Author(s)

Zichen Wen ¹, Rongying Zheng ¹

Affiliation(s)

¹ Department of Foreign Language, North China Electric Power University, Beijing, 100096, China

Corresponding Author

Zichen Wen

ABSTRACT

George Bernard Shaw is a prolific writer who won the Nobel Prize in 1925. His work, Pygmalion, is an indirect representation of his personal growth and reflects his understanding of his time, especially his concern for the reality of the lower class. The play's attention to the myth Pygmalion shows the writer's strong desire for social reforms. With this in his heart, Shaw, along with Ibsen, initiates a revolution in drama: they use drama to represent social reality, to broadcast their social ideas, and to inspire the audience to realize these ideas. This article is intended to review the play and myth and is divided into five parts. The first part introduces the playwright Shaw; the second part looks back into the social background of the Victorian Age; the third part is the research of the Pygmalion effect and the original myth; the fourth part is the analysis of the play in detail; and part five is the summary of the whole thesis.

KEYWORDS

George Bernard Shaw; Pygmalion; realism; class; drama

CITE THIS PAPER

Zichen Wen, Rongying Zheng, The Play Pygmalion by George Bernard Shaw. Lecture Notes on Language and Literature (2023) Vol. 6: 125-131. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.23977/langl.2023.061619.

REFERENCES

[1] Carter, Ronald, and John McRae. (1997). The Routledge History of Literature in English. Britain and Ireland. London and New York: Penguin Books. 
[2] Carter, R. and McRae, J. (2001). The Penguin Guide to English Literature. Britain and Ireland, London: Penguin Books.
[3] Cody, David. (2002). Social Class: Literature, History & Culture in the Age of Victoria. New York.
[4] Ganz, Arthur. (1983). George Bernard Shaw. London: Macmillan.
[5] Prawer, S.S. (1976). Karl Marx and World Literature. London: Oxford University Press.
[6] Shaw, George Bernard. (1983). Pygmalion. London: Longman House.

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