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Lesson 2 (Pygmalion, Acts 2-3)
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| Luck | Date: Sunday, 04.10.2009, 13:44 | Message # 1 |
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| There are several characters in the play “Pygmalion”: Eliza, Higgins, Pickering etc.
But I’d like to talk about Eliza. When we meet her for the first time we can see that she is quite a poor girl of 18-20. She wears old-fashioned and dirty clothing: old hat, brown skirt, black coat. Her hair needs washing and brushing. So her appearance doesn’t call our attention. Certainly when she comes to Higgins’s house she looks much prettier: beautiful hat with many-colored feathers, small coat. But still she is a poor girl who speaks bad English and doesn’t know how to behave in high society. But after having some lessons of English with Higgins we can see how Eliza changes. Being quite a sensible and stubborn girl she understands that speaking perfect English can save her from the life she lives now. So in the ball everybody likes Eliza very much. They admire her clothing, jewels, her perfect manners and kindness and of course her perfect English. They even think that she is not from England, because no Englishman can speak English so well. Though there are also some people who tell her that she speaks like Queen Victoria! Well…of course Eliza doesn’t realize now that she is like a girl from high society now, but I’m sure that in the future something will happen and then we will know Eliza better.
Eliza is a very gifted in studies. And it was not very difficult for Higgins to teach her. As a result we can see that now she doesn’t have any problems with grammar and speaking and she behaves like a girl from high society. But I can say for sure that the teaching didn’t have any effect on her personality. She is still a vulnerable but proud girl. Yes, she looks like a duchess, but inside herself, she is still that poor girl who just wants to be happy and I believe, at the end of the play this dream will come true.
If I were an artist and could prepare an illustration, I think, I would choose the scene from the Act 3, when Eliza comes to the ball. She looks very beautiful, wears perfect dress and expensive jewels. She is going downstairs. And everybody in the hall is staring at her, because they like this pretty girl, and of course they can’t understand why they see her here for the first time. Eliza, of course looks in a perfect way, but she is a little shy and embarrassed, because she doesn’t get used to going to such parties, meeting so many people from high society, making friends with them. Actually I think it’s like a picture from “Cinderella”, when a dirty housemaid turns into a beautiful princess.
I just want to add that I also like Higgins. I guess everybody can admire his professionalism. And to convince us in this the author brings to the play one more character whose name is Nepommuck. He is an interpreter. He doesn’t have an imposing appearance. But with Higgins’s help he became famous. Now he speaks 32 languages and can place a man anywhere in Europe the moment he opens his mouth. He is indispensable at the international parties. He is a little arrogant but still people respect him, because he is a good specialist in his sphere.
I think that there will be many interesting events in the play. It’s not very easy for me to predict everything what will happen then, but still I’m sure that Higgins will win the bet: Eliza will become a well-educated and happy girl. Who knows…
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| 8davids8 | Date: Sunday, 04.10.2009, 17:32 | Message # 2 |
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| In my opinion “Pygmalion” is not full of thrilling incidents and the action doesn’t move rapidly. More than that I Think there is no conflict between a good character and a bad one, because there are no evident bad and good characters. The general tone of the play concerns humor; it’s the only tool of humiliation of different layers of the society, particularly high layers. Irony also takes place, but humor prevails.
The only character I’d like to speak about is Eliza Doolitle. Elisa is a girl from the gutters, she is young and beautiful. She speaks Cockney and her pronunciation is awful. She seems to be very honest and a bit impulsive. Her manners are not so good, but Mr. Higgins copes with changing her lifestyle. Actually Eliza has some motives to become a high society girl. Eliza’s character is the most important one in the play. Her aim here is to show that even a gutter girl may become a well-educated beauty. It means that aristocracy’s arrogance towards lower layers of society is in vain. Every person can become a well-educated one. But not everybody has such a possibility.
Also I want to tell a few about an episodic character – Nepommuck. He is a Higgins pupil. When Higgins learns that Nepommuck can speak 32 languages, he says: “A sure mark of a fool”. It means that he treats Nepommuck as a non-professional, that’s why he doesn’t trust him. After that Nepommuck declares Eliza is a Hungarian and can speak French. It proves he is just a fraud.
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| MissJane | Date: Sunday, 04.10.2009, 23:43 | Message # 3 |
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| (Summing up ex. 4, 7, 9) I’d like to speak about one of the supporting characters of the play who is still of great importance for understanding the plot and the main idea. Mrs. Higgins, that is Mr. Higgins’ mother, is an elderly lady of an upper class. She dresses with good taste and has an eye for expensive things. Naturally, she has never faced any life difficulties; shock and hardship are unfamiliar to her; she has never had a rough time. I believe that people who have always been carried by a quiet, tranquil flow of life are unable to have deep feelings or to show any sublime strivings for something new. I don’t claim that Mrs. Higgins used to be a spoilt child, but somehow she pretends to show a considerable amount of refined manners, profound knowledge in literature, entertainment and life matters all of which perfectly substitute her real feelings and emotions. She tries to seem exquisite and well-bred (as the author puts it: “brought up on Morris and Burne-Jones”). And that is why she thinks it is her duty to show great disappointment about her son’s bad manners.
Mrs. Higgins turns out to be a very peculiar character as she represents the class where the main character, Eliza Doolittle, is going to be introduced. The flower girl is supposed to master all these intricate skills: how to put on airs with the utmost dignity, to have manner and to show her supremacy openly. Frankly speaking, she’s being taught to act, to behave in a matter-of-course way when everyone envies you, which is meant to be a very natural piece of acting. “Talking Eliza, teaching Eliza, dressing Eliza, inventing new Elizas” is just an everyday process of Colonel Pickering and Professor Higgins. But such kind of teaching merely provokes an uncontrolled anger in this girl so that she begins to understand she’s a live doll in hands of two puppet masters. Perhaps that is when we come to realize that this point is a great conflict of the story. This develops into an inner contradiction inside a young lady who is forced to lead a life she has not been born for. And we shall see what this conflict will give rise for in the IV act.
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| Teacher | Date: Monday, 05.10.2009, 01:03 | Message # 4 |
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| I can't say that "Pygmalion" is full of thrilling incidents, emotional ups and downs. The hole action moves quite rapidly, but some parts of it are discribed very detailed. We can see a conflict between the language and it's sofisticated reflection, called Cockney. It's a conflict between those people, who respect good language as an impression of culture, and those, who don't care about their culture, language and sometimes even about themselves as human beings. It's very easy to anticipate the events in the plot. Professor Higgins will create a lady of his dreams. Though he'll fall in love with his ideal of a young lady having the best pronounciation in London and knowing the best English. The general tone of the play is irony, but, speaking about Higgins's behaviour, we see that his tone is sarcastic.
Mr. Higgins a strange person. He is neither positive, nor negative character. Higgins is a middle-aged man. He looks well. Professor is a real gentleman. He live in a world of language. He adores his business. Higgins places himself under the low, middle and sometimes even high society. His purpose in the story is to pry open and to deride human barbarism.
Mrs. Higgins said, 'You certainly are a pretty pair of babies playing with a live doll.' It is really so. Higgins and Pickering see not a girl, but a senseless toy.
In achieving their own scientific aims they forget about feelings, desires and thoughts of Eliza. So it's natural, that there will be a moment, when they'll give up their goals or break girl's life.
Speaking about Neppomuck, Higgins may say, that this young man is a little bit naive, self-confident, but clever and talented. He's good at science and he's an inborn instinct, but sometimes relies on this instinct too much. He has a little inferiority complex, but covers it quite well.
In Vino Veritas...
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| Rina | Date: Monday, 05.10.2009, 10:44 | Message # 5 |
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| Thinking about the 2nd and the 3rd acts of “Pigmalion”, I can't regard them as the ones full of thrilling incidents, emotional ups and so on. To my mind, the action is quite slow: the events are described as they are happening, in a natural way, there aren't any accelerated developments of the plot or decelerated ones. The only one thing that lets me think about the RAPID action's move is the gap between the events shown in the 2nd and the 3nd acts. These three or four months while Higgins was teaching Eliza aren't given in the play. So, It's the only one part where the action moves fast. From my point of view, the main conflict of the story is the conflict in Eliza's mind. Higgins's lessons change not only her pronunciation and behavior, they change her inner self, her life-vision and attitudes, her preferences and habits. They create a new person and we can see how Eliza-à-la-gutters turns out to be Eliza-à-la-Higgins. And the contradiction between two characters in one body will make Eliza choose a new way to live.
Eliza's “transformation” is watched by a number of characters of the story. Mrs. Higgins seems to be one of the most interesting for me. Who is she? An old but elegant lady, whose aristocracy is obvious and whose benevolence is overwhelming notwithstanding her pride. Mrs. Higgins loves her son with all her heart but this love is strange – sometimes the old lady looks like as if she prefers her friends to him. (remember her words: “Go home at once! … You offend all my friends: they stop coming whenever they meet you”). Of course, Mrs. Higgins is a woman of refined society, she's got a lot of friends there and she knows WHAT to say and WHEN to say it. And we can feel that notwithstanding her ostentatious unwillingness to meet Higgins in her house, she really loves him and cares about. Mrs. Higgins may see a little bit old-fashioned, especially if we compare her reaction to Eliza's speech and Miss Eynsford Hill's reaction. But at the same time she is tolerant and patient: for example, when she sees her son doing smth she disapproves, she keeps silent and doesn't let others watch her irritation. Besides, Mrs. Higgins is a kind-hearted woman^ she cares about Eliza's future and she even warns her son against “playing” with a girl.
This phrase (“You certainly are a pretty pair of babies playing with a live doll” ) makes us think about Eliza's future, about the influence of Higgins' lessons on it. Really, she seems to be a little doll in his hands: he shapes her character and manners as puppet-maker creates a toy. But Higgins can forget that his toy has feeling. And if while playing with a doll you can accidentally smash her porcelain face, playing with a LIVE doll can break her heart. And this is what Mrs. Higgins warned her son against. Will it happen in the following acts? We'll see. Sorry, we'll read))))
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| Tanya | Date: Monday, 05.10.2009, 10:50 | Message # 6 |
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| The acts are made up of several scenes. The first is the scene in the house of Higgins where Lisa have a great desire to learn a good pronunciation. Than there is a scene in the house of Higgins's mother where Lisa demonstrated her perfect manner. And all of the scenes are equally important. I also can say that the conflict in this play is between educated and uneducated person, between Higgins and Lisa. And it is quite easy to anticipate the events in the plot. For example, Lisa who wants to be a good manner person and Lisa who became a lady who try to talk about different things. That's why we can describe her in two ways. At the beginning we can see impolite, not attractive, vulnerable woman. And at the end of the third act we can see a preatty, well educated, good humoured woman. All these descriplions create the general tone of the play and help us to see her unbelievable change.
And a few words about Nepommuck. Nepommuck is a pupil of Higgins. He speaks 32 languages. He is Hungarian and everybody calls him Hairy Faced Dick. He was suprised when he saw Lisa because she spoke too perfectly to be a native English woman.
And finally I want to say that the general tone of the play include not only irony but also some humour and sarcasm.
Message edited by Tanya - Monday, 05.10.2009, 23:21 |
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| Megastarosta | Date: Sunday, 03.01.2010, 20:50 | Message # 7 |
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| These acts made up of several scenes. We can see how main characters talking on the streets, at the professor Higginse's house and so on. But one of the most important things in this play are the characters. While reading this play we can notice how these characters were changing. And i want to describe one very bright example - Eliza. We can see rude and naive Eliza at the beginning and kind, falling in love in the end.
Eliza Doolitle - a young girl of 18, she is very poor, that's why she sells flowers on the streets. Eliza has a very bad pronunciation, that calls cockney and it was a problem for her, because she couldnt get a good job in a flower shop. She isnt married and she lives alone, separating with her parents. She began to study how to speak right with Mrs. Higginse's help. In the end we see Eliza in a beautiful dress and interesting people around her. As for her leading qualities, i can admit, that she is very naive, I think it's just because she is young. She has very strict character, it proves her idea to speak good and she have done everything as best as she could. Mrs. Higgins said, "You certainly are a pretty pair of babies playing with a live doll", this phrase means that "a pretty pair of babies" - Mrs. Higgins and Colonel Pikkering, "live doll" - Eliza. It is possible to say, that Higgins used Eliza for winning his bet with Colonel Pickering. Higgins cares only about money and social status, that made him cynic.
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