Pygmalion Essays -- Essays Papers

PygmalionAn interpretation of Class dishings in PygmalionIn Bernard Shaws Pygmalion, there is a distinct var. in class relations and the way that early 20th carbon Britains were perceived as being different by their speech, money, wealth, style, manners, and appearance. Being a lady or a gentleman was an acquired status desirable among some of Londons society. However, in Pygmalion, Shaw tells a story about the alteration of a homeless young woman with the aspiration to become a respected lady.Eliza Doolittle is an 18 or 19 year-old young women, making a living from selling old flowers on the streets. When she comes across a rude Professor, named atomic number 1 Higgins, he sarcastically offers her to learn how to speak beautifully, manage a lady in a florists shop..at the mop up of six months you shall go to Buckingham palace in a carriage, beautifully dressed. This is what he proposes to Eliza when she comes to ask for English lessons from the Professor. He then makes a b et with an otherwise(prenominal) man, Colonel Pickering, who says he will pay for her new clothes and English lessons, if Higgins finish make a lady out of her in six months. The deal is made, and Eliza is immediately washed up and put into new, clean clothes. The play begins like this, which sets the plot for the rest of the story.An example of modern day class relations with speech can be described by linguistic anthropologists, and in an article called entourage for Ebony and Phonics by John R. Rickford. In this article, he discusses the African-American speech Ebonics, and the negative impact it has across America. Being called unavailing English, bastardized English, and brusque grammar, it seems to be the same thing that was going on in England during the time Pygmalion was written. Im sure that if we were to ask Henry Higgins if that is what he thought about the way Eliza spoke he would whole-heartedly agree. However, the poor English that Eliza spoke was never considered as becoming a court-ordered language in England. The play begins off on a showery night on the streets, with a lady and her daughter waiting for a cab. In this first act, Eliza asks them to buy a flower from her, with the response from the daughter, Do nothing of the sort, mother. The idea When the mother gives her some change, the daughter again exclaims, spring her give you the change. These things be only a penny a circle ... ...he rats. Aristocrats ran society, and they had no need for the homeless and poor. In relating this subject to anthropology, there are a lot of points that can be made between the equivalence of class relations and other issues similar to it. The study of Ebonics is a truly good comparison to Pygmalion, and the way that someone speaks can effect how other people view them. Even though some think it is not an issue today, it can still be compared to early 20th light speed England and the way upper class looked down upon others. In the same way, man y people do look down upon people speaking the excessively familiar sound of Ebonics.Works CitedMcIntosh, Peggy. White Privilege Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack. Applying Anthropology. Aaron Podelefsky and barb J. Brown. California Mayfield. 217-220.Nagengast, Carole. Women, Minorities, and Indigenous Peoples Universalism and Cultural Relativity. Applying Anthropology. Aaron Podelefsky and Peter J. Brown. California Mayfield. 340-352.Rickford, John R.. Suite for Ebony and Phonics. Applying Anthropology. Aaron Podelefsky and Peter J. Brown. California Mayfield. 176-180.Shaw, Bernard. Pygmalion. England Penguin, 1913.