George bernard shaw pygmalion sparknotes
George bernard shaw pygmalion rozbor!
By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University)
Although it is often conflated in the popular imagination with the much-loved musical it inspired, George Bernard Shaw’s 1912 play Pygmalion is somewhat different from the romantic comedy My Fair Lady.
Let’s take a closer look at Shaw’s play and some of its prominent themes.
George bernard shaw pygmalion sparknotes
Before we offer an analysis of Pygmalion, though, let’s briefly recap the story of the play.
Pygmalion: summary
The ‘plot’ of Shaw’s play is easy enough to summarise.
Henry Higgins, a professor of phonetics, has an almost Sherlockian ability to deduce the hometown or region of anyone based on their accent. He overhears a flower girl named Eliza Doolittle and mocks the common way she talks. The next day, Eliza shows up and asks Higgins to give her elocution lessons so she can learn to talk ‘proper’.
Eliza’s father, Alfred Doolittle, shows up and tries to get some money off Higgins: he shows himself to be boorish and prone to violence – he tries to st