Preview

Pygmalion: Social Class and Liza

Good Essays
Open Document
Open Document
1040 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
Pygmalion: Social Class and Liza
Pygmalion – Themes

Appearances and Reality
Pygmalion examines this theme primarily through the character of Liza, and the issue of personal identity (as perceived by oneself or by others). Social roles in the
Victorian era were viewed as natural and largely fixed: there was perceived to be something inherently, fundamentally unique about a noble versus an unskilled laborer and vice versa. Liza’s ability to fool society about her “real” identity raises questions about appearances. The importance of appearance and reality to the theme of Pygmalion is suggested by Liza’s famous observation: “You see, really and truly, apart from the things anyone can pick up (the dressing and the proper way of speaking, and so on), the difference between a lady and a flower girl is not how she behaves, but how she’s treated.”
Beauty
In Pygmalion, Shaw interrogates beauty as a subjective value. One’s perception of beauty in another person is shown to be a highly complex matter, dependent on a large number of (not always aesthetic) factors. Liza, it could be argued, is the same person from the beginning of the play to the end, but while she is virtually invisible to Freddy as a Cockney-speaking flower merchant, he is totally captivated by what he perceives as her beauty and grace when she is presented to him as a lady of society.
Change and Transformation
The transformation of Liza is, of course, central to the plot and theme of Pygmalion. The importance at first appears to rest in the power Higgins expresses by achieving this transformation. “But you have no idea,” he says, “how frightfully interesting it is to take a human being and change her into a quite different human being by creating a new speech for her. It’s filling up the deepest gulf that separates class from class and soul from soul.” As the play unfolds, however, the focus shifts so that the effects of the change upon Liza become central. The truly important transformation Liza goes through is

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Good Essays

    Black Rock Cherie

    • 390 Words
    • 2 Pages

    Another character who is recognised in this role play is Cherie, Cherie’s is a 15 year old girl who is constructed to appeal to the teenage audience with her mother implying “She knows more than we do," which suggests Cherie to have a superior understanding of the urban, youth, landscape, psychologically and physically.…

    • 390 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    The relationships Marina has with different characters in the novel ‘So Much To Tell You' brings about change in her.…

    • 589 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    Personal Identity has been a fascinating topic for philosophers all over the world. When you talk about personal Identity it makes you think to yourself “What is personal Identity?” Personal Identity can be a lot of things, to each person the meaning can be different. Personal Identity can be how you want the public to perceive you. Personal Identity can also mean upholding a certain standard/ attitude to maintain the status quo of who you are. This very question has left philosophers with many ideas on personal identity and the plus and minuses to it. Personal Identity is the concept you develop about yourself that expands over a course of your life. There are certain aspects of your life that involves personal identity that you have no control…

    • 1501 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    For many a personal identity evolves over the course of one’s life. Personal identity is demonstrated through many aspects such as the way one dresses or their occupation. However it is really defined by ones interactions with others. How one interacts with others in society shows what kind of people they are. Whether they may be introverts or extroverts’ society labels them.…

    • 581 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Best Essays

    Howard, Judith A. "Social Psychology of Identities." Annual Review of Sociology 26.No. (2000): 367-93. Social Psychology of Identities. Web. 2015.…

    • 1648 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Best Essays
  • Better Essays

    In the short story Gryphon, Charles Baxter creates a far-from-perfect character, the substitute teacher Miss Ferenczi, who lives in a fantasy world without boundaries and tiresome limits. Her arrival has a great influence on the whole rural Five Oaks community. Miss Ferenczi 's appearance and behaviors, portrayed through her student 's eyes, place her as a symbol of reformation and immerses her students into a rich and fascinating world.…

    • 1181 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Hippolytus

    • 341 Words
    • 2 Pages

    marks a significant moment in the story and write a critical analysis of that passage.…

    • 341 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    George Bernard Shaw’s Pygmalion is a play that has become a classic in today’s world. It is a retelling of an ancient story, of the same name, by the Roman poet, Ovid, in which a sculptor falls in love with a statue he carved. In Shaw’s story, Henry Higgins, an expert in phonetics, happens upon a poor flower girl with awful English and street manners named Eliza Doolittle. Throughout the course of the play Higgins transforms her into an elegant independent woman. The play tracks Eliza and Higgins’s journey and the transformation of their relationship from teacher and pupil to one where both are equally accustomed to the other and have become integral parts of the others lives. Shaw does not end the play as most would expect though. The general public expects and practically demands a happy ending of a play that seems so highly romantic, but Shaw provides the audience with a strictly logical ending instead. In the end, Eliza becomes tired of Higgins’s pompous attitude as she grows independent, and leaves him to marry a typical romantic character of the middle-class. The play then ends with Henry mocking her idea of marrying this man (Shaw). The audience had conceived the idea of Henry and Eliza getting married, and could not accept this abrupt ending (Solomon 59). Over time, Shaw’s purpose behind this ending has been debated endlessly. Many have even gone as far as to simply call Shaw “wrong” in having created this ending, and have gone on to adjust the ending to what they would consider a “correct” ending (Solomon 60). This revised ending has spread into most productions and adaptations. It will be recreated yet again in the upcoming 2012 film remake of My Fair Lady, the musical adaptation of Pygmalion, and most will never know that another ending—the original ending—exists. In this paper, I will show that what is considered a “correct” ending by the revisers of Shaw’s play is actually nothing more than a…

    • 2365 Words
    • 10 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Social Class in Pygmalion

    • 1037 Words
    • 5 Pages

    “Pygmalion”, by George Bernard Shaw, is a modern metamorphosis of the story Pygmalion, legendary sculptor and king of Cyprus, who fell in love with his own statue of Aphrodite. At his prayer, Aphrodite brought the statue to life as Galatea. In his own play, Shaw reveals a twist in the Greek myth, where by he transformers a flower girl into a duchess through the power of speech. The author uses this mythology to portray aspects of Victorian England common social class classification. The author uses speech and choice of word, along with other features to shed light on the social distinctions. Language and social class interchanged widely in Shaw’s play “Pygmalion” drawing along with it, characteristics of characters’ as well as major themes.…

    • 1037 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    SOC Study Guide

    • 1785 Words
    • 8 Pages

    6) Social Identity: Who we think ourselves to be, socially, impacted by groups we associate with.…

    • 1785 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    Pygmalion Essay

    • 840 Words
    • 3 Pages

    In the text Pygmalion; George Bernard Shaw has created and utilized incredibly distinctive voices to communicate the themes of his play, the being character transformation and the distinguishing parameters of social class.…

    • 840 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Pygmalion is perhaps Shaw 's most famous play and, ironically, it is among his most abused and misinterpreted ones. Almost everyone knows the basic outlines of this story of the Cockney flower girl who is almost magically transformed into a duchess by taking speech (phonetic) lessons from her famous professor. The abuse comes partly from the fact that Shaw subtitled his play, "A Romance." In the popular adaptations (the film of 1938 and the musical My Fair Lady), "romance" was written into the script and inserted into the relationship between Higgins and Eliza — in fact, the title of the play, Pygmalion, being based on the legend of a person who fell in love with his creation, could easily give rise to this wrong interpretation. In fact, one advertisement claims that the play is one of the most "beautiful love stories" that the world has ever read. Yet, as noted elsewhere, Shaw used the term "romance" in its more restricted form, meaning the implausibility of actually transforming a flower girl into a grand duchess by the simple means of using phonetic instruction. Yet, in spite of Shaw 's own pronouncements and in spite of all the evidence in the play, readers and audiences still continue to sentimentalize over the outcome of the play and refuse to recognize the anti-romantic aspect of the drama.…

    • 1282 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    2. Setting: The setting of Pygmalion is set in England around the late 1800s and early 1900s. Why Shaw chose this setting, it is when and where he lived, but it is important to the story in many ways. He was an active socialist, in many of his novels they were based on social and political issues like capitalism and socialism. In Pygmalion, Shaw lays down his beliefs and teaches us about society in the early 1900s. This was a time when people were just starting to be able to move up in society, if you were poor at birth, you could raise yourself to a higher level by working hard, like Liza. Women were finally starting to be considered more than just the homebuilders; they were starting to be viewed as the heart of the family. Shaw supported the idea that women should get the same opportunities as men,…

    • 1574 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    G. B. Shaw's "Pygmalion"

    • 2314 Words
    • 10 Pages

    Like all of Shaw's great dramatic creations, Pygmalion is a richly complex play. It combines a central story of the transformation of a young woman with elements of myth, fairy tale, and romance, while also combining an interesting plot with an exploration of social identity, the power of science, relations between men and women, and other issues.…

    • 2314 Words
    • 10 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    Pygmalion is a play written by George Bernard Shaw that is based on a poem called Metamorphoses, written by Ovid. The play and the poem are very similar in the themes, but the actual stories are not alike. Ovid’s version of Pygmalion is about a sculpture and its creator who falls in love with a woman who he created and brings her to life. Shaw’s version of Pygmalion is about a low-class flower girl who is turned into a beautiful, polite lady. Although the play and the poem are fairly different, the theme is the same. The main theme for Pygmalion is that transformation is possible for anyone through hard work. Eliza, Higgins and Mr. Doolittle all go through different kinds of transformation (Yeates).…

    • 774 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays