George Bernard Shaw was an Irish playwright born in 1856 who became a prominent socialist figure. After being exposed to irregular schooling and poverty in his youth, he moved to London in 1876 and joined the Fabian Society, a socialist organization. He wrote over 60 plays that addressed political and social issues through witty dialogue. His most famous play, Pygmalion (1912), tells the story of Eliza Doolittle, a Cockney flower girl who is taught to speak like an upper-class woman in a bet between Professor Henry Higgins and Colonel Pickering. The play examines the rigid class divisions in Victorian society and whether a person's identity can truly be changed by their speech and manners.

1. George Bernard Shaw
(1856-1950)
• he was born in Dublin
•His father’s alcoholism and his family’s
poverty were great source of frustration to
him
•His schooling was irregular, he cultivated
music , visited art galleries and theatres,
spent most of his time reading literature
•In 1876 he joined his mother in London and
never went back to Ireland for many years
• After reading Marx’s “Das Kapital” and
accepting socialist ideas, in 1884 he joined
the FABIAN SOCIETY : a socialist organisation
which advocated the gradual introduction of
social reforms instead of drastic immediate
revolutionary measures .
•In 1925: he was awarded the Nobel Prize for
Literature
•He became a music critic
and theatre critic he
supported the introduction
of Ibsen into England : a
new dramawhere the
dramatist was both ethical
philosopher and social
reformer

2. Shaw: The Freethinker
• Playwright, literary critic , a socialist
spokesman and a leading figure in the 20 th
century theatre
• He was a defender of women’s rights and
advocated equality of income
• He supported abolition of private property,
radical change in the voting system,
campaigned for the simplification of spelling
and the reform of the English alphabet

3. The influence of Ibsen
Henrik Ibsen: a Norwegian playwright (1828-1906)
exposed the hypocrisy and corruption of the middle class +
art: seen as an instrument of moral propaganda = anti
romantic theatre
Shaw shared Ibsen’s idea about the stage as a powerful
force for awakening people’s social conscience
THEATRE OF IDEAS: Shaw wanted to force his audience to
face the reality of unpleasant events
“SHAVIAN” DRAMA: (refers to “Shaw”) type of
politically and socially committed drama also known
as “discussion plays” made popular by him and
others.

4. Shaw’s plays…
Shaw wrote more than sixty plays, which were grouped into
small collections. In 1898 he wrote two volumes of plays:
Plays Pleasant
• “Arms and the
Man” 1894 –
parody of
military heroism
•“You Never Can
Tell” 1897 – on
the authority of
parents
•…
PlaysUnpleasant
• “Widowers’ Houses”
1892- on the problem
of slums
• “Mrs Warren’s
Profession” 1893 –
on the economic
basis of modern
prostitution
•…

5. Features of Shaw’s plays
• The purpose was not so much to make people laugh but
to make them realize the hypocrisy and absurdity of
some prejudices and attitudes
• Debate is one main feature “discussion plays” – this
gives mental and intellectual action
• Conflict of passions is deliberatly replaced by conflict of
thoughts and ideas
• Dialogues are vigorous and brilliant, rich in wit,
paradoxes, nonsense, puns
• Problems are often faced from various viewpoints:
dialectic of confrontation technique
• Characters: not always lifelike

6. Pygmalion – a play by G.B. Shaw written in 1912
and first staged in English in 1914
1938 – the non-musical film
version ; directed by A. Asquith
and L. Howard .
Very sophisticated version of
Shaw’s play
1964 –directed by George Cukor. It’s a
musical adaptation . It was a big hit and
won 3 oscars
Shaw’s play was the basis but both the
film , the musical and the play have
different endings.

7. Pygmalion (1912) a play in 5 Acts
Plot overview
(Act 1) Covent Garden – London – rainy evening. Professor Higgins, a
professor of phonetics, is taking notes about the dialect spoken in
that area and tries to guess where everyone is from based on their
manner of speech. Here he meets a poor flower girl, Eliza Doolittle.
Higgins bets his friend Pickering that he could teach the girl to
speak so well in just three months that she could pass for a noble
lady.
(Act 2) Higgins’s Laboratory: Pickering steps in and bets Higgins that he
can't teach Eliza to speak so well that she passes as a wealthy lady
at an ambassador's garden party in six months. He offers to pay for
her lessons. Higgins likes the idea and tells his housekeeper Mrs.
Pearce to wash Eliza and dress her in new clothes. He will teach her
to speak standard English so that no one will be able to tell her
from a member of the upper class.

8. Pygmalion - Plot overview
(Act 3) A few months later at Higgins’s mother’s house. Liza is ready for
her first appearance in society: invitation for a tea. People don’t
recognize her as the flower girl. Everybody starts making small talk
about the weather and Eliza makes her clumsy comments. Higgins’s
mother cautions her son about treating Eliza like a "live doll," but
Pickering assures her that they take Eliza seriously. Higgins refers to
Eliza as merely an experiment. Mrs. Higgins worries about what will
happen to Eliza when the "experiment" is over.
(Act 4) several months later. Higgins has won his bet. He has taken Liza
to an Embassy bull in London where she mingled with the upper
classes and everybody thought she was a foreign princess. The
moment of Higgins’s triumph is also the moment of Liza’s self
awareness : she realizes that Higgins is only interested in his own
success and has no consideration for her as a human being, she
leaves his house.

9. Pygmalion - Plot overview
(Act 5) Next day – Mrs Higgins’s house. Mrs. Higgins scolds
Higgins and Pickering for how they have treated Eliza and
reveals that Eliza is there. Pickering is nice to Eliza, but
Higgins is angry and rude to her, ordering her to come back to
his house. Eliza thanks Pickering for teaching her good
manners but she says to Higgins that she is a slave, despite
her expensive clothes. She then says that if she can't have
kindness from him, she will have her independence. She tells
Higgins that she will become a teacher of phonetics, stealing
everything she has learned from him in order to take his
clients. Higgins is suddenly impressed by Eliza's strength and
confidence. Eliza shows she has a will of her own.
OPEN ENDING: we don’t know if E. marries Freddy or she goes to
live with Higgins.

10. The title allusion …
Ovid’s Metamorphoses myth of Pygmalion
Pygmalion : name of a mythological figure, a
sculptor who scorns all the women around
him and creates the statue of his ideal
woman. He fells in love with this beautiful
ivory woman he calls Galatea (white like milk).
Aphrodite, the goddess of love, gave life to the
inanimate creation. Galatea awakens so that
the artist can marry and be happy with his
own creation .

11. Theme 1 : femininity and role of women in
society
• Pygmalion's perfect woman can only be attained
with an artificial creation, a sculpture.
Similarly, the ideal noble lady of upper society of
Shaw's play is a kind of fake, only a role that Eliza
must learn to play. (only appearance)
Pygmalion also shows how oppressive unrealistic
ideals of femininity can be: to attain these ideals,
Eliza has to be coached, disciplined, and taught.
She has to pretend to be someone other than
who she really is.

12. Theme 2: change – appearance and reality
• Criticism of Victorian middle class morality
and rigid artificiality of class division the
ability to speak good English and to learn good
manners are elements of both social
discrimination and social promotion.
• Eliza undergoes a physical and external
transformation throughout the play BUT has
she really changed her natural identity? Or
can’t she escape the reality she was born in?

13. SOME LINGUISTICS…
• ACCENT: a method of pronouncing words common to
a group of people (inhabitants of a locality or
members of a social class). It can also refer to stress on
certain syllables (intonation)
• Local accents (pronounciation) are part of local
dialects. Any dialect of English has unique features in
pronunciation, vocabulary and grammar
• COCKNEY: English spoken by working class people
living in London
• Audiences were shocked when they heard Liza’s coarse
use of swear words. Besides we have humor when Liza
has the ability to speak well but can’t choose the right
conversation acceptable to polite society

14. MAIN CHARACTERS – brief analysis
LIZA MR. HIGGINS COL.
PICKERING
MRS. PEARCE FREDDY HILL
-PROTAGONIST
-- poor, she
wishes to be
rich and happy
-She is brought
into a
completely
foreign
environment
and persuaded
to change her
personal
characteristics
-She is able to
stay true to
herself
-ANTAGONIST
- he tries to
teach Eliza the
proper ways of
society (prof.
Of phonetics)
-He tries to
change Eliza’s
personality
-His actions
show that no
one can change
another’s
character
- self-centred ,
pays no
attention to
feelings
-Another
rsearcher of
phonetics
- friend to
Higgins
-Tries to get
Eliza and
Higgins
understand
each other
-Higgins’s
Housekeeper
-Motherly
figure to Eliza
-She tries to
reason with
Higgins
-Ideal image of
a man to Eliza
-Gives hope to
Eliza

15. LITERARY ARCHETYPES
• Relationship between the artist (creator) and
his creature - fable of Pinocchio
- story of “Pretty Woman”
- story of “Frankenstein”
• Transformation - fairy tale of Cinderella
- fable of Pinocchio

16. PYGMALION : ART & LITERATURE
Pygmalion and Galatea,
Goya, 1812 Pygmalion and Galatea series, E.
Burne-Jones, 1868-70; 1875-78

17. PYGMALION : ART & LITERATURE
Pygmalion and Galatea, Jean-
Léon Gerome, 1890
Pygmalion and Galatea,
Auguste Rodin, 1908