GEORGE BERNARD SHAW
Pygmalion
George Bernard Shaw
• Playwright, essayist, novelist and political activist
• Born on 26 July 1856, Dublin
• He was from a poor, protestant family,
his father was an unsuccessful grain merchant,
mother was a professional singer, he had two sisters
• He had to care about himself since he was 15, he worked as a clerk in estate office
• In 1873 his mother moved to London, he followed her in 1876 and he never came back
• He wrote articles about music to The Hornet magazine
• He educated himself in publics libraries and in the British Museum
reading room
• He became a promoter of Henrick Ibsen
• He attened a political lectures, which leaded him to reformative socialism, in 1884 he founded the Fabian Society which spread a fabian socialism – its members refused violence, ideas by Karl Marx and prepared defeat of capitalism using parliamentary way
• In this age he broke through as a critic of the arts, he wrote reviews to The World magazine and The Star magazine which came out in Ireland
• In 1898 he married Charlotte Payne-Townsend, they were together until she died and they didn‘t have childer
• He died in 1950 in a small village Ayot St. Lawrence in age
of 94 at home. Today his house is called Shaw‘s Corner
• Shaw's Corner is a National Trust property open to the public
• The Malvern Theatre Festival has been organized since 1929 in his honour
• Adjective ‘‘Shavian“ in English = “My way of joking is to tell the truth.“
• The Shaw Festival in Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ontario,
Canada - an annual theatre festival with over 800
performances a year, dedicated to producing the
works of Shaw and his contemporaries
His work:
• At the beginning he wrote five novels, which weren‘t very succesful
• He was more succesful in writing plays where he could put his irony and capability of criticism into effect, he
became a founder of modern English drama and he is the most significant dramatist after William Shakespeare
• In 1925 he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature
• His plays – comical, historical, socially critical plays from the present and the past, some of them were banned
• He wrote about 70 plays
– Mrs. Warren's Profession, Caesar and Cleopatra, Saint Joan,
Major Barbara, Pygmalion etc.
PYGMALION
• It is named after a Greek mythological character Pygmalion, who fell in love with one of his sculptures which then came to life
• It was first presented on stage to the public in Vienna in 1912
• Comedy, satire, social critism
• Praface, 5 acts and epilogue which tells us about fate of some characters
• The story is told in chronological order
• Shaw wanted to point out the differences between social classes
• He also points out that a person of the lower class can equal with people of the higher class
• author criticizes the bad traits of people, social conventions and prejudices using irony
• The setting begins in Covent Garden, London in the early 20th
century
• Main characters:
– Eliza Doolittle: Cockney flower-seller, lower class girl transformed into a higher class woman
– Henry Higgins: A professor of phonetics. He is an impatient man who is dismissive of the traditions of high society.
– Colonel Pickering: friend of Higgins and an equal
to Higgins in a passion for language
Plot summary:
• Henry Higgins and Colonel Pickering meet on a rainy night in Covent Garden. Both are expert linguists, and immediately develop a friendship. They are confronted by Eliza, a lower class young flower girl with a detestable accent. In jest, Higgins bets Pickering that he could transform this flower girl into a well spoken woman, one that could be passed off as a duchess. The next morning, Eliza surprises Higgins and Pickering by showing up in Higgins laboratory. She offers a shilling for speech
lessons, but is not turned down by the two men. Pickering tells Higgins that he will cover the cost of the speech lessons if Higgins can in fact transform Eliza into a
likeness of a duchess, and pass her off as so at a high society party. Higgins accepts, and asks Eliza to bathe. While Eliza is bathing, her father appears, asking for money in exchange for his daughter. Higgins obliges, and Mr. Doolittle leaves. Lessons
begin, and Eliza shows a keenness for language. She quickly improves, and is placed in situations in which she can test her new learning. When the party arrives, Eliza is ready, and performs perfectly. Higgins has won his bet, but shows no appreciation for Eliza after the party. In frustration, Eliza throws a pair of slippers at Henry,
confronts him about his lack of heart, and leaves the house. The next morning, Pickering and Higgins visit Mrs. Higgins apartment, in a frantic search for Eliza. She is in the apartment, and thanks Pickering for always treating her like a lady, but
threatens Higgins that she will go work with his rival phonetician, Nepommuck. This makes Higgins angry, but he cannot help but to respect her. Eliza announces her plans to marry Freddy, and by doing so, finalized her independence from Higgins.
