Shaw's Pygmalion is a comedy. To a certain degree, Shaw's purpose in writing it was to entertain people. Shaw, however, even at his most entertaining, does have a polemical streak and tends to return to certain central ideas and themes across all his plays. Shaw's ideas are clearly expressed in the Prefaces to his plays, which are well worth reading carefully.
First, Shaw was very concerned about reforming and simplifying English spelling. As you read...
Shaw's Pygmalion is a comedy. To a certain degree, Shaw's purpose in writing it was to entertain people. Shaw, however, even at his most entertaining, does have a polemical streak and tends to return to certain central ideas and themes across all his plays. Shaw's ideas are clearly expressed in the Prefaces to his plays, which are well worth reading carefully.
First, Shaw was very concerned about reforming and simplifying English spelling. As you read the play, you will note several idiosyncratic elements in spelling and word usage; these are not accidental but part of Shaw's theory of language. The sheer importance of language as a tool of reasoning is also a consistent theme of the play. Shaw argues that if you cannot express yourself adequately, you cannot think rationally. That reforming the study of language and the way it was intertwined with the English class system, was the main point of the play is stated at the beginning of the Preface:
The English have no respect for their language, and will not teach their children to speak it. They spell it so abominably that no man can teach himself what it sounds like. It is impossible for an Englishman to open his mouth without making some other Englishman hate or despise him.
Next, as is discussed in the afterword, Shaw argues for his own rather peculiar form of feminism in his portrayal of the character of Eliza and his insistence that, irrespective of gender, strong people seek weaker mates and that strong women, rather than wishing to be dominated, choose weak husbands.
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