Pygmalion Questions and Answers
Pygmalion
Discuss the transformation of Eliza in Pygmalion.
The most famous part of George Bernard Shaw's Pygmalion is Eliza Doolittle's transformation from a Cockney flower girl to someone who can pass for royalty. The shift astonishes everyone who knew...
Pygmalion
What is the significance of the title of Shaw's Pygmalion?
Shaw took the title of his play from an ancient Greek legend. According to this legend, Pygmalion was a sculptor who disliked women and did not see any reason to ever get married. Nevertheless,...
Pygmalion
How is Pygmalion a romantic play?
The play Pygmalion, by George Bernard Shaw, belongs to the genre of Romanticism, which composed most of the mid to end of the 19th century literary scene. The reason why the play falls under the...
Pygmalion
Write a note on Pygmalion as a comedy of manners.
A comedy of manners usually satirizes the behavior of a class of people, typically the nobility or other upper classes. This sort of comedy tends to be set in contemporary times. Dialogue tends to...
Pygmalion
Does Eliza improve her self-confidence in Pygmalion?
Yes, Eliza does markedly improve her self-confidence. This comes about as she learns the speech and manners of a lady. Her confidence increases as she gains the acceptance and approval of...
Pygmalion
When Higgins said the following quote in Pygmalion, what did he mean with these words? I know he is a misogynist, but...
Henry Higgins isn't quite the misogynist we think he is. Neither is George Bernard Shaw, the writer of Pygmalion, even though Higgins seems at times to be speaking with Shaw's voice. Shaw was a...
Pygmalion
"Galatea never does quite like Pygmalion: his relation to her is too godlike to be altogether agreeable." To what...
W. S. Gilbert's 1871 play Pygmalion and Galatea, an Original Mythological Comedy was one of the major inspirations for George Bernard Shaw's play Pygmalion. In Gilbert's play, a sculptor, whose...
Pygmalion
What is Higgins' attitude toward Eliza's feelings in Act IV?
Act IV begins to illustrate a change in Higgins' attitude towards Eliza. When Pickering, Higgins, and Eliza return to the Wimpole Street laboratory after the party, both Higgins and Pickering...
Pygmalion
Explain why Pygmalion is a Shavian play.
The word "Shavian" was coined specifically to refer to the ideas and writings of George Bernard Shaw. As a play written by George Bernard Shaw, Pygmalion obviously falls into this category. First...
Pygmalion
How does Higgins treat Eliza in Pygmalion?
Professor Higgins objectifies Eliza as the main component of his experiment, even bullying her at times. When Eliza takes a taxi and comes to Higgins for speech lessons so that she can "be a lady...
Pygmalion
Discuss the plot of the play in relation to the Pygmalion myth.
In the ancient Greek Pygmalion myth, Pygmalion is a sculptor who falls in love with a statue he carves out of ivory. Pygmalion makes the statue in honor of Aphrodite, the Greek goddess of love. He...
Pygmalion
Pygmalion As A Problem Play
A problem play is one that addresses a social problem but that, more deeply, has a strain of darkness or ambiguity that renders the happy ending (most problem plays are comedies) problematic....
Pygmalion
How does Pygmalion’s attitude towards women change over the course of the text? Cite evidence from the text in your...
Henry Higgins is the Pygmalion figure in this play. Just as Pygmalion sculpts a female figure so beautiful that it turns into a real woman, so Higgins turns flower seller Eliza Doolittle into a...
Pygmalion
How is the quote about Galatea and Pygmalion found in the Sequel of Pygmalion relate to the events discussed in the...
Shaw's Pygmalion is based on the tale of "Pygmalion" the sculptor in Ovid's (Roman poet) Metamorphoses, which is fifteen tales written in Latin in heroic hexameter. In Ovid's "Pygmalion," the...
Pygmalion
What is the character analysis of Mrs. Pearce from Pygmalion? What is the role she plays? (in detail)
Mrs. Pearce provides a way into the drama and its characters for the audience. She gives us a little glimpse beneath the surface of other characters in the play, especially Henry Higgins. It is...
Pygmalion
What is the role of Mrs. Pearce in Pygmalion, particularly in Act II?
Mrs. Pearce is concerned about the swearing of Higgins when he speaks and his table manners when he eats because they now have an impressionable young "lady" living with them. She also...
Pygmalion
What happens during the Ambassador's garden party in Pygmalion?
Though the ambassador's garden party is not actually staged, it plays a significant role in Shaw's play Pygmalion. During the garden party, which takes place months after the start of Eliza's...
Pygmalion
What are some conflicts in the play?
Pygmalion explores class conflicts: conflicts between an ideology that believes class attributes are in-born (nature) versus Higgins's belief that he can teach class to Eliza (nurture) and pass her...
Pygmalion
Describe the relationship between Mrs. Higgins and her son in Pygmalion.
In the Shavian play Pygmalion, the relationship between the characters of Mrs. Higgins and her son, Higgins, is perhaps one of the most comedic in literature. We come to learn about the...
Pygmalion
What is the relationship between Mr. Higgins and his mother ?
Henry Higgins is an only child whose only living parent is his mother, Mrs. Higgins. He is also an eternal bachelor who will not change his single, arrogant ways. He is highly educated and treats...
Pygmalion
What is the difference between the written play and the film version of Pygmalion?
The major difference between the play Pygmalion and the musical film (dubbed My Fair Lady) that it was later made into is also one of the most controversial aspects of its adaptation. This...
Pygmalion
What is middle-class morality in Pygmalion?
In Pygmalion, middle-class morality is the expectation of proper behavior for those belonging to the middle class. This term is developed into opposition toward the looser moral standards of the...
Pygmalion
Does Shaw denounce social snobbery and class distinction in Pygmalion?
Shaw's Pygmalion satirizes the social snobbery of the late Victorian era by focusing on speech and manners. Professor Higgins, though born well, stands outside the social conventions by his...
Pygmalion
What happened in the bath scene involving Mrs. Pearce and Eliza?
Eliza, coming from a very poor background, is not familiar with a bathtub or a bathroom when Henry Higgins commands Mrs. Pearce to give her a bath. At first, Eliza exclaims with a curse word...
Pygmalion
Compare colonel Pickering and professor Higgins in Pygmalion by G. B. Shaw.
You already have a very thorough discussion of these two characters in Pygmalion. I would simply add a couple of things. Pickeringis, indeed, a rather harmless foil to Higgins, and he is the one...
Pygmalion
What are the words that describe Eliza, and Higgins? character sketch
Eliza and Higgins are characters who share a few things in common, and then drastically turn incompatible when specific events take place and shake the foundation of the scam that originally brings...
Pygmalion
What purpose does the rain shower serve in Pygmalion?
The rain at the start of Act I of Shaw's Pygmalion is a convenient and convincing device that allows the conversations and interactions between Eliza Doolittle and Henry Higgins and other...
Pygmalion
What is the purpose of writing Bernard Shaw play "Pygmalion"?
Shaw was very interested in language and in how accents and vocabulary stigmatize people and separate classes. One of the things he wanted to show in his play was that a person could rise in social...
Pygmalion
What are the main differences in spoken English between the upper and lower class in Pygmalion?
At the beginning of Pygmalion, George Bernard Shaw attempts to give anyone reading the play an idea of Eliza Doolittle's accent. This is her last line before he abandons the attempt: Ow, eez...
Pygmalion
In act 5, what has happened to Alfred Doolittle?
Alfred Doolittle is a man changed by wealth at the end of the story. He returns to reflect how money has hurt his lifestyle since his earlier appearance. He complains that while earlier in life he...
Pygmalion
What are some examples of humor in George Bernard Shaw's Pygmalion?
George Bernard Shaw's Pygmalion contains many examples of humor; the play lampoons the rigid British class system of the Victorian era. Because this play satirizes the types that the characters...
Pygmalion
Why does Higgins agree to educate the flower girl in George Bernard Shaw's Pygmalion?
Henry Higgins, a linguist, happens to overhear Cockney flower seller Eliza Doolittle speaking in lower class dialect at Covent Garden. He brags that: in three months I could pass that girl off as...
Pygmalion
What is the message of Shaw's Pygmalion?
Shaw's socialism is also relevant here. In the figure of Eliza Dolittle, he wants us to see how the working classes are so often cynically exploited by the social elite, as exemplified by the...
Pygmalion
How is stage direction in Pygmalion used to convey the message?
Shaw's stage directions underscore how poverty-stricken Eliza Doolittle is as the play begins. For example, when Henry Higgins gives her a good deal of money for her flowers (while not taking any...
Pygmalion
How does Shaw satirize society in Pygmalion?
Pygmalion by George Bernard Shaw (26 July 1856–2 November 1950) was first staged in 1913. Shaw himself was a lifelong socialist, vegetarian, social critic, and spelling reformer. His quirky and...
Pygmalion
What does "new small talk" mean in Pygmalion?
The "new small talk" is a term Higgins invents in act 3 to explain Eliza's bizarre manner of speaking. In the act, Higgins arranges for Eliza to visit his mother during her time for receiving...
Pygmalion
In G.B. Shaw's play Pygmalion, what does Eliza mean when she says, "I am a good girl"?
Eliza may be a humble Cockney flower-seller, but she still considers herself a thoroughly respectable young lady. Maybe not the lady of the quality that Higgins would have her be—at least not...
Pygmalion
Does Mrs. Higgins approve of Pickering's and Higgins' attitude toward Eliza?
No. "You certainly are a pretty pair of babies, playing with your live doll," Mrs. Higgins quips to her son, Henry, in Act III of Pygmalion. Though Mrs. Higgins is a woman of society and though she...
Pygmalion
What effect does humour have in the play Pygmalion by GB Shaw?
In at least some instances, the humor in Pygmalion is directed against the supercilious Professor Higgins and his social class that are so impressed with appearances and place so much value upon...
Pygmalion
How does Shaw criticize the British class system in his play Pygmalion?
In his play Pygmalion, Shaw criticizes the British class system by depicting situations that show that it is nurture, not nature, that influences the worth of a person. For example, Eliza is...
Pygmalion
What is the Pygmalion myth?
The original Pygmalion myth derives from Ancient Greece. The most famous version is told by the Roman poet Ovid in his Metamorphoses. In Ovid's story, the sculptor Pygmalion creates a statue of...
Pygmalion
In act 1. What is the dramatic importance of the Eynsford- Hill family in this act? discuss
Act I of GB Shaw's Pygmalion serves as the exposition to the different people that will eventually play an important role in the life of Eliza. The Eynsford-Hill family is a respected and...
Pygmalion
In Act II of Pygmalion, when Doolittle says, "I'm undeserving, & I mean to go on being undeserving," why does he...
In Pygmalion, Alfred Doolittle is Eliza's father. With the character and values that truly mirror his compound name containing the words "Do" and "Little," it is no surprise that Doolittle boasts...
Pygmalion
What does Eliza's act of fetching Higgins's slippers symbolize in Pygmalion?
It symbolizes her loyalty and devotion to Prof. Higgins. Higgins has successfully trained Eliza to be a lady of quality in much the same way that you'd train a puppy to fetch your slippers. Despite...
Pygmalion
What are some archetypes/analogies in George Bernard Shaw's play Pygmalion?
An archetype is a pattern or type that occurs over and over again in literature. Shaw's Pygmalion derives from the Galatea story recounted in Ovid's Metamorphoses, and contains similar archetypes....
Pygmalion
What are the social implications of the different modes of English speech in Shaw's Pygmalion?
Speech patterns, or what we normally call accents, are central to class in the Edwardian England of Shaw's play. In other words, whether or not a person is considered middle-class (what in the US...
Pygmalion
What are some movies that have used the Pygmalion and Galatea theme?
Probably the most popular movie with this theme is My Fair Lady, made in 1964. It was directed by George Cukor and starred Rex Harrison and Audrey Hepburn. My Fair Lady won eight Oscars, a real...
Pygmalion
Does Alfred Doolittle's theory about the "undeserving poor" have any merit? Is he just a good speaker, or is he...
While Alfred Doolittle's speech is delivered humorously, and for comic effect, we can certainly identify some good points underlying the humor. Doolittle describes himself as "one of the...
Pygmalion
What is the plot of Pygmalion? Bernard shaw
Pygmalion is a wonderful play about Eliza Doolittle. Eliza is a young educated girl working in the flower district of London, England. On night she runs into Professor Henry Higgins, a noted...
Pygmalion
Provide a short critical analysis to the play "Pygmalion."
The play Pygmalion, by George Bernard Shaw is, like the previous post accurately stated, primarily a social satire that belongs to the genre of Romanticism, and most specifically, to the form of...
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