drama ii modern drama lecture 21 1. synopsis 1. a conclusive talk 2. george bernard shaw 3. the myth...

DRAMA IIMODERN DRAMA

Lecture 21

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SYNOPSIS

1. A Conclusive Talk

2. George Bernard Shaw

3. The Myth Behind the Play

4. Contextual Background

5. George Bernard Shaw’s Philosophy

6. Plot Overview

7. Characters, Role, Relationship, Conflicts & Significance

8. Themes and the major Conflicts

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PYGMALION

George Bernard Shaw

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A Conclusive TalkWaiting for Godot

Lecture 14

Waiting for Godot By Samuel Beckett3. Samuel Beckett’s BiographyAn Overview of Waiting for Godot4. Characters in the PlaySetting of the PlayBeckett’s Theatrical Concept and Style

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Lecture 15

SUMMARY: Waiting for Godot2. Summary and AnalysisAct I: Introduction & Pozzo and Lucky's EntranceAct II: Introduction & Pozzo and Lucky's Entrance

3. Discussion Questions / Aspects to be analyzed

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Lecture 16

SUMMARY: Waiting for Godot (Conti…)2. Summary and AnalysisAct I: Introduction & Pozzo and Lucky's EntranceAct II: Introduction & Pozzo and Lucky's Entrance

3. Discussion Questions / Aspects to be analyzed

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Lecture 17

Absurdist DramaDialogue and Language/Humorof Absurdist DramaPlot & Structure of Absurdist DramaTHEMES in Waiting for GodotAspects to Consider

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Lecture 18

1. Waiting for Godot Symbolism, Imagery & Allegory 2. Setting3. Waiting for Godot Genre, TONE, STYLE & Title4. Waiting for Godot as Booker’s Seven Basic Plots Analysis:

Tragedy Plot5. Social Acceptance of Waiting for Godot

Critical Analysis

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Lecture 19

An Introduction to 1. Philosophical Background of Waiting for Godot Theatre of Absurd Existentialism The Paradox of Consciousness

2. Becket: Critical Analysis (Analytical Mapping) Characters

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Lecture 20

. Analytical Mapping: Social Significance 2. Philosophical Background: ThemesA. SocialB. PsychologicalC. Religious3. Dramatic references: Themes

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George Bernard Shaw

George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950) was the third and youngest child (and only son) of George Carr Shaw and Lucinda Elizabeth Gurly Shaw.

Technically, he belonged to the Protestant “ascendancy”—the landed Irish gentry—but his impractical father was first a sinecured civil servant and then an unsuccessful grain merchant

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George Bernard Shaw

George Bernard grew up in an atmosphere of genteel poverty, which to him was more humiliating than being merely poor

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Another historical point that may have some importance is that in 1872 his mother left her husband and took her two daughters to London, following her music teacher, George John Vandeleur Lee, who from 1866 had shared households in Dublin with the Shaws.

Whatever we may feel about this, it shows him close to an exceptionally independent woman

George Bernard Shaw13

In 1876 Shaw resolved to become a writer, and he joined his mother and elder sister (the younger one having died) in London. Shaw in his 20s suffered continuous frustration and poverty.

He depended upon his mother's pound a week from her husband and her earnings as a music teacher.


George Bernard Shaw

He spent his afternoons in the British Museum reading room, writing novels and reading what he had missed at

school, and his evenings in search of additional self education in the lectures and debates that characterized contemporary middle-class London intellectual activities.

His fiction failed utterly. The semiautobiographical and

aptly titled Immaturity (1879; published 1930) repelled every publisher in London.

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His next four novels were similarly refused, as were most of the articles he submitted to the press for a decade.

Shaw's initial literary work earned him less than 10 shillings a year. A fragment posthumously published as An Unfinished Novel in 1958 (but written 1887–88) was his final false start in fiction.

Despite his failure as a novelist in the 1880s, Shaw found himself during this decade. He became a vegetarian, a socialist, a spellbinding orator, a polemicist, and tentatively a playwright


Before long, Shaw had become one of the most sought-after public speakers in England. He argued in his pamphlets in favor of equality of income and advocated the equitable division of land and capital. He believed that property was "theft" and felt, like Karl Marx, that capitalism was deeply flawed and was unlikely to last.

Unlike Marx, however, Shaw favored gradual reform over revolution. And there we see Alfred Doolittle, common dustman.


In one pamphlet written in 1897, he predicted that socialism "will come by prosaic installments of public regulation and public administration enacted by ordinary parliaments, vestries, municipalities, parish councils, school boards, etc."


In 1892, Shaw wrote his first play, Widowers' Houses, about the evils of slumlords. The play was attacked savagely by people who opposed his politics.

It was then that Shaw knew he was a good playwright--he must have been to have upset so many people with his social commentary.

He went on to revolutionize the English theater by concentrating his writing on various social issues at a time when most other playwrights were writing "sentimental pap."


PYGMALION

The Myth Behind the Play

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The Myth Behind the Play

There is never any overt reference in the play to Pygmalion; Shaw assumes a classical understanding.

According to the Mythology Guide “Pygmalion saw so much to blame in women that he came at last to abhor the relation with them, and resolved to live unmarried. He was a sculptor, and had made with wonderful skill a statue of ivory, so beautiful that no living woman could be compared to it in beauty.

It was indeed the perfect sem-blance of a maiden that seemed to be alive, and only prevented from moving by modesty. His art was so perfect that it concealed itself, and its product looked like theworkmanship of nature.

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Pygmalion admired his own work, and at last fell in love with the counter-feit creation. Oftentimes he laid his hand upon it, as if to assure himself whether it were living or not, and could not even then believe that it was only ivory.

The festival of Venus was at hand, a festival celebrated withgreat pomp at Cyprus. Victims were offered, the altars smoked,and the odor of incense filled the air.

When Pygmalion had performed his part in the solemnities, he stood before the altar and timidly said, "Ye gods, who can do all things, give me, I pray you, for my wife" he dared not say "my ivory virgin," but said instead "one like my ivory virgin." Venus, who was present at the festival, heard him

The Myth Behind the Play22

While he stands astonished and glad, though doubting, and fears he may be mistaken, again and again with a lover's ardor he touches the object of his hopes.

It was indeed alive! The veins when pressed yielded to the finger and thenresumed their roundness. Then at last the votary of Venus found words to thank the goddess, and pressed his lips upon lips as real as his own.

The Myth Behind the Play23

The Play Itself: PYGMALION

One of the most popular plays of Bernard Shaw, first performed in 1913 in Vienna and published and performed in London in 1916.

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Is it a Romance?

Shaw says “NO!” The Text says “Yes!”

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PYGMALION

Contextual Background

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Pygmalion: Background

Pygmalion is set in London, England, around the beginning of the twentieth century.

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During this time in London, working-class people like Eliza Doolittle


• lived in slums

• had no heat or hot water

• had to put coins in a meter to get electric light

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The class structure in England at this time was very rigid.

upper class

middle class

working class

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The government did provide some schooling.

However, an education did not teach the proper speech that was considered a sign of the upper class.

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The way that many working-class people spoke was an obstacle to their becoming middle class.

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In Greek mythology, Pygmalion was a gifted, young sculptor who resolved never to marry.

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But after Pygmalion created a statue of a beautiful woman, he fell in love with the statue.

Miserable because he loved a lifeless object, he appealed to Aphrodite, the goddess of love.

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Sympathetic to the young artist’s plight, Aphrodite turned the statue into a live woman.

Pygmalion named the beautiful maiden Galatea, and the two were married.

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PYGMALION

George Bernard Shaw’s Philosophy

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George Bernard Shaw

“I must warn my readers that my attacks are directed against themselves, not against my stage figures.”

-Shaw

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George Bernard Shaw

• Shaw wanted to force his viewers to face the reality of unpleasant events.

• He promoted the “unpleasant” plays by publishing a long preface in which he could argue his views.

• Shaw was awarded the Nobel Prize for literature in 1925.

• He continued to write until he was 94.

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http://www.meghanwilliams.com/ugb.html

Meg Williams

What we believe influences how we behave

What we believe influences how we behave

Likewise, how we behave impacts what people think

about us.

Likewise, how we behave impacts what people think

about us.

In turn, this

affects how

others behave towards

us.

In turn, this

affects how

others behave towards

us.

Ultimately, how they behave towards us

reinforces what we believed about ourselves in the first

place

Ultimately, how they behave towards us

reinforces what we believed about ourselves in the first

place

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PYGMALION

Plot Overview

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Pygmalion: Introduction

In this play, George Bernard Shaw uses humor and lively characterization to explore how

language,

class structure,

education,

and gender

influence how people are seen by society.

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The two main characters are• Eliza Doolittle—a poor

but proud flower girl with a cockney accent—a way of speaking associated with the working classes.

• Henry Higgins—an arrogant and insensitive linguistics professor

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Eliza comes to Higgins’s house to ask him to give her speech lessons.

She wants to learn to speak properly so that she can get a job in a flower shop instead of selling flowers on the street.

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Higgins decides to take the girl on as a professional challenge.

He boasts to his associate Colonel Pickering that with six months of lessons, Eliza could be passed off as a duchess.

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Higgins has Eliza move into his home.

With the help of Pickering and the housekeeper, Mrs. Pearce, he teaches Eliza the proper speech and manners of the upper class.

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Although Eliza wants to learn, there is tension between her and Higgins.

She also wants to be treated with respect—as a person.

Higgins, however, persists in treating her as a project and an object.

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If Higgins’s experiment succeeds, where will Eliza go from there?

Will Eliza and Henry Higgins become friends, or will their differences drive them apart?

Will learning to speak like a duchess allow her to live like one?

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Characters, Role, Relationship, Conflicts & Significance

A Look at the Play

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Eliza Doolittle48

Mr. Higgins49

Col. Pickering50

Mrs. Pearce51

Freddy Hill52

PYGMALION

Class Representation

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kind, polite, generous, enthusiastic, eager, confident

impatient, rude, confident, superior, self-important

anxious, eager, emotional, ambitious, unsure

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Character Position in society

Evidence in the play

ElizaLower class Language: calls

gentleman “sir” and “cap’in” (or captain) which is a compliment

Behaviour: respectful to people of higher class

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Henry Higgins Language: calls Eliza

“you silly girl” and Pickering “my dear man” (an equal and friend)

Behaviour: rude (and patronizing) to lower class; polite to same or upper classMiddle

class

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Colonel Pickering

Upper class

Language: prepared to begin a conversation with Henry, whom he does not know; generous with praise to him

Behaviour: generally confident and polite; but ignores Eliza

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Words to know

• Phonetics• Dialect• Cockney• Dramatist• Fin de siecle • Social satire• Aestheticism • Fabian society• Shavian• Naturalism

Fabian Society

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PYGMALION

Themes and the Major Conflicts

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Major Conflicts60

Major Conflicts1. Status Divide

The nature of class structure

Upper Class: Higgins, Col. Pickering, Mrs. Higgins, Mrs. Clair and Freddy Eynsford Hill.

Middle Class: Mrs. Pierce She does not, however, represent “middle-class morality” alone. In many ways that is also a quality of Higgins’ and Col. Pickering’s class.

Lower Working Class: Eliza, Alfred Doolittle and his never seen but often heard about “wife.” and Eliza’s step-mother.

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Major Conflicts1. Status Divide A vast gulf between the poor and even

the lower upper class. Higgins’ “cast-off” change is a fortune

to Eliza who assumes later that he must have been drunk.

Eliza’s belief that riding in a taxi is the ultimate badge of upper class quality of life.

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Major Conflicts2. Gender Relations/Differences

The relationship between genders “No, no, no, you two infinitely stupid male creatures!”

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Major Conflicts2. Gender Relations/Differences

Gender Differences Neither Col. Pickering nor Henry Higgins have a

clue about the situation they are putting Eliza or themselves into.

Mrs. Pierce recognizes that Higgins is immorally using the power granted him by his patriarchal culture to pressure Eliza, a presser which if she gives in could lead her to a life of wickedness.

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Major Conflicts3. Self-consciousness

Self Perception Eliza’s sense of worth She is infected with the lie.

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Eliza learns that women in the upper classes in fact do not have the independence that women of the lower classes do. They must be connected to a man in some way to be respectable within “middle-class morality.”

Eliza rejects being a “gold-digger” and Higgins rejects female “puppy-dog” tricks.

Only a working skill frees Eliza.

Major Conflicts3. Self-consciousness

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Major Conflicts3. Self-consciousness Eliza has a powerful sense of her value: “I’m a

good girl I am!” Therefore she will never become a “kept woman.”

She has ambition willing to give up two thirds of her daily income to improve herself.

But she is infected with class-prejudice Put the girls in their place just a bit You’re going to allow yourself to marry that low born

woman?

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Major Conflicts4. Social Snobbery

Eliza’s Struggle To work at a flower-shop She is infected by social snobbery herself. Discovers that a rise in culture means a loss of

independence (as does her step-mother). Eventually achieves independence.

Probably the most Important conflict in the play: the class system is Eliza’s primary antagonist

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PYGMALION

Review

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Review Lecture 21

1. George Bernard Shaw

2. The Myth Behind the Play

3. Contextual Background

4. George Bernard Shaw’s Philosophy

5. Plot Overview

6. Characters, Role, Relationship, Conflicts & Significance

7. Themes and the major Conflicts

70

drama ii modern drama lecture 21 1. synopsis 1. a conclusive talk 2. george bernard shaw 3. the myth...

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