascend to a higher plane of awareness. Her haughty air is soon reduced to confusion, fear, and helplessness as she bears the tyrannical outbursts of Higgins who insultingly calls her a "baggage" and "a draggle-tailed guttersnipe." Her soul is thus cleansed of childish pretensions as she encounters the grim real world. She undergoes a cleansing of her body at a physical level: her dirty clothes are burnt and her body purified through a hot bath. For Higgins and Pickering the ambassador's ball was a great success. Eliza, on the other hand, had fulfilled her purpose as far as Higgins was concerned, she was merely a tool used to enhance Higgins reputation in society. Having shown absolutely no appreciation toward Eliza, Higgins kept boasting about his success. And failed to acknowledge Eliza, besides the one time he did, which was simply to make clear that it was not Eliza the won his bet, but it was himself. Higgins did change Eliza. Originally she was a kind innocent girl trying to stay alive the gutter of London. Higgins through the introduction to high-society had altered Eliza's way of thinking. It was good for Eliza to become stronger as she did. It was good that Mr. Higgins finally had something go wrong for him. Eliza was changed by her interaction with Higgins. Pygmalion depicts the relationships between gender and social status. It reveals the story of a young, lower class, flower girl, who wants nothing more than to become a lady.

The character of Professor Higgins is introduced as a higher class, sexist individual. He agrees to teach the young girl, Eliza, to become a sophisticated, proper speaking lady. To Eliza, this sounds like an irresistible chance of becoming a lady. However, in Higgins eyes, he's simply teaching her enough to pass her off as a Royal Duchess, through the perfection of her English. This book undergoes the common theme of "the developing butterfly", with the character starting out in the gutter and integrating her way into becoming a beautiful, proper, mature speaking lady. Although Eliza progresses somewhat throughout the play, she continues to remain within the walls of the lower class status. Similarly, Henry Higgins remains consistent with his arrogant, disliked attitude. As the reader may not anticipate, Shaw does not follow the typical storyline of the woman and the man of the opposite lives, who end up falling in love with each other. Contrarily, Eliza remains strong, refusing to fall for any sense of false hope, and the lack of respect given by Higgins. She persists and regardless of Higgins' continuous begging, she stays with Freddy. The reading of this story is somewhat enjoyable and interesting, if the unpredictable, non-traditional storyline is appealing to you, as a reader. I would recommend this book to people who enjoy these types of storylines of the encountered struggles between the lower class individuals and their constant strives to be recognized as anything but lower class. This performance of Shaw's perceptive comedy sparkles with wit and scintillating characterizations. Outstanding performances by the entire company, especially the actors portraying major characters, contribute to the vitality of this production. As her cockney accent gradually gives way to refined, articulate sentences, Shannon Cochran makes us believe in Eliza's transformation from flower girl to cultured lady. Nicholas Rudall artfully captures the self-centered swagger and joie de vivre of Eliza's father. Nicholas Pennell intelligently portrays the egotistical Professor Higgins. Basic sound effects are all that's necessary to

57 create a context for this drama. The adult or high-school-age listener will find this audio production the next best thing to being there. Pygmalion is a perceptive comedy of wit and wisdom about the unique relationship between a spunky cockney flower-girl and her irascible speech professor. The flower girl Eliza Doolittle teaches the egotistical phonetics professor Henry Higgins that to be a lady means more than just learning to speak like one. The performance by the L. A. Theatre Works is technically flawless and a world-class performance of a theatrical classic. Pygmalion centers on a woman who cannot speak to save her life. She is the most interesting of the three main characters but also the worst to focus on. She is boring to the point of tears. She is poor, hungry, and happy. It is a typical underdog story where two rich and powerful men who happen to be specialists in her area of need -language-happen upon her in a gloomy British rain. Surprised? I was not. Shaw cut right to the point; after all, it is a short play. I do not blame Shaw for making it short, more of Higgins and I would have put the play down. Should we try to pinpoint why the two men, more so Higgins, decide to tutor and to change Eliza, we come across purely selfish motives. Eliza sells flowers on the street in order to feed herself, and later goes to Higgins to learn proper English in order to become a shop-owner. Higgins wants to change her into a proper girl in order to prove that he is the greatest linguistics tutor, also, to win a bet...how egocentric. Selfish acts drive this play along. Here, the class struggle also comes into play as Eliza must not only refrain from using the only language she knows, but must change the way in which she holds herself in front of society. Shaw wrote Eliza's character very precisely to have individual dignity and determination to help her achieve her goals. The one thing I liked. The play is about adaptation and transformation. Eliza's incredible strength moves the play along more quickly despite Higgins' pompous attitude slowing it

58 down. Then again, without the diametrically opposed characters the play would not work. Interesting class struggle and realistic language effort but overall, just a so-so read. Shaw has a good point: it takes effort to move up to bourgeoisie. He has all the right characters: a poor, pretty girl with a desire to learn a snotty old Professor who is full of himself and a rich gentleman to provide the budget. Unfortunately, and perhaps due to the year I was born, the generation I grew up in and my penchant for sex and scandal, I found it rather dry. I am glad I read it, but will likely not pick it up again. Pygmalion, the romantic comedy it shows people the various social roles and obstacles that existed in London in the early 1900's. The story unfolds with Mr. Higgins, a cunning linguist, who places a bet with his fellow comrade, Colonel Pickering, saying he would be able to transform Eliza Doolittle, a cockney speaking, street vending peasant, into a respectable young lady, fit to attend an ambassador's party and not be noticed as a person of a lower class. Eliza, personally willing to take the challenge on for her own benefit, works with Higgins over a number of weeks and is ultimately able to drop her accent and speak like a upper-class English lady. This story illustrates that though there is a social hierarchy in London at the time, those with the ambition and tenacity to jump have the opportunities and to be able to succeed in doing so. Once in this position however, some tend to question their place in this class and whether they fit in with the mainstream doings that are found with that status. With confidence and support, Eliza's role shows that there is indeed room to grow, learn, and adapt to a new culture. I think this play is a great read today because it still relates to our society on a whole. People find even now, the unfortunate settings up of a class system within North America. It's easy to relate, though the reader may not be the flower seller in the street, they may be the immigrant learning to speak English to gain a job and financial security for example. The role of class structures made this play relevant

59 in reading it in the past, at the present moment, and will continue to make it worth reading in the future. Pygmalion is a near perfect representation of society in general. Although written nearly a full century ago, the differences in class and gender ring true even in today's modern world. Inspired by a myth of ancient Greece, Pygmalion focuses around the unique relationship between two very different individuals, Eliza Doolittle and Henry Higgins. Eliza is a poor, uneducated flower seller in the slums of England whereas Higgins is a renowned and quite well off professor of linguistics. The relationship between the two is initiated by each character's own desires for self betterment. Eliza wishes to become "a lady", so as to open her own flower shop and Higgins takes Eliza as a sort of project, hoping to pass her off as a royal duchess simply by improving her English. A story of transformation, or at least the attempt of, Pygmalion proves to be ultimately unsatisfying, despite its sophisticated structure. The main characters of the play come off as hopelessly pathetic, Eliza in her primitive dialect and low social status, and Higgins with his sexist attitude and outspoken opinions. The professor, arguably the protagonist of the play, grows consistently harder to like as the play progresses. He willingly showcases his arrogance and disrespect not only for the opposite sex but for those lower than him. The ending of the play also leaves the reader, or viewer for that matter, with a sense of incompleteness. One naturally expects an epiphany to be had, where the players realize their faults and strive to right them. Such is not the case. Also, the relationship between Eliza and Higgins leads the reader to expect a romance to occur, although once again such is not the case. The play ends arbitrarily leaving the audience to make up their own minds. Although it is reported that Shaw ended his play like this on purpose, as a deliberate attack on the cutter" endings that audiences so easily predicted, the purpose proves to be a failure as far as entertainment goes. Audiences desire a certain degree of closure where loose ends are tied up. However, the dialogue and

60 stage business of Pygmalion is witty and clever, and the message of the play is representative of every person's inner quest for self improvement. So in conclusion, we can say that it was not Higgins who has created a new woman by himself. Indeed, Eliza has changed her personality through her own efforts. This is due to Higgins' treatment: he didn't consider her feelings.

III. Conclusion

In this investigation we have discussed about the well-known comedy the 19 th century “Pygmalion” by famous English writer Bernard Shaw. George Bernard Shaw is an outstanding English playwright, one of the greatest satirists of the twentieth century. He was always in the midst of political life in Britain and took an active part in solving human problems. As literary critics state, Shaw’s manner of expression is based on real facts and ridicule. He exposes truth through satire and sarcasm. One of Shaw’s best comedies is “Pygmalion”, written in 1912 and first produced in England in 1914. It was adapted into the musical “My Fair Lady” in 1956. The title “Pygmalion” comes from a Greek myth. Pygmalion, a sculptor, carved a statue out of ivory. It was the statue of a beautiful young woman whom he called Galatea. He fell in love with his own handiwork, so the goddess of love Aphrodite breathed life into the statue and transformed it into a really alive woman. The fable was chosen to allow him to discuss the theme he had set himself. The principal characters of the play are Eliza Doolittle and Henry Higgins. Eliza, a girl of eighteen, comes from the lowest social level and speaks with a strong Cockney (East End of London) accent, which is considered to be the most uncultured English. Eliza’s father is a dustman. Eliza does not want to stay with her father and stepmother. She makes her own living by selling flowers in the streets of London. Henry Higgins, another main character of the play, is a professor of phonetics. He studies the physiological aspects of a person’s speech, the sounds of the language. One day he sees Eliza in the street and bets with his friend Colonel Pickering that he will change this girl. He will not only teach her to speak her native language correctly, but will teach her manners too. Higgins works hard and before six months are over, she is well prepared to be introduced into society. Higgins wins his bet. When the game is over the girl doesn’t know where to go.

She doesn’t want to return to her previous life, but at the same time she is not admitted to the high society as she is poor. Higgins and Eliza remain friends, but the play is without ending. The dramatist thought it best not to go on with the story. Higgins loves Eliza only as his pupil. But he loves his profession as an artist. He has created a new Eliza. She is the work of a Pygmalion. “Pygmalion” shows the author’s concern for the perfection of the English Language. Shaw was passionately interested in the English language and the varieties of ways in which people spoke and misspoke it. Shaw wished to simplify and reform English. He has pointed out that the rules of spelling in English are inconsistent and confusing. The text of “Pygmalion” reflects some of his efforts at simplifying the usage of letters and sounds in the English Language. The play also allowed Shaw to present ideas on other topics. For example, he touched the problems of social equality, male and female roles, and the relationship between the people. Social class and social climbing. In every scene of Pygmalion, Shaw juxtaposes different social classes and explores how they relate to one another. Accents, clothing, and manners indicate the degree of wealth and social status of each family. Social climbers in England at the time faced slim odds, while well-to- do families devoted considerable time, energy, and money to the preservation of their status. The rise of the middle class in nineteenth-century England had fundamentally redefined the class system. As more and more businessmen and their families prospered and imitated the upper classes, subtle distinctions became all-important. Aristocrats tried to maintain their superiority by glorifying attributes that could not be bought easily, such as family history, refined social graces, and old traditions. So many years passed but the comedy “Pygmalion” is still on the stage and read by millions of millions of readers.

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