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B. Shaw, Pygmalion
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| Luck | Date: Friday, 25.09.2009, 22:11 | Message # 1 |
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| Perhaps these lines reflect Higgins’s attitude towards Eliza, a girl who speaks cockney. But don’t you think that this deep aversion to the girl’s pronunciation is good in some way? Higgins is a very stubborn man, besides he is one of the best linguists, so he won’t allow the girl to speak non-perfect English. And I’m sure, at the end of the play this poor flower girl will turn into a real duchess, with Higgins’s help, of course.
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| MissJane | Date: Saturday, 26.09.2009, 23:18 | Message # 2 |
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| Actually, this verse generalizes the whole linguistic sutiation of all the times. That is not just a sad irony or an angry untterance about that poor flower girl, but a satiric description of the majority of the population. Listen to what is said on TV and radio! According to the lines, we are all prisoners of the gutters and should be hung.  But maybe, if we speak such a bad langauge, does this mean that the language itself has some problems? Or probably, it's not a cold-blooded murder of the language, but a regular way of the language evolution or one of its numerous diversities, who knows..
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| Asya | Date: Thursday, 01.10.2009, 23:00 | Message # 3 |
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| As far as I understand, this quatrain reflects the idea of the whole story. The idea is: speaking "the gutters'" dialect of some language (for example, cockney) is a real crime. We should be more attentive to the way we speak.
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| 8davids8 | Date: Friday, 02.10.2009, 10:07 | Message # 4 |
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| The poem says that speaking bad language (non-literature) is comparable with a crime, so the punishment should be equal. Language is something sacred, and defiling it by one's dirty pronounciation means feeling no respect towards your language, history, customes.
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| Teacher | Date: Friday, 02.10.2009, 10:49 | Message # 5 |
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| On the one hand this Lady 'should be taken out and hung'. It's really bad, when people speak some slang or, in case of this Lady, Cockney. I think that the language of any country is one of the best expressions of its culture. So, if we don't know our mothertongue, we can't say that we know and respect our culture. But on the other hand, we shouldn't blame this Lady for her bad pronunciation etc. It's said that she is 'a prisoner of gutters'. The Lady just don't know better life, people of other parts of the society. She lives in a kind of underworld. And there she doesn't need good pronunciation or manners, because people arround her won't understand her. So she may exist between two worlds, and both these worlds will be closed for her.
In Vino Veritas...
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| Rina | Date: Monday, 05.10.2009, 10:58 | Message # 6 |
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| What is the main idea of the quatrain? To my mind it tells us that people's social status can be easily revealed by one's language. To be more precise, by one's accent. The cockney dialect betrays one's "birth in the gutters". And, according to the verse, people who "murder" their language by speaking such kinds of dialects can be compared to criminals. They are worth being hung. To my mind, it's a metaphorical comparison - in reality, the people who speak Cockney should't be hung, of course, but they should obviously take the consequences of "murdering" their language.
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| Megastarosta | Date: Sunday, 03.01.2010, 19:35 | Message # 7 |
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| What is the main idea of this story? speaking good language or something else? can your pronunciation means your social status? That is the question, I think. Ant the author shows us very brightly that speaking badly (I mean using slang and so on) is like a crime. Think twice how and what you will say in different situations, it is very important.
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| Ayayulia | Date: Thursday, 07.01.2010, 15:30 | Message # 8 |
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| Unfortunately, people don’t think about their pronunciation now. While preparing for entrance examination students are taught to write, but they are not taught to speak. What result is expected?
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| strawberry | Date: Monday, 10.09.2012, 11:29 | Message # 9 |
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| what about pronounciation in our days there are so many dialects and variations of a word that it`s very difficult to learn the right of them. for instance, situation in our University. all groups are studing British English,as for our group wee study American. There are some differences between them/// But everybody of us can easy understand what they mean. Aliza in <pigmalion> was noneducated ant it`s difficult for her to pronounce any sound. But she studied a lot and became polite and competent
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| FoxyT | Date: Tuesday, 30.09.2014, 16:24 | Message # 10 |
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| Book Review
"Pygmalion" by George Bernard Shaw is a play which was published in 1912. In Greek Mythology, Pygmalion is the name of a sculptor who falls in love with one of his masterpieces, which he names Galatea. In Shaw's play Henry Higgins, Professor of Phonetics, is Pygmalion and Cockney Eliza Doolittle is Galatea.
A brief plot of the play can be represented as follows. Two of the main characters, Professor Higgins, a scientist of phonetics, and Colonel Pickering, a linguist of Indian dialects, meet at Covent Garden. They make a bet that Higgins will be able to transform the cockney speaking flower girl, Eliza Doolittle, into a woman as poised and well-spoken as a duchess. And Pickering will pay all expenses. The next morning, the girl appears at Higgins' cabinet on Wimpole Street to ask for speech lessons, so that she may speak properly enough to work in a flower shop. The challenge is accepted, and Higgins starts by having his housekeeper bathe Eliza and give her new clothes. Then Eliza's father, Alfred Doolittle, comes to demand the return of his daughter, though his real goal is to get some money.The professor, amused by Doolittle's unusual rhetoric, gives him five pounds. On his way out, the dustman faces in the doorway with a beautiful Japanese woman, and does not understand that it is his daughter. For a number of months, Higgins trains Eliza to speak properly. Once they wait to Higgins' mother, where Eliza is introduced to the Eynsford Hills family, The son Freddy is very attracted to Eliza. Mrs. Higgins worries that the experiment will lead to problems in the end, but Higgins and Pickering are too passionate about their game. When the experiment ends, teachers celebrate their victory and the end of sufferings, they don't notice girl's feelings. Eliza finally refuses to endure the doll's fate, expresses all her indignation, frustration, disappointment to Higgins, gathers her things and leaves the teacher's home. The following morning, Higgins rushes to his mother in a panic because Eliza has run away. There he finds Eliza, but she can no longer be called "experimental and poor" woman. They talk as equals. Higgins realizes that he is very attached to Eliza, but he is not ready to change and adapt to the other person. Eliza realizes that now she is a self-confident educated person and all roads are open before her.Their paths diverge, but they remain friends. The experiment is successfully completed.
This artwork has made a positive impression on me. The meaning of the drama, that the author included into it, is very unusual for the modern reader. So, many viewers and readers waited the romantic happy-ending of the play. However, Pygmalion is deeply philosophical and social drama, which is typically for Bernard Shaw's playwriting. Therefore, it should leave questions and topics for reflection in the reader's mind. I even think that the Sequel to the play is not required, because it reduces the variation of the story's development.
Message edited by FoxyT - Tuesday, 30.09.2014, 16:24 |
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| Valerka | Date: Wednesday, 01.10.2014, 22:52 | Message # 11 |
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| "Pygmalion»is one of the most stunning plays of George Bernard Shaw, written in 1912.
Originality, wit, and the democratic spirit of the play reflect deep and acute
social problems. This fact has provided
its huge popularity in many countries. The play is about the professor of phonetics
Henry Higgins, who made a bet with his friend Colonel Pickering. Under the
terms of the bet, Higgins had to train flower girl Eliza Doolittle pronunciation
adopted in high society. After six months he presented her as a duchess. Bernard Shaw attempted to reflect hislongstanding passion of phonetics. Pronunciation, in his opinion, shared by
social groups in England is stronger than many other factors, and this
injustice should be eliminated. At the same time, the author put forward the
idea people’s inequality. Bit by bit, the society has understood that
difference between «lower" and "upper" classes does not exist.
Thus, the problem of the work emphasizes a spiritual awakening of people, possible
with the help of art expression and creativity. The author tried to show this
creativity in an inner world of each character and even in their appearance and
behavior. For instance, we can notice some inexperience and uncertainty in
Eliza’s appearance at the beginning of story, while at the end of the story she
has already behaved in such another manner, showing herself as a well-educated
and noble woman. Surely, some author’s stylistic means help to see this difference.
But most of all, I paid attention to numerous stage directions that have played
a significant role during the play. Definitely, I was taken aback by thiscompelling literature work. Of course, this play is considerably different from
those that I have read. Nonetheless, the main idea (that I mentioned above)
made a great impression on me. So, I recommend reading the striking B. Shaw’s
work.
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| ValerieTr | Date: Saturday, 04.10.2014, 11:22 | Message # 12 |
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| Pygmalionis a play written by George Bernard Shaw in 1912. The play is named after
mythological character Pygmalion who made a woman out of ivory and gave her a
name Galatea. Aphrodite made his wish come true and made Galatea alive.
This playis about the bet made between the professor of phonetics Henry Higgins and
Colonel Pickering. According to this deal, Higgins had to teach Eliza
Doolittle, poor flower girl, good English pronunciation to make her duchess.
Pickering and the professor were really passionate about the experiment but
when it came to an end and Higgins won it, they acted like they got tired of
their "doll". That's why Liza lost her temper and demonstrated all
her indignation of their attitude to her after the deal and then she left the
house. So, education influenced not only her pronunciation but herself. That's
why it would be very difficult for her to get along with ordinary people.
In the play Shaw raised the idea that people didn't pay attention to Englishpronunciation which reflected social groups. So, the conflict of this play may
be singled out as the conflict between different social groups.
G.B.Shaw's works are always compared to O.Wilde's because these two greatauthors used irony and sometimes sarcastic thoughts for sharing their ideas. What is more, Shaw perfectly represented thecharacters of the play. For example, a reader can easily imagine Freddy, his
mother and sister even without a total description of them, because it becomes
clear from their acts.
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