Feminist Perspective In Pygmalion By George Bernard Shaw
George Bernard Shaw was an Irish playwright who won the Nobel Prize for Literature and an Academy Award for screenwriting. Shaw had a great influence on Western theatre and culture that continued to impress from the 1880s until his death and after. During the first half of the 20th-century, Shaw was considered as the greatest playwright due to his incorporation of both historical allegory and contemporary satire. Shaw succeeded in writing more than sixty plays inclusive of his significant works like Man and Superman Pygmalion and Saint Joan.
Shaw has challenged the typical representation of women during the Victorian era. In his plays, his attitude towards man-woman relationship was mainly satirical as he aims to reform the passiveness of this kind of relationships through introducing the New Woman who can conquer her challenges and issues and therefore working to change herself in a better way through her self-assured character. These female figures can be analyzed in line with the women’s suffrage which was a movement for British women to fight for their right to vote, opposite to the submissive female figures that the previous centuries were known for. As Shaw defends feminism, we can see an obvious criticism of society through his works, and he might have created his characters to shed light on the categorization of men and women in two different frames. By making a strictly reasoned man and a woman who is highly concerned with her emotions. Shaw intended to criticize the dividing of both sexes in the public and private domains that were established in the nineteenth century.
Shaw’s Pygmalion is a play that received discussions in diverse perspectives. However, the most discussed view of all has been the feminist. I believe Shaw’s Pygmalion is a great portrayal of feminist criticism. All through the play, we see male figures dominating over the females. Shaw depicted how women were treated during the Victorian era, and how women were ought to act in a certain way. This essay intends to portray the feminist aspect of Pygmalion play. The original story is that Pygmalion was a sculptor who carved a beautiful woman statue out of ivory and he was deeply in love with his creation. Thereby, because of all the love he had for his statue, the statue became an alive woman called Galatea. The idea of creation in this Greek myth is quite similar to the one that exists in the play.
This play depicts that Mr.Higgins’s role is the same role of Pygmalion. Professor Higgins Can be considered a God, father, and the creator of humankind. The protagonist Eliza is the one who plays Galatea’s role she is the weak, the child, and the one who always gets corrected. Higgins's creation convenes to be a masterpiece towards the end of the play even Higgins wanted to keep Eliza, in the light of his object of creation, not his bride.
Additionally, regarding Higgins's language, Shaw's intention is to convey and teach ethical values. The following quote is an example from Higgins's speech to Eliza, ' A woman who utters depressing and disgusting sounds has no right to be anywhere no right to live. Remember that you are a human being with a soul and the divine gift of articulate speech: that your native language is the language of Shakespeare and Milton and the Bible, and dont sit there crooning like a bilious pigeon.” Therefore from the previous quote, we become aware of the fact that society focuses on how women speak regardless of Higgins’s offensive and brutal kind of language that he uses throughout the play.
Moreover, Higgins constantly hurt Eliza through his insulting speech accordingly, in this quote, Higgins says, “You've had a thousand times as much out of me as I have out of you; and if you dare to set up your little dog's tricks of fetching and carrying slippers against my creation of a Duchess Eliza, I'll slam the door in your silly face.” Here, Higgins asks how dare she is to carry the slipper after he had made a duchess out of her. Higgins's perspective is that a girl who carries a person’s slippers is not respectable. He believed that only the social rank of a duchess must be worthy of his respect. Back in the nineteenth century society’s expectations of girls were to act in a certain stereotypical lady-like way they were expected to walk, talk and even sip their tea in a particular way to satisfy a man and if she refused she would not be accepted from high-class members. Thus, Eliza was judged and dominated by men, changing Eliza and the way she is living makes her dependent on these men. Due to this, Eliza showed that she is able to be independent and capable of finding some success by herself. The play ended with roles reversal and the men ultimately needed Eliza. However, Eliza was not capable of escaping the Victorian society oppressive constraints.
In the final analysis, Eliza had to decide whether she lives with her father, Higgins, or to marry Freddy. Inevitably, Eliza’s future life will continue to be under the control of a man. Eliza is remarkably transformed throughout the play, yet it would take even bigger transformations of society for women to have real independence.
