Two sites offer a digested discussion of Geroge Bernard Shaw:
http://www.kirjasto.sci.fi/gbshaw.htm
http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/Jshaw.htm
Read one of these biographical sites and write a summary of the information. This work should be turned in before the questions to the play are due and before the movie is begun.
The ever-present student crib-notes for overview as well as the actual text can be found at:
http://www.sparknotes.com/lit/pygmalion
The following site provides information about the literary background to Shaw's drama and further extensions to other works that deal with the same concepts.
http://www.pygmalion.ws/stories/index.htm
Select this site; select the link for "Pygmalion Effect";
read the brief information and summarize. This work is due before the second part of the video.
One of Shaw's campaigns was the streamlining of English, words and alphabet, which he found more difficult because of the different sounds that came from the same letters and words. Flowing from his many attempts to accomplish this is a very famous essay of little more than a page in length that was originally published in 1946. The work has been up-dated some since, the lastest not many years ago. You can access the original at the following site
http://www.ecphorizer.com/Articles1/meiheminceklasrum.html
or if you wish, you can SEARCH for 'Shaw AND Meihem' together and get other sites, some that have made the dates of the original essay more contemporary.
The following questions that cover significant events in Shaw's drama can be answered during the reading or completed afterward. The answers to all questions will be submitted at the same time.
Act 1
What clues identify the social class of the following characters: Mrs. Eynsford Hill; The Bystander; The Flower Girl?
Why does Higgins throw Liza a handful of coins? What does this suggest about his character? How does Liza’s reaction to this windfall illustrate her personality?
Act 2
When Liza appears the next morning, she is prepared “to pay like any lady.” Explain how this illustrates her notion of upper-class life, and, further, her own sense of her self.
Lisa won’t sit down until Higgins speaks courteously to her. What fundamental trait of her character does this demonstrate?
Act 3
How does the first scene illustrate Higgins’s distinction between “how a girl pronounces, [and] what she pronounces. …”?
During the tea, who has the better manners, and who talks more properly, Higgins or Liza? What is the point of this contrast?
Act 4
Analyze the significance of Liza “hurling” the slippers at Higgins.
Liza gives back the ring Higgins bought her at the seaside town of Brighton. He hurls it into the fireplace. As the act ends, Liza is “down on her knees on the hearthrug to look for the ring.” Explain the symbolism of this sequence.
Act 5
Liza enters into a long conversation with Pickering. How does it parallel the conversation between Higgins and Pickering in Act Four? What does Higgins do why they talk?
What is it about Liza that gets Higgins to say, finally, “I like you like this”?
Composition
Evaluate the arguments Shaw employs in the Epilogue to prove that Liza could never marry Higgins.