Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    A Study Guide for George Bernard Shaw's "Pygmalion"
    A Study Guide for George Bernard Shaw's "Pygmalion"
    A Study Guide for George Bernard Shaw's "Pygmalion"
    Ebook51 pages41 minutes

    A Study Guide for George Bernard Shaw's "Pygmalion"

    By Gale and Cengage

    ()

    Read preview

    About this ebook

    A Study Guide for George Bernard Shaw's "Pygmalion," excerpted from Gale's acclaimed Drama for Students.This concise study guide includes plot summary; character analysis; author biography; study questions; historical context; suggestions for further reading; and much more. For any literature project, trust Drama for Students for all of your research needs.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherCengage Learning - Gale
    Release dateSep 8, 2015
    ISBN9781535831680
    A Study Guide for George Bernard Shaw's "Pygmalion"

    Read more from Gale

    Related to A Study Guide for George Bernard Shaw's "Pygmalion"

    Related ebooks

    Literary Criticism For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • Article

      Teaching Shakespeare

      Jun 16, 2021

      Teaching Shakespeare
      3 min read

    • Article

      Reviews

      Jan 25, 2024

      Reviews
      6 min read

    • Article

      Shakespeare Through The Ages

      Apr 15, 2021

      In 1623, the playwright and poet Ben Jonson wrote that his friend Shakespeare “was not of an age, but for all time”. But Jonson could scarcely have imagined the impact and influence Shakespeare would have on four centuries of thinkers, writers, compo

      4 min read

    • Article

      History’s 20 Greatest Hoaxes

      Aug 13, 2020

      History’s 20 Greatest Hoaxes
      9 min read

    • Article

      INTERNATIONAL BOOKS / The Best Of The Month

      Jul 14, 2019

      This is not a tale for the squeamish. Revelations about a disturbing, stomach-turning, father-daughter relationship are preceded by a gory plane crash and followed by bloody dagger fights, an especially chilling near-drowning and a wonderfully weird

      5 min read

    • Article

      The Art of Fiction No. 250

      Dec 7, 2021

      The Art of Fiction No. 250
      31 min read

    • Article

      Fanfic: Friend Or Foe?

      Oct 23, 2020

      Sherlock Holmes has had so many incarnations over the years that it’s hard to keep track. In BBC’s Sherlock, he’s a ‘high-functioning sociopath’. In Elementary, he’s an ex-addict living in New York, with Watson reimagined as his sober female companio

      7 min read

    • Article

      “Work Is The Nice Life”

      Apr 30, 2021

      “Work Is The Nice Life”
      9 min read

    • Article

      Worst-Case Scenario

      Apr 10, 2017

      Worst-Case Scenario
      6 min read

    • Article

      Acclaim and Alcoholism

      Feb 25, 2019

      A PLAYER AND A GENTLEMAN: THE DIARY OF HARRY WATKINS, NINETEENTH-CENTURY U.S. AMERICAN ACTOR Edited by Amy E. Hughes and Naomi J. Stubbs. University of Michigan Press, Ann Arbor, Mich., 2018. 352 pp., $80 cloth, $64.95 ebook. PLAYING TO THE GODS: SAR

      7 min read

    • Article

      The Old Un's Notes

      Feb 8, 2023

      The Old Un's Notes
      4 min read

    • Article

      Love And Dedication Can Conquer All

      Mar 18, 2020

      CRITICS are often snooty about amateur theatre. Kenneth Tynan described it as ‘an exhibitionist alternative to bridge’ and James Agate, in his heyday at The Sunday Times, used to say that the difference between amateur and professional actors was tha

      4 min read

    • Article

      The Novels Behind This Year’s Best Adapted Screenplay Oscar Noms

      Mar 9, 2023

      At Sunday’s Oscars show, five scripts will be up for Best Adapted Screenplay. Two of them are derivative dogs that have no business being anywhere near the Dolby Theater—Top Gun: Maverick and Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery, both considered “adapte

      8 min read

    • Article

      Books

      Oct 17, 2022

      Books
      6 min read

    • Article

      Tuesday New Release Day: Starring Scott, Bucak, Zeh, Steinberg, and More

      Aug 20, 2019

      An intriguing near-future dystopian thriller, two innovative short story collections, and a remarkable portrait of Britain at its Brexit inflection point. The post Tuesday New Release Day: Starring Scott, Bucak, Zeh, Steinberg, and More appeared firs

      5 min read

    • Article

      Homer’s odyssey

      Mar 15, 2024

      Homer’s odyssey
      6 min read

    • Article

      TV, FILM & RADIO

      Mar 16, 2023

      TV, FILM & RADIO
      5 min read

    Related categories

    Reviews for A Study Guide for George Bernard Shaw's "Pygmalion"

    0 ratings

    0 ratings0 reviews

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

      Book preview

      A Study Guide for George Bernard Shaw's "Pygmalion" - Gale

      3

      Pygmalion

      George Bernard Shaw

      1914

      Introduction

      Pygmalion is a comedy about a phonetics expert who, as a kind of social experiment, attempts to make a lady out of an uneducated Cockney flower-girl. Although not as intellectually complex as some of the other plays in Shaw’s theatre of ideas, Pygmalion nevertheless probes important questions about social class, human behavior, and relations between the sexes.

      Hoping to circumvent what he felt was the tendency of the London press to criticize his plays unfairly, Shaw chose to produce a German translation of Pygmalion in Vienna and Berlin before bringing the play to London. The London critics appreciated the acclaim the play had received overseas, and, after it opened at His Majesty’s Theatre on April 11, 1914, it enjoyed success, firmly establishing Shaw’s reputation as a popular playwright.

      Accompanying his subterfuge with the London press, Shaw also plotted to trick his audience out of any prejudicial views they held about the play’s content. This he did by assuming their familiarity with the myth of Pygmalion, from the Greek playwright Ovid’s Metamorphoses, encouraging them to think that Pygmalion was a classical play. He furthered the ruse by directing the play anonymously and casting a leading actress who had never before appeared in a working-class role. In Ovid’s tale, Pygmalion is a man disgusted with real-life women who chooses celibacy and the pursuit of an ideal woman, whom he carves out of ivory. Wishing the statue were real, he makes a sacrifice to Venus, the goddess of love, who brings the statue to life. By the late Renaissance, poets and dramatists began to contemplate the thoughts and feelings of this woman, who woke full-grown in the arms of a lover. Shaw’s central character—the flower girl Liza Doolittle—expresses articulately how her transformation has made her feel, and he adds the additional twist that Liza turns on her creator in the end by leaving him.

      In addition to the importance of the original Pygmalion myth to Shaw’s play, critics have pointed out the possible influence of other works, such as Tobias Smollett’s novel The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle (which similarly involves a gentleman attempting to make a fine lady out of a coarse working girl), and a number of plays, including W.S. Gilbert’s Pygmalion and Galatea and Henrik Ibsen’s A Doll House. Shaw denied borrowing the story directly from any of these sources, but there are traces of them in his play, as there are of the well-known story of Cinderella, and shades of the famous stories of other somewhat vain creators whose experiments have unforeseen implications: Faust, Dr. Frankenstein, Svengali.

      The play was viewed (thankfully, by many critics) as one of Shaw’s less provocative comedies. Nevertheless, Pygmalion did provoke controversy upon its original production. Somewhat ironically, the cause was an issue of language, around which the plot itself turns: Liza’s use of the word bloody, never before uttered on the stage at His Majesty’s Theatre. Even though they were well aware of the controversy from its coverage in the press, the first audiences gasped in surprise, then burst into laughter, at Liza’s spirited rejoinder: "Not bloody

      Enjoying the preview?
      Page 1 of 1