摘 要

《皮格马利翁》是萧伯纳的一个巨作。它改编于一个古老的神话故事，据说曾经塞浦路斯因为冒犯了爱神，被爱神所抛弃，国家里的女人都不再纯洁高贵。塞浦路斯的国王喜欢雕刻，他不愿与国内的女子相爱，自己雕刻了一个美女，并爱上了它。他纯洁的爱感动了爱神，爱神把雕像变成了人，然后他们就幸福的生活在一起。这是一个美丽的故事，在萧伯纳的笔下，它成了批判资本主义社会不公，支持女权主义反对男权主义的武器。贫苦女孩伊莉莎，凭借着自己勇敢的性格，打破阶级屏障，反抗男权主义，有着强烈的女权主义色彩。希金斯则成为女权主义批判的对象。本文通过分析伊莉莎和希金斯两者的社会背景和性格特征，解释语言和社会阶级两者之间相互依存相互制约的关系。

关键词：皮格马利翁；萧伯纳；女权主义者；语言；社会等级

Abstract

Pygmalion is a masterpiece of George Bernard Shaw. It is based on an ancient myth that the country's women are no longer pure and noble because they have been rejected by Eros for offending the love of God. The king of Cyprus loved to carve, and he did not want to fall in love with the women of the country. He carved a beautiful woman and fell in love with it. The pure Love touched the Cupid, and Eros turned the statue into a woman. Then they lived happily together. This is a beautiful story. while in George Bernard Shaw's writing, it has become a weapon to criticize capitalist social injustice and support the feminist opposition to patriarchy. The poor girl Eliza, with her brave character, broke the class barrier and rebelled against male power who had a strong feminist color. Higgins is the object of the critique of male power. By analyzing the social background and personality characteristics of both Eliza and Higgins, this paper explains the interdependent and conditioning relationship between language and social class.

Key Words: Pygmalion; George Bernard Shaw; feminist; language; social class

Contents

Chapter 1 Introduction 1

1.1 The Author and His Works 2

1.2 Literature Review 3

Chapter 2 Eliza: Language Deciding Social Status 7

2.1 Cultural Capital 7

2.2 Self-consciousness 8

Chapter 3 Higgins: Social Status Deciding Language 9

3.1 Economical Capital 9

3.2 Character Limitation 10

Chapter 4 Education: Balance between Social Status and Language 11

4.1 Education for Language Transformation 11

4.2 Education for Chances 12

Chapter 5 Conclusion 14

References 15

Acknowledgements 16

On the Relationship between Language and Social Class in Pygmalion

1 Introduction

1.1 The Author and His Works

George Bernard Shaw was born in a little public servant family in Dublin in 1856. His father a declining baronage and his mother born in a local squire family were all educated and grace of social classes, offering him an environment of strict education when Shaw was little. Shaw developed an affinity of music by the influence of his mother. Something unexpected happened casually when the days passed 1876. The couple divorced and Shaw had to leave with his mother living poor in London and they left their hometown in Ireland. To make a living, Shaw had been a land sales apprentice, an amanuensis and an accountant and other jobs. Rich experience left him a hypersensitive sense of social issues. In his times, the English socialist movement was highlighting which drew great interests of Shaw. The voyage to literature had been sailed simultaneously that he began to write novels. His novel, An Unsocial Socialist, repudiated the English capitalism harshly and spoke highly of socialism. However, Shaw’s novels were not successfully accepted at that time in which capitalism was dominant strongly. Opera in the 19^th century of England was suffering a sluggish time that Shaw considered it a candy store which was pandered to indelicate interests and he thought that the opera should be done by thinking conflict and ideas debating. As he read the book, Peer Gynt, work of Henrik Ibsen, it alighted him that opera was not a sort of literature or something for entertainment but a weapon for cleaning filthy condition of English society and expressing his unsatisfying feeling of such a dark and unfair English society. A way he could take to make the public be aware of his discontent was writing and creating operas. His works, full of idealism and humanitarianism, won him a Noble Prize in 1925. Moreover, Shaw had a good relationship with Chinese people. He visited China in 1933 and was treated warmly by Chinese advanced scholars, such as Song Qinglin and Lu Xun. Shaw died when he was 94 in 1950.

His works, as what his words and actions expressed, are suffused with socialism. In the early time, he tried writing novels. However, his novels were not accepted by the public. With the failure of finishing five novels, he changed his writing orientation from novel to opera. He is a very productive and genius writer. For half a century, fifty-one operas were finished by him. Shaw was good at using paradox words to criticize the darkness and unfair phenomena of capital society, including politics, economy, church and culture. Main works of Shaw include Widower’s Houses (1892), Mrs Warren’s Profession (1893), Arms and the Man (1894), The Devil’s Disciple (1897), Caesar and Cleopatra (1898), Man and Superman (1903), Major Barbara (1905), Pygmalion (1912), Back to Methuselah (1921), Saint Joan (1923), The Apple Cart (1928) and so on.

Pygmalion, as is stated in many works, is a Greek myth about love. The story is found in Ovid’s narrative poem Metamorphoses Book X which is about a king of Cyprus who is unfascinated with mortal girls because of the disgrace of them. The reasons could be found in the Book X. As is written in Book X, the girls of Cyprus considered and declared that Venus was not a true goddess which offended Venus and made her angry. To punish their betrayal, they were abandoned by Venus and were punished to lose their grace and virginity by selling their bodies for money. (Ovid, 2007) But he, the king who is skillful and talent at sculpture. His mind was pure that he demanded his spouse remand chasteness that the girls living in his country had lost. However, he carved a sculpture by his imagination and bearings day and night and great fascination as it is a real one. He fell in love with such a beautiful sculpture and treated it as his true lover. He prayed for gods devotionally that admitted it to be real woman and to be his queen. His pure love touched Venus deeply and truthfully. At last, the goddess helped him make the sculpture a nature girl and helped them get married.