DRAMA IIMODERN DRAMALecture 271

SYNOPSIS

1. Plot Type and Analysis: Development and Structure

Suspense Denouement Conclusion

1. Literary Devices in Pygmalion2. Settings3. Pygmalion Genre 4. Tone5. Writing Style6. Title, Beginning and Ending 2

PYGMALION PLOT ANALYSISSUSPENSE

• Higgins shows up at his mother's house the next day looking for Eliza. She seems to have left in the middle of the night, and Higgins can't handle his daily affairs without her. He desperately wants to get her back, and even thinks about calling the police in to help search.

• The old runaway plot. A classic. Eliza is lost, then found. It's a perfect way to build suspense and get us ready for the play's conclusion, but first…

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PYGMALION PLOT ANALYSISSUSPENSE

Time- Scene Presentation

2:32:13 – 2:43:14 “Higgins at his Mothers’ place” That last chat between Eliza and Higgins

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PYGMALION PLOT ANALYSISDENOUEMENT

• It turns out that Eliza has been at Mrs. Higgins's apartment the whole time. She acts calm and collected, and gives Pickering most of the credit for her transformation, thus infuriating Higgins. When Eliza, surprised by the appearance of her father, howls as she used to before she was trained, Higgins declares victory. The two proceed to have a long argument.

• This isn't really a denouement in the usual sense. You could lump the events listed about with Eliza and Higgins's final argument, but the two episodes are really distinct episodes. Still, a lot of the plot is tied together: Doolittle is reintroduced, Eliza is brought back into the picture, she goes on to explain how she feels, we see that her transformation isn't quite complete, and we're ready for the conclusive fight.

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PYGMALION PLOT ANALYSISDENOUEMENT

Time- Scene Presentation

2:43:14 – 2:51:35 “my own spark of divine fire “ Henry’s full of conceit realization

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PYGMALION PLOT ANALYSISCONCLUSION

• The argument, which focuses on Eliza's future, ends after Eliza threatens to sell Higgins's trade secrets to support herself. Higgins nearly strangles her, before deciding that Eliza has finally established herself as his equal. He invites her come back and live with him and Pickering again. Eliza declines and says goodbye for the last time. Higgins feels confident she'll come back anyway.

• There isn't really anything about the conclusion that's conclusive, but we do get to see Higgins and Eliza talk about the many ways the play could have ended more conventionally: marriage, a total reconciliation and return to Higgins, a return to her father. Instead, we're left in the lurch. We don't know what's going to happen to her. She declares her independence from Higgins, but we don't know if it'll last. Though Shaw tells us what happens in his "sequel," well…go read "What's Up with the Ending?" to get the final verdict on that.

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PLOT TYPE

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PLOT TYPE

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PLOT TYPE : INITIAL WRETCHEDNESS AT HOME AND THE 'CALL'• Eliza Doolittle has been standing on the

corner selling flowers for who knows how long. She's uneducated, dirty, and, to top it all off, has an incredibly thick accent. Oh, and she's also extremely paranoid. Luckily, she has a chance encounter with Henry Higgins, a gifted phonetician and speech teacher. She shows up at his house the day after meeting him and demands lessons.

• This is a classic example of the scenario. Eliza is almost literally dressed in rags. She runs into a man who mentions, pretty much out of nowhere, that he could turn her into a duchess, and she has a pretty good idea of how talented a man he is. How could she pass up the opportunity? Well, as we find out, she couldn't. Her journey begins almost immediately thereafter. 10

OUT INTO THE WORLD, INITIAL SUCCESS

• At Higgins's place, Eliza is given a nice bath and fresh clothes. One might say she cleans up well. After a couple months of teaching, she is able to mingle at a party given by Mrs. Higgins, and though her speech and manners aren't perfect, she's got enough going for her to catch the eye of Freddy.

• Having already been welcome into a place the likes of which she's never seen (Higgins's apartment), in Act 3 she's brought out into the world in the coming of age, debutante sort of way. She makes her debut on the "at-home" circuit, and though her performance isn't perfect, it certainly qualifies as a success.

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THE CENTRAL CRISIS

• A few more months pass, and Eliza is able to "pass" as a duchess. Henry Higgins wins the bet, but he doesn't give any credit to Eliza. She doesn't know what to do with herself, and takes her anger out on Higgins by throwing his slipper at him.

• Shaw pulls a little switcheroo here. What we expect to be the triumphant conclusion to the play, Eliza's success as a duchess, turns out to be little more than the beginning of the play's major conflict. When the bet is over, the real drama begins.

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INDEPENDENCE AND THE FINAL ORDEAL• After her argument, Eliza realizes that she's her

own women. She refuses to take Higgins's breakfast order, and leaves to stay at Mrs. Higgins's house later that night. When Higgins shows up there the next day, Eliza is calm, cool, and collected. She can't keep up the act, though, and she is soon arguing with Higgins about his treatment of her, her future marriage prospects, and potential occupations. Eliza threatens to marry Freddy – a prospect Higgins is none too happy about, and, perhaps go into competition with Higgins in the speech training business. Higgins gets angry, nearly strangles Eliza, and proceeds to tell her she's now become his equal.

• In the course of their argument, Eliza actually uses the word independent more than once, and though we can't be sure she'll find a way to make it on her own, it's certainly on her mind. And well, the end is truly an ordeal: Eliza nearly gets strangled, after all, but she stands her ground anyway.

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FINAL UNION, COMPLETION, AND FULFILLMENT

• Eliza says goodbye to Higgins for what she seems to think will be the last time. Higgins thinks otherwise, and tells Eliza to pick up some groceries as she's walking out the door.

• This is where it gets tricky. The fifth act concludes, well, inconclusively. The thing is, Shaw wrote a "Sequel to Pygmalion" in which we find out that she does in fact marry Freddy and the two more or less live happily ever after. You can read a more in-depth discussion of the ending in the "What's Up with the Ending?" section, but here's the bottom line: ignore the sequel and make of the ending what you will.

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LITERARY DEVICES IN PYGMALION

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LITERARY DEVICES IN PYGMALION

Pygmalion Symbolism, Imagery & Allegory

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PYGMALION SYMBOLISM, IMAGERY & ALLEGORY

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THE LOOKING-GLASS

The looking-glass is only mentioned once, toward the very end of Act 2. It is involved in what seems to be a very minor incident. Eliza, it seems, has never looked at herself in a mirror, and she doesn't want to start making a habit of it:

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THE LOOKING-GLASS• LIZA. I tell you, it's easy to clean up here […] Now

I know why ladies is so clean. Washing's a treat for them. Wish they saw what it is for the like of me!HIGGINS. I'm glad the bath-room met with your approval.

LIZA. It didn't: not all of it; and I don't care who hears me say it. Mrs. Pearce knows.HIGGINS. What was wrong, Mrs. Pearce?MRS. PEARCE [blandly] Oh, nothing, sir. It doesn't matter.LIZA. I had a good mind to break it. I didn't know which way to look. But I hung a towel over it, I did.HIGGINS. Over what?MRS. PEARCE. Over the looking-glass, sir. (2.303-310)

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THE LOOKING-GLASS• Given that Pygmalion is itself named after a

character from Greek myth, it only seems right to bring up another mythological Greek figure: Narcissus.

• There's a whole back-story to the thing, but here's all you need to know: Narcissus was a really hot young man. So hot that every girl in town loved him.

• But Narcissus was vain, and preferred to keep to himself. One day, a god decided to teach the boy a lesson, and led him to a pool of water. When Narcissus saw his own reflection there he fell instantly in love…with himself. Eventually he realized his love could never be, and basically killed himself.

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THE LOOKING-GLASS• Eliza's own fear of mirrors seems to spring from

some fear of vanity. She certainly doesn't want to end up like Narcissus; but it's not clear where her fear comes from.

• Her father doesn't seem like the type to teach her those kind of life lessons, and we know she never got much help from her mom.

• Still, she's very protective of her own identity. Whenever anyone questions her motives – like at the beginning of the play, when she's afraid she's going to be arrested – she always pleads, "I'm a good girl!" Wherever her sense of right and wrong came from, it's clear she has one, and she doesn't want to end up like that vain Greek guy.

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THE LOOKING-GLASS

It helps to begin with the looking-glass not only because it's a single incident that raises all sorts of questions. From here we can talk about another related issue: clothing.

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CLOTHING

You know how they say "The clothes make the man"? Well, in Pygmalion it holds true…for the most part. The most striking example of this takes place just before the discussion of the mirror.

Doolittle is about to leave Higgins's house when "he is confronted with a dainty and exquisitely clean young Japanese lady in a simple blue cotton kimono":

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CLOTHING• DOOLITTLE: Beg pardon, miss.

THE JAPANESE LADY: Garn! Don't you recognize your own daughter?DOOLITTLE {exclaiming Bly me! it's Eliza!HIGGINS {simul- What's that! This!PICKERING {taneously By Jove! (2.289-293)

When Eliza is shown to the bath by Mrs. Pearce, she's nothing more than a poor young woman trying (and failing) to look presentable. When she comes back out, she's been so completely transformed that even her father can't recognize her. Shaw lets us know how drastic the change is within the text by referring to Eliza as "The Japanese Lady." Even we're supposed to be fooled, if only until Eliza opens her mouth.

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CLOTHING

• Here we can see how powerful appearance is – sometimes that suit you're wearing really can make you look like a million bucks – but Shaw also lets us know how flimsy the illusion really is. Sure, sometimes clothes can help give an accurate impression of someone – the bystander in Act 1 can tell that Higgins isn't a cop just by looking at his expensive shoes – but they can just as easily give a false one. Admit it, that whole "Japanese Lady" bit did trick you, right?

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CLOTHING

• Using clothes, Shaw can make a point about appearances and about social class. Pygmalion is more about language than it is about clothes; after all, Henry Higgins isn't a tailor, he's a specialist in speech.

• Still, Eliza is left in pickle at the end of the play because she can't get by simply by speaking like a rich person.

• She needs to clean herself like one, to dress like one, to spend money like one. Sure, she could marry a rich guy, but she doesn't want to; her sense of "goodness," which we see on display in the mirror scene, prevents her from doing that.

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CLOTHING

In the end, Shaw leaves us in a pickle, too. Appearance is important he tells us again and again.

After all, Eliza can bypass any number of social barriers just by getting all gussied up.

The problem is, she, Pickering, and Higgins spend so much time getting ready to crash the party that they don't know what to do when they get there. What can you do when you're all dressed up with nowhere to go

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SETTINGS28

LONDON, ENGLAND IN THE EARLY 20TH CENTURY• Pygmalion takes place in London, England in the

early twentieth century. At this point, the city was the capital of the largest empire in the world.

• That said, we only get a very small glimpse of it. All of the play's action is confined to three places, each located in the very fashionable center of town: Covent Garden, the laboratory of Henry Higgins's apartment on 10 Wimpole Street, and the "drawing room" (think living room) of Mrs. Higgins's apartment on Chelsea embankment.

• You don't need to know exactly where these places are. Just know that they're ritzy, about as far away from the poor parts of London you could get. 29

LONDON, ENGLAND IN THE EARLY 20TH CENTURY• The easiest way to understand the setting of the

play is to look at who shows up where, and how they're treated. This sounds pretty easy, right? Well, that's because it is. Covent Garden was a large market on London's West End.

• The West End was home to many of London's theaters, and it brought together a very diverse crowd of people.

• Everyone from the rich (like Colonel Pickering), the middle class (the Eynsford-Hills, for instance), to the poorest of the poor – who, like Eliza, were probably trying to make some money off the richer among them.

• This is the only place we see a bunch of people with (pay attention to this) a bunch of accents mingling freely. 30

LONDON, ENGLAND IN THE EARLY 20TH CENTURY

• The rest of the action is confined to a lab and a living room, and in both cases the appearance of anyone "lower class" is met with surprise.

• In the second act, Eliza and her father can't simply walk into Higgins's place: they have to be screened by Mrs. Pearce before they can so much as get through the door.

• Heck, the whole play is about going undercover, about getting your name on the guest list, as it were.

• Eliza can only get into Mrs. Higgins's by pretending to be a lady; and Higgins can only win his bet by passing her off as a duchess at fancy parties.

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LONDON, ENGLAND IN THE EARLY 20TH CENTURY• Is Shaw trying to tell us that all of these high

society types are full of it? That their ideas about class and sophistication are one big joke? Well, it's hard to say.

• He does tell Pickering that being a "lady's maid or shop assistant […] requires better English" than being a duchess; and the conversation at Mrs. Higgins's little soirée isn't exactly stimulating (1.121).

• Not until Eliza starts going off about her dead aunt, anyway. Still, there are plenty of indications that both Higgins and his mother aren't your average, idle rich. Everything from the scientific instruments in Higgins's lab to the art in Mrs.

• Higgins's drawing room speaks to their uncommon intelligence. Once again, it's hard to say exactly what this all means, but we can be sure that these aren't your typical people in typical places.

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REVIEW

1. Plot Type and Analysis: Development and Structure

Suspense Denouement Conclusion

1. Literary Devices in Pygmalion2. Settings3. Pygmalion Genre 4. Tone5. Writing Style6. Title, Beginning and Ending 33

AGENDA LECTURE 28

1. Pygmalion Genre 2. Tone3. Writing Style4. Title, Beginning and EndingCharacters Mr. Alfred Doolittle Colonel Pickering Mrs. Higgins Mrs. Pearce Mrs. and Miss Eynsford Hill Freddy

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