My Fair Lady In Bernard Shaw's Pygmalion

Though many scholars may harshly criticize My Fair Lady for not adhering to Bernard Shaw’s intentions for Pygmalion, it is my conviction that the musical’s additions to his play should be celebrated, not castigated. The costumes, scenery, actions, and especially the songs significantly develop the characters, greatly enhance its comedic aspects, and fine tune many of Shaw’s themes; they are indispensable in gaining a full appreciation of Pygmalion.
Songs play a vital role in developing Shaw’s themes of identity, femininity, and individuality. The musical tremendously improved the play because it emphasized Eliza’s struggles, and progress. “Eliza Doolittle has plenty of songs that demonstrate she is anything but a statue” (Time). Eliza has …show more content…
This is why she choses to stay friends with Higgins. He will care for her and satisfy all her basic physical, intellectual and safety needs, whereas Freddy can’t. In Maslow 's hierarchy of needs, safety and physical satisfaction outweighs higher order needs like love, affection, and self actualization (Feldman). Readers hope that Eliza can still become self actualized, but in her restrictive victorian society that is unlikely. She is cognizant of the fact that opportunities for women in her English society are slim. “She isn’t brainwashed or stupid — when given the choice between an emotionally abusive man and destitution, she chose the man” (___). Choosing the man doesn’t make My Fair Lady a sexist movie; it makes it a movie about a sexist time” states Time. She can 't truly be a successful florist owner without a successful man like Higgins supporting her. She can not own a store because that would not look decent for a fair lady. She would be ostracized, shunned. She is not --- quote. She feels apathy attitude towards Freddy. She is annoyed by Freddy 's daily “sheets and sheets”. She wants action, which is why in the end she returns to Higgins. He shows her that he cares for her when he is caught listening to the …show more content…
For example, the actors’ clothing, and scenery at the Covent Gardens in My Fair Lady plays a prominent role in helping the audience fully comprehend Shaw’s theme of class distinction. The Aristocrats, donned in white and black attire, say little, but their clothes, and their atmosphere says a lot. Their classy simplistic white and black clothes, the whiteness of the fences and courtyards, reveal that the upper class lacks life. They are disconnected with the real world. White evokes connotations of blankness, emptiness. Juxtaposed with the upper class, is the drab browns, mahoganies, tree-greens, and tawdry purple colored rags that the lower class, as well as the independents shod (Lerner). These include Eliza 's first hat which contains “three ostrich feathers, orange, sky-blue, and red”, and the background suffragettes’ plum dresses. These brighter, more earthy colors illicit associations of vivacity, earthiness, and happiness. If color is life, then the poor and the independents are the only ones who are (ironically) truly alive. Mr. Doolittle says in Pygmalion that the best, and most joyous, life is the one unburdened by middle class morality because “middle class morality means one would have to “live for others and not for himself, and some people “like it [being poor and free]; and that 's the