Why is pygmalion a comedy

The goddess brings the statue to life as Galatea, and Pygmalion marries her. Shaw decided to adapt the myth for the modern stage depicting Higgins as a contemporary Pygmalion and Eliza as his creation. Shaw wanted Pygmalion to be both socially and morally instructive. Bernard Shaw founded the Fabian society, a socialist, political organisation devoted to transforming Britain into a socialist state.

This is how Shaw described the Fabian Society;. It advocates the explicit recognition by legally secured rights or payments of the value of the domestic work of women to their immediate domestic partners and to the State as housekeepers, child bearers, nurses and matrons. Professor Higgins is a professor of phonetics.

The reason Shaw decided to include this in his most famous play is because of his interest in this particular subject. Throughout his life he tried to change the English spelling system because he thought that most English spelling was absurd because it had nothing to do with the way words were pronounced.

At the beginning of the play Pickering makes a bet with Higgins that he cannot make Eliza into a lady. I think the reason for this is because in the Fabian Society he believed that people should be equal, especially amongst the sexes. For Eliza, Shaw uses his phonetic language to portray what she is saying and the accent she is saying it in.

For example;. Comedy is used to reveal class attitudes to accent and language. This is a very ironic comment because later in the play Higgins has changed her into a lady. In the first act there is a huge contrast between Eliza the flower girl and Clara.

Eliza has vivid language, energy and passion whereas Clara has a cold composure, a spoilt nature and shows snobbery. It is obvious that Clara has no manners in the way in which she talks to others. She talks to her brother, Freddy almost as if he is no relation of hers, just a stranger trying to find a cab for them. She says;. She would be played as a very snooty character with a very upper class accent which is useful to portray her rudeness when she talks to others in the way she does.

Clara is a very fragile character who depends on others. Whereas Eliza is a very witty, independent and strong character the complete opposite to Clara. Shaw intended his play to change people's minds about that. He borrowed from the myth of Pygmalion. In the story, told by the Roman poet Ovid, a sculptor falls in love with his sculpture, Galatea, and prays for her to come to life. With the help of Aphrodite, his wish comes true. The Roman poet Ovid, in his Metamorphoses, Book X, relates that Pygmalion, a sculptor, makes an ivory statue representing his ideal of womanhood and then falls in love with his own creation, which he names Galatea ; the goddess Venus brings the statue to life in answer to his prayer.

Galatea, however, loved the youth Acis. When Polyphemus discovered Acis and Galatea together, he crushed Acis to death with a boulder. Galatea is also the name, in some versions of the Pygmalion story, of the statue that Pygmalion creates and then falls in love with. Teachers' expectancies—Pygmalion in the classroom.

Pygmalion derives its name from the famous story in Ovid's Metamorphoses, in which Pygmalion, disgusted by the loose and shameful lives of the women of his era , decides to live alone and unmarried.

With wondrous art, he creates a beautiful statue more perfect than any living woman. In the Greek Pygmalion myth and in Ovid's version of the story, Pygmalion sculpted the figure of a woman because he was bored. Is pygmalion a comedy? Asked by: Linda Weissnat PhD. All these insulting remarks show that Polon Hamlet's humor is rude and insulting to people around him; it's very cynical and leads to his downfall.

Hamlet proves his cynical humor when he fools Polonius, makes fun of the courtiers and insults Claudius, Gertrude and Ophelia. Hamlet insults Polonius with his words and always finds out what the courtiers were up to. All these experiences show that humor can be joyful but on the other hand it could prove to be very fatal. Works Cited and Consulted: Bloom, Harold. This links to the other main theme of the play, that of entertainment and comic characters.

This is illustrated through Sir Toby Belch; who is quite clever and enjoys playing tricks on people such as Sir Andrew Aguecheek and Malvolio who are less intelligent and more unaware of their humorous characteristics. The scene in which Sir Toby and Maria trick Malvolio into thinking that Olivia is in love with him is a good example of a humorous and entertaining scene. But when a lighthearted attempt to point out matters is used with the help of humor, people become receptive and willing to see what someone has to say.

This is exactly how Richard Sheridan was able to point out ridiculous human traits through his play The Rivals. He used Mrs. Malaprop and her many malapropisms to illustrate ignorance in women and how it presents a problem in English society.

Neil Simon utilizes buffoon comedy by contrasting characters. He creates over-dramatizations in order for the subtleties of character to emerge. To the group's horror and fascination,. Eliza natters on about her drunken old aunt's untimely death, leaving the offspring of the stuffy Mrs.

Eynsford Hill Michele Dunn gleefully convinced that a new style of small talk has come into vogue. The red-haired Sharon MacMenamin is a winningly elfin Eliza. She endows Eliza with a steely dignity and ably handles the tricky linguistics that accompany her character's transition from a "guttersnipe" to an elegant, well-spoken woman.