High Society
In Shaw's contemporary early twentieth-century London setting, rigid class distinctions were still observed: although rich young men might be educated for the professions, many still believed themselves superior to those who earned their living in business or "trade." Even in families such as the Eynsford-Hills in Pygmalion, whose inherited wealth had dwindled away, no one thought it necessary to train their children for gainful employment. Instead, they clung to privileges and activities they couldn't really afford, such as attending concerts, the theater, and any "at home" afternoons or formal dinners to which they could get invited. Rich women like Mrs. Higgins dressed in elaborate, expensive clothing and favored an overabundance of household decoration. There was little freedom and ease in social relations, and the upper classes showed little or no interest in considering the economics of life or in facing unpleasant facts. It was against this snobbery and willful ignorance that Shaw directed his satire. He set out to prove that high society, with its arbitrary standards of conduct, could be fooled into thinking Eliza a duchess merely because of her speech and appearance
The Working Class
Pygmalion reflects Shaw's interest as an activist in the welfare of the poor. By 1912, some of the worst exploitative practices of the Industrial Revolution were coming to a close and conditions for the working class had greatly improved, but they still had few advantages. Eliza's slum lodgings, for example, have no heat or hot water. When we first meet her she has never had a complete bath, and has never worn anything to bed other than her underwear. Like many girls of her class and circumstance, she was sent out to earn her own living as soon as she completed her meager nine years of compulsory schooling.
Indeed, although the play remains as witty and entertaining as ever, many of the conditions it describes have changed. World War I had a cataclysmic effect on British culture and the British class system. Partly as a result of the sacrifice of millions of working-class men and women during the war, changes in British life improved the opportunities of the poor. After years of struggle (supported by Shaw, among many others), British women over thirty won the right to vote in 1918, the last year of the war. Ten years later the vote was extended to women over twenty-one. And the new Labour Party (which Shaw helped found in 1900) gave the working class a powerful political voice. Class distinctions remain important in Britain, but these days, a twenty-first-century woman of Eliza's drive and intelligence has fewer obstacles to her success, no matter what her background is. She might still accept the help of a Henry Higgins, and be grateful to him for it, but would a modern Eliza put up with his bullying and condescension and petulance? Not bloody likely
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The great secret, Eliza, is not having bad manners or good manners or any other sort of manners, but having the same manner for all human souls: in short, behaving as if you were in Heaven, where there are no third-class carriages, and one soul is as good as another." It is no small coincidence that the author of Higgins' Universal Alphabet is the same man to blur social distinctions, thereby suggesting that social standing is a matter of nurture, not nature. Examine carefully Higgins' attitude towards his fellow men. Can this be taken as an admirable brand of socialism? Or does he fail as a compassionate being in his absolutism?
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The playwright had a point. His story of a cockney “guttersnipe” rescued from a life of Covent Garden flower-mongering by a professor of phonetics who teaches her “proper” English—so perfectly as to have her mistaken for a member of the European nobility—has a clear lesson to teach all who care to listen. Class distinctions are completely artificial in nature, and the only thing separating a dustman from a duchess is an easily learned, appropriately accented use of the language.
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Eliza's transformation demonstrates that social distinctions such as accents are artificial and suggest that class barriers can be overcome by language training. It becomes questionable however if language reveals or forms one's character. Eliza's outcry at the end of the play denies this idea. Yet she understands herself better. Education is connected with social progress. Eliza's problems show that language alone provides only a superficial transformation. She lacks education to become fully integrated. By this, Shaw illustrates the impossibility of moving classes in those days.
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