Hey I am Shantalie and I am from London. I need money for trip to Peru and I'm totally broke at the ...
Hey I am Shantalie and I am from London. I need money for trip to Peru and I'm totally broke at the moment.
Member since:11.01.2001
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Before I watched My Fair Lady I studied the play Pygmalion, which it is based on at school. I the main story line focuses on how the main character Eliza Doolittle changes from a cockney flower girl in Covent Garden to a middle class lady. I think Audrey Hepburn plays the part of Eliza Doolitlle very effectively. I think George Bernerd Shaw is one Britains greastest play writes and Pygmalion is a wonderful play which focuses on morality, social class and the english language. I think the storyline of Pygmalion is wonderful and that is why so many more recent films are based on it.
In his play Pygmalion, George Bernard Shaw portrays to the audience his opinion on a number of different themes including social class and money, morality and the English language. Shaw uses Eliza Doolittle, the main character in Pygmalion to convey his views to the audience. Shaw took the name Pygmalion for his play, from a legend in Greek Mythology about the king of Cyprus who was a sculptor called Pygmalion. Pygmalion was devoted to his statues as he felt they were the only beautiful things around him. He was also a man who was renowned for disliking all other company, particularly women. The general conduct of women was said to disgust Pygmalion. Pygmalion believed in Aphrodite, The goddess of Love and prayed for her to breathe life into one of his statues called Galatea, which he had spent a long time making from ivory. Pygmalion had finally fallen so much in love with his creation that Aphrodite gave it life and turned it into a beautiful woman. In his play Shaw uses his character Higgins to play the role of Pygmalion and Eliza to play Pygmalion's creation Galatea. In the Greek legend Pygmalion, a statue is magically transformed into a beautiful woman and similarly in Shaw's play Eliza Doolittle changes from a working class flower girl to a middle class lady, but the changes in Eliza are not all on the surface many of the changes take place emotionally. In the Act 1 the audience is first introduced to Eliza Doolittle, a flower girl in Covent Garden. She is dressed in rags and it obvious that she is a just a working class flower girl but yet is not at all afraid to go and talk to middle class people. From the beginning of this play we can see that Eliza is a very lively, spirited character. Although Eliza is uneducated she has a lot of confidence. We can also that Eliza is very persistent and determined. These characteristics help Eliza to be a very good salesperson : 'Garn ! Do buy a flower off me Captain. I change half a crown. Take this for tuppence.' Although Eliza is very confident she is also quite insecure and defensive. This characteristic is shown when she told that there is a man taking down everything she is saying and assumed to be police officer : 'I ain't done nothing wrong by speaking to the gentleman. I've a right to sell flowers if I keep off the kerb.' In this scene Eliza tends to be quite hysterical in many different instances and draws much attention to herself by making a scene. An example of this is when Freddy rushes past Eliza and knocks her flowers onto the street : There's manners for you ! Two bunches of violets trodden into the mud. ' Although Eliza is uneducated and of a working class background we can see that she feels very strongly that her class is not a obstacle in her life as she doesn't allow people to treat her differently because of her background. Eliza is not afraid to stand up for herself and she has very high morals : 'He's no right to take away my character. My character is the same to me as any other ladys ' This quotation shows that Eliza feels that her character is very important and her class and background should not affect the way that people regard
her as a person. She also believes that people do not have the right to assume she is dishonest and unrespectable because of the job she is doing. In Act 2 we see Eliza Doolittle arriving and Professor Higgins Wimpole Street Laboratory and asking Professor Higgins for lessons. This shows that Eliza is willing to learn and improve her language and also that she wants to make something more of herself. 'I want to be a lady in a flower shop stead of sellin at the corner of Tottenham Court Road' This quotation shows that Eliza has ambitions and by asking Higgins for lessons she is making the effort to achieve her goals. As in the first act here we see how Eliza refuses to allow people to treat her badly because of her background : ' I wont be called a baggage when I offered to pay like any other lady'. In this scene we can also see that Eliza is very naive because she says : 'Did you tell him I came in a taxi' This shows that Eliza can be foolish because she doesn't realise that Professor Higgins doesn't really care whether or not she travels in a taxi as he probably travels in them every day. In this scene we actually get an impression of how primitive living conditions must have been at this time for working class people like Eliza. We see how distraught Eliza becomes when she finds out she has to have a bath and we learn how uninformed the working class must be : 'I should catch my death. I knew a woman who did it every Saturday night and she died of it ' As this is the first time Eliza has had a proper bath the audience is led to believe that she is very unhygienic. In this act we also see Professor Higgins getting a visit from Eliza's father Alfred Doolittle. Although we have already seen that Eliza has very high moral standards. We can see that her father is not like Eliza as he has very low marla standard for himself as the following quote shows he is willing to make a deal with Higgins to sell his own daughter for five pounds : ' As a daughter she is not worth her keep; so I tell you straight. All I ask is my rights as a father ; and you're the last man alive to expect me to let her go for nothing; for I can see you're one of the straight sort Governer. Well, whats a five-pound note to you ? and whats Eliza to me ? ' This shows that Doolittle wasn't a very loving father as he had no affection towards his daughter and that he had no morals whatsoever but as he later says he ' can't afford them '. This shows that working class people's morals were governed by their need for money. Although as we already know Eliza was not one of these people as morals played a very important role in her life. Act 3 is the point in this play where the audience begins to see a change in Eliza Doolittle. In this scene Eliza is taken to Mrs. Higgins' At-home day where she has to mix with middle class people like the Eynsford - Hill family who she had already met in her days a flower girl in Covent Garden. Professor Higgins has told Eliza that she is not to talk about anything apart from the weather and health. In this scene we begin to see a change in Eliza firstly in appearance: ' Eliza who is exquisitely dressed produces such an impression remarkable distinction of such beauty as she enters ' We can see that Eliza's appearance has changed very dramatically since her days as a flower girl in Covent Garden by looking at the following quote from Act 1 : ' She is no doubt as clean as she can afford to be; but compared to the ladies she is very dirty ' By comparing the two quotes you can see that she Eliza has changed in appearance because now she is dressed as well as 'the ladies' (Miss and Mrs. Eynsford Hill). We can see how important appearance was in the way people treated one another in these times because we can see this in the way that Eliza is treated by Clara Eynsford Hill. In Act 1 Miss Eynsford Hill looks down on Eliza as she feels that the working class are inferior but by the by the end of this scene, after Eliza has undergone her transformation Clara's attitude towards her completely changes, and she begins to respect her and even copies some of Eliza's expressions as she seems to think that Eliza is very up to date : ' Such Bloody Nonsense' In this scene we also begin to see changes in Eliza's speech. Although we can see a great improvement in her speech it is obvious that Eliza has been taught to speak the way she does because she speaks much to slowly and this causes it to sound unnatural. Eliza often seems to forget where she is and sometimes has lapses where she uses phrases, which would be more appropriate for her old life in Covent Garden : 'But it's my belief that they done the old woman in' In this Act we also see Eliza attending an Embassy Ball where Higgins has the opportunity to see whether his creation will be able to pass as a duchess and win him the bet with Colonel Pickering. At the Embassy Ball Eliza is the star of the party and everybody is curious about her : 'They stop talking to look at her………………. Some of the younger ones at the back stand on their chairs to see ' At the beginning of the scene we can see that Eliza is slightly uncertain and nervous as this is her first experience of such a formal event and also because everybody is looking at her, curious to find out who she is. Although Eliza is very insecure about attending the Embassy Ball but she doesn't show these feelings instead we see what a wonderful actress and performer Eliza can be as she carries herself of as princess so well and even is believed to be Hungarian royalty by Nepommuck. In this scene Eliza speaks such perfect English that Nepommuck believes that she is Hungarian because as he says : 'Can you shew me any English women who speaks English the way it should be spoken properly? Only foreigners who have been taught to speak it speak it well' Although this quote shows that Eliza's standard of English has improved a great deal it is obvious to people like Neopummuck that she would not naturally be able to speak like this. By the end of this Act we see Eliza passing off as a duchess at the Ambassadors Ball and winning the bet for Professor Higgins. In Act 4 we see Professor Higgins, Colonel Pickering and Eliza returning from the Embassy Party. Eliza is rather hurt after winning Higgins' bet and not being thanked by him. By observing Eliza's reaction to Higgins' behaviour we can see that she can be quite sensitive and very temperamental. Eliza can be quick to over react and she doesn't think about her actions and words beforehand : 'I want to smash your face. I'd like to kill you, you selfish brute' We see that Eliza is now learning that being able to speak the English language properly and using the correct grammar doesn't solve her problems because as we can see by looking at the way Higgins and Pickering treat Eliza , her background will always affect they way she is treated by them no matter how well she speaks. Eliza is very much annoyed at the way Higgins has treated her that she decides to leave. We can see that Eliza is a person who often makes impulsive decisions at the spur of the moment without thinking about exactly what she is doing and the consequences of her actions. When Eliza walks out of Professor Higgins' Wimpole Street Laboratory she is greeted by an admirer, Freddy Eynsford Hill. Eliza is quite shocked to meet Freddy yet he is very happy to see her. Freddy is the only middle class person in Pygmalion who treats Eliza as a lady all the way from the beginning of the play to the end where to most of the other middle class people treat her as well as he does. In Act 5 it is the morning after Eliza's argument with Higgins and Pickerings. We can see that both Professor Higgins and Colonel Pickering are regretting the way that they both treated Eliza the night before as they go to Mrs Higgins house asking for advise on where to find Eliza. Later on in the scene Mrs Higgins reveal that Eliza has come to her and confided in her about the way Higgins had shown no gratitude towards the great effort she had made for him and also the way in which he and Pickering had treated her the night before. When Eliza enters the scene we see that she has a newfound confidence and we see how she cleverly turns the tables on Higgins by using the things he has taught her against him in order to annoy him. We see that Eliza's methods of aggravating Higgins are successful by looking at the following quote, which shows Higgins' reaction to Eliza's behaviour: 'Don't you dare try this game on me. I taught it to you; and it doesn't take me in. Get up and come home; and don't be a fool' We can see that be not retaliating against Higgins' comments towards her, Eliza is showing him that she can no longer go back to the way she used to be and no longer has the need to use the language she would have had to use before to defend herself : 'Well, I am a child in your country. I've forgotten my own language, and can speak nothing but yours ' Although we can all see how Eliza has changed a great deal Higgins' fail to see this and believes that Eliza will change back to the flower girl, she used to be without him for her to rely upon : 'She will relapse into the gutter in three weeks without me at her elbow' In this act the audience is shown how during this period how knowledge and education played a major factor in separating the classes. After Eliza had been taught skills by Professor Higgins she learnt how to use these skill to her advantage and to use Higgins' own teachings against him ; 'You can't take away the knowledge you gave me. You said I had a finer ear than you. And I can be civil and kind to people which is more than you can. Aha! That’s done you 'Enry 'Iggins, it az ' By looking at how Eliza at the end of this scene we can see how intelligent she is in the way that she uses certain skills to her advantage. We can also see that Eliza has a great capacity to learn and can be a very valuable asset to people such as Henry Higgins who be the end of this scene realises what a terrible mistake he has made by letting Eliza slip away. As this is the last act in the play by looking back at the first act we can see how much Eliza has changed but we can still see that she maintains certain strong characteristics all the way through the play. We can see a lot of changes on the surface like her appearance and the way she speaks but by looking at Eliza more carefully we can see that there are much more subtle emotional changes within her. At the beginning of the play we see that Eliza was very defensive and would always overreact if something untoward happened. Although Eliza still remains very defensive throughout the play we can see that she is able to defend herself a lot more calmly and in a more intelligent manner than she would have done in those days as a flower girl in Covent Garden. We also see by the end of the play how Eliza Doolittle works her way up from being a flower girl and being considered to be inferior to people of the middle class such as Higgins and Pickering to becoming a person who has an equal status to them. Pygmalion reloves very much around how there used to be a very divided class system in Britain. By studying Pygmalion we can see that George Bernard Shaw had a very important message about social class in his play and it was that all people are all born the same but it was their background and command of the English language that separate the classes. We can see that Shaw had very strong beliefs about social class and how people should not have limited opportunities because of the family they were born into, their environment or their use of the English language. The following quote illustrates the moral within George Bernard Shaw's Pygmalion that it doesn't matter what class you from but the way peoples attitudes towards you are and how much your appearance can affect the way in which you are treated by individuals: 'The difference between a lady and a flower girl is not the way she behaves, but the way she is treated. I shall always be a flower girl to Professor Higgins because he always treats me as a flower girl, and always will; but I know I can be a lady to you, because you always treat me as a lady, and always will '
I recentley bought My Fair Lady on DVD and the quality of the film is brilliant and the extra fatures are great as there are actor profiles as well as the history of Pygmalion and also information of George Bernard Shaw. I think My fair Lady is a great adaptation of George Bernard Shaw's pygmalion as it makes a fairly old fashioned story more ineresting and appealing to a younger audience by adding very catchy and slightly annoying songs.
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Music / Performing Arts, Comedy - Director: Trevor Nunn, Geoffrey Posner - Original Language: English - Classification: 15 years and over, Parental Guidance - Starring: Duncan Preston, Celia Imrie, Julie Walters, Victoria Wood, Jim Broadbent
Excellent review. I love this film - Audrey's best performance!
SusanLesley 15.03.2001 16:57
I love this film and hope to see the stage version in London soon, brilliant op, Susan.
drusilla 04.03.2001 15:10
A very detailed and interesting take on the movie. Personally I prefer 'My Fair Lady' on stage than the film, nevertheless I did agree with most of your review and thoroughly enjoyed reading it.
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eve6kicksass 23.09.2003 (23.09.2003)
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