...Henry Higgins (Rex Harrison), an arrogant, irascible professor of phonetics, boasts to a new acquaintance, Colonel Pickering (Wilfrid Hyde-White), that he can teach any woman to speak so "properly" that he could pass her off as a duchess. The person whom he is shown thus teaching is one Eliza Doolittle (Audrey Hepburn), a young woman with a horrendous Cockney accent who is selling flowers on the street. After overhearing this, Eliza finds her way to the professor's house and offers to pay for speech lessons, so that she can work in a flower shop. Pickering is intrigued and wagers that Higgins cannot back up his claim; Higgins takes Eliza on free of charge as a challenge to his skills. Eliza's father, Alfred P. Doolittle (Stanley Holloway), a dustman, arrives three days later, ostensibly to protect his daughter's virtue, but in reality simply to extract some money from Higgins, and is bought off with £5. Higgins is impressed by the man's genuineness, natural gift for language and especially his brazen lack of morals (Doolittle explains, "Can't afford 'em!"). Eliza goes through many forms of speech training, such as speaking with marbles in her mouth and trying to recite the sentence "In Hertford, Hereford, Hampshire, hurricanes hardly ever happen" without dropping the 'h', and to say "The rain in Spain stays mainly in the plain" rather than "The rine in spine sties minely in the pline". At first, she makes no progress (due to Higgins's harsh approach to teaching), but just...
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...My Fair Lady Film Analysis CHARACTERS: * Eliza Doolittle: A cockney flower girl from Lisson Grove working outside Covent Garden. Her potential to become “a lady” becomes the object of bet between Higgins and Pickering. * Henry Higgins: British, Upper Class professional bachelor who is a famous phonetics expert, teacher and author of “Higgins’ Universal Alphabet.” * Colonel Pickering, Higgins's friend and fellow phoneticist who is a retired Brisiths officer with colonial experience and the author of “Spoken Sanskrit”. * Alfred P. Doolittle: Eliza's father, an elderly but vigorous dustman. * Freddy Eynsford-Hill: Upper Class young man who becomes completely smitten with Eliza. * Mrs. Higgins: Higgins's socialite mother * Mrs. Pearce: Higgins's housekeeper * Zoltan Karpathy: Higgins's former student and rival SETTING: "My Fair Lady" is set in Edwardian London, sometime between 1901 and 1910, which is the period covering the reign of King Edward VII. The costumes in the 1964 movie version of "My Fair Lady," such as the peach colored outfit Eliza wears after the ball, when she meets her father on the way to his wedding, and the type of automobiles seen indicate the year 1912. This would be the time just before the start of World War I, during the reign of King George V - just after the end of the Edwardian era. PLOT: * Introduction: Higgins hears Eliza shouting in her harsh ‘Cockney’ accent in Covent Garden. He says to his new acquaintance...
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...London Bridge is falling down, My fair Lady. Build it up with sticks and stones, Sticks and stones, sticks and stones, Build it up with sticks and stones, My fair lady. Sticks and stones will all fall down, All fall down, all fall down, Sticks and stones will all fall down, My fair lady. Build it up with wood and clay, Wood and clay, wood and clay, Build it up with wood and clay, My fair Lady. Wood and clay will wash away, Wash away, wash away, Wood and clay will wash away, My fair Lady. Build it up with bricks and mortar, Bricks and mortar, bricks and mortar, Build it up with bricks and mortar, My fair Lady. Bricks and mortar will not stay, Will not stay, will not stay, Bricks and mortar will not stay, My fair Lady. Build it up with iron and steel, Iron and steel, iron and steel, Build it up with iron and steel, My fair Lady. Iron and steel will bend and bow, Bend and bow, bend and bow, Iron and steel will bend and bow, My fair Lady. Build it up with silver and gold, Silver and gold, silver and gold, Build it up with silver and gold, My fair Lady. Silver and gold will be stolen away, Stolen away, stolen away, Silver and gold will be stolen away, My fair Lady. Set a man to watch all night, Watch all night, watch all night, Set a man to watch all night, My fair Lady. Suppose the man should fall asleep, Fall asleep, fall asleep, Suppose the man should fall asleep? My fair Lady. Give him a pipe to smoke all...
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...The Pygmalion Effect There is a tale from Ancient Greece of how a prince turned a statue from ivory to life and married her. It is the story of Pygmalion. Remarkably, the principles of this story are relevant to modern techniques of leadership. Read this article to find out how. [pic] Enlarge Image A team does as well as you and the team think they can. This idea is known as "the self-fulfilling prophecy". When you believe the team will perform well, in some strange, magical way they do. And similarly, when you believe they won’t perform well, they don’t. There is enough experimental data to suggest that the self-fulfilling prophecy is true. One unusual experiment in 1911 concerned a very clever horse called Hans. This horse had the reputation for being able to add, multiply, subtract, and divide by tapping out the answer with its hooves. The extraordinary thing was that it could do this without its trainer being present. It only needed someone to put the questions. On investigation, it was found that when the questioner knew the answer, he or she transmitted various very subtle body language clues to Hans such as the raising of an eyebrow or the dilation of the nostrils. Hans simply picked up on these clues and continued tapping until he arrived at the required answer. The questioner expected a response and Hans obliged. In similar vein, an experiment was carried out at a British school into the performance of a new intake of pupils. At the start of the year,...
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...Hart was born October 24, 1904 in the Upper East Side of Manhattan in New York City, New York. His parents, immigrants of England, worked as cigar makers and had their dreams of a better life in a new country dashed not long after moving to America with the introduction of the machine manufactured cigar. (Teachout, p 90, 2010) Hart would frequently joke that he was, “Born on Fifth Avenue… on the wrong end.” While some might look back on a hard upbringing with gratitude and appreciation, even as he grew very rich Hart always viewed his impoverished childhood with contempt and disgust. (Aronson, p 170, 1995) He described it in his autobiography as growing up with, “the dark brown taste of being poor forever in my mouth and the grim smell of actual want always at the end of my nose.” (Hart, p 12, 1959) Despite his sad childhood, he had a love for the theater from an early age that he developed from a close relationship with his mother’s sister, his Aunt Kate. She frequented the local small-time theatres, often coming home and relaying every detail to him until he was old...
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...In 1952, the estate of George Bernard Shaw granted to Gabriel Pascal Enterprises, the exclusive rights to produce a musical play and a motion picture based on Shaw’s play Pygmalion. The license would be terminated if Gabriel Pascal Enterprises didn’t arrange for well-known composers. In July 1954, George Pascal, the owner of 98 percent of Gabriel Pascal died before the negotiations had been completed. However, before he died, in February 1954, Pascal had sent a letter to Kingman, his executive secretary, granting to her certain percentages of his share of the expected profits from Pygmalion. Subsequently, My fair lady, based on Pygmalion was highly successful. Kingman then sued to enforce Pascal’s gift assignment of the future royalties. The Dayton Country Club Company offers many social activities to its members. However the privilege to play golf is reserved to a special membership category and additional fees are charged. The club chooses golfing memberships from a waiting list of members according to strict rules. Magness and Redman were golfing members of the Club. Upon their filing for bankruptcy, their trustee sought to assign by sale their right under these memberships. The bankruptcy court found that the Club’s rules governing golf membership were essentially anti-assignment provisions and therefore the estate could not assign rights contained in the membership agreement. The bankruptcy court’s ruling was affirmed. PEPCO, Potomac Electric Power Company, is an electric...
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...Pygmalion Effect helps you think about how your expectations of other people can influence or motivate their performance. It argues that by setting and communicating high performance expectations, you can motivate better performance from the people you lead and manage. The effect was originally studied in context of teachers' expectations of their students: Students who are expected to perform well usually do so. Those students of whom teachers have lower expectations will generally perform less well. However, this approach has clear application in the corporate world. This effect is named after George Bernard Shaw's play "Pygmalion", which is the basis of the film and stage musical "My Fair Lady". Shaw summarizes the effect by character Professor Higgins' observation that: ...the difference between a lady and a flower girl is not how she behaves, but how she's treated. Understanding the Theory As a manager or supervisor, your aim is to get the best performance from the people who work from you. If you have high expectations of a member of your team, this can reinforce your efforts.On the other hand, if you convey lower expectations of an individual, this can undermine your efforts to improve his or her performance. Without knowing it, you may show low expectations by delegating less challenging and interesting work. You may pay less attention to team members' performance and give them less support and praise. In return, the team member may feel undervalued and untrusted, and his or...
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...My fair lady (1964) is a classic movie about a Cockney flower girl, Eliza, who takes lessons from professor Higgins, a phonetician, to pass as a lady. After watching, I find connection between the movies and myself in terms of language learning experience. This writing will reflect on two chief issues that are methods of phonetic and phonological training and the relationship between phonetic teacher and learners. Regarding to methods involving phonetic and phonological training, there are many methods applied during learning process, I am going to focus on two teaching methods used are drilling, and putting marbles in mouth. For the first method, Eliza is forced to stay lonely in a room and enunciate vowels unremittingly. “You simply cannot go on working the girl this way. Making her say her alphabet over and over ... from sunup to sundown, even during meals.”, Mrs. Pearce (the housekeeper) says. It is worth noting that Higgins does not guide Eliza the way how to enunciate vowels but wholly neglects her untill her correct pronunciation. The housekeeper: “…When will it stop?” Henry Higgins: “When she does it properly, of course. Is that all, Mrs. Pearce?” The result is that Eliza is frastrated. She can not produce the sound in the right way. Turning to the second method, Higgins puts six marbles in Eliza’s mouth to make her say the sentence “With blackest moss, the flower pots were thickly crusted, one and all.” clearly “as a bell”. Because he supposes that Demosthenes...
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... When comparing the play Pygmalion and the Hallmark movie The Makeover, there are numerous similarities and differences that are revealed between the characters and general story line. Pygmalion takes place in London, England around the beginning of the 20th century where The Makeover is placed in Boston, Massachusetts during modern times. Both story lines follow the general theme of the Hallmark movie’s title, a makeover. However, this makeover doesn’t occur under the same circumstances. Pygmalion’s main character, Eliza Doolittle, first appears on the streets selling cheap flowers to passersby’s. Eliza quickly becomes acquainted by another man on the streets, Henry Higgins, who starts rambling on about how important education and proper English is for society. Eliza dreams of opening a flower shop where she can enjoy herself and make some money. The only problem though is that she doesn’t have enough money to open a flower shop nor does she speak properly enough for people to understand her. At last, Henry states that he could turn Eliza into a totally different person, educated and proper. The Makeover’s main character, Elliot Doolittle, makes his appearance as a beer delivery man. He looks rough and represents a low class working man. When he is approached with an opportunity to take up a position as a sales representative he fears he will not qualify, so he searches assistance from another individual, Hannah Higgins, in achieving this task. Hannah Higgins is also a firm...
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...Alfred: Good morning, Governor.I come about a very serious matter,Governor. Higgins: Brought up in Houndslow. Mother Welsh, I should think.What is it you want, Doolittle? Alfred: I want my daughter, that's what I want. Higgins: See? Of course you do. You're her father, aren't you? I'm glad to see you have a spark of family feeling left.She's in there. Yes, take her away at once. Alfred: What? Higgins: Take her away. Do you think I am going to keep your daughter for you? Alfred: Now, is this reasonable, Governor? Is it fair to take advantage of a man like that? The girl belongs to me. You got 'er. Where do I come in? Higgins: How dare you come here and attempt to blackmail me! You sent her here on purpose! Alfred: Don't take a man up like that, Governor. Higgins: The police shall take you up. This is a plan...a plot to extort money by threats. I shall telephone the police. Alfred: Have I asked you for a brass farthin'? I leave it to this gentleman 'ere. Have I said a word about money? Higgins: Well, what else did you come for? Alfred: What would a bloke come for? Be 'uman, Governor. Higgins: Alfred, you sent her here on purpose. Alfred: So help me, Governor, I never did. Higgins: How did you know she was here? Alfred: I'd tell you, Governor,if you'd let me get a word in. I'm willing to tell ya. I'm wanting to tell ya. I'm waiting to tell ya! Higgins: You know, Pickering, this chap's got a certain natural gift of...
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...Trio’s Infamous Chant “Fair is foul, and foul is fair” and its Relevance to Shakespeare’s The Tragedy of Macbeth One of the most important lines in the drama The Tragedy of Macbeth by William Shakespeare originates from one of the last lines in Act I, Scene I. The three witches speak the simple line “Fair is foul, and foul is fair,” (I: i, 10) shortly before they disperse. This quotation becomes a prophecy as well as an underlying warning foreshadowing the rest of the drama. “Fair is foul, and foul is fair” (I: i, 10) can be interpreted as saying good is bad and bad is good. The quotation leads the reader to question their standpoint on the good and bad depicted in the drama. This quotation is a major line in the drama because it implies that some of the characters are not who they claim to be. This quotation affects the Witches because although they speak of the future, they do not seem to affect its course. In Macbeth's case, the prophecies serve only to suggest the future, not to affect it. They do not predict that he will commit murder to become king but simply that he will become king. For example, they hail Macbeth as king by saying, "All hail, Macbeth, that shalt be king hereafter!" (I: iii, 50). So furthermore, even if the witches did not exist, Macbeth would still have taken the throne due to fate. When the line comes from the witches, the reader assumes at first that they are speaking plainly. That the line means that for them, what is fair or good, for the witches...
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...William Makepeace Thackeray Vanity Fair Analysis of the following chapter: Chapter XLVIII: In Which the Reader Is Introduced to the Very Best of Company In the chapter Rebecca Sharp finally is presented at Court — the height of her ambition. The omnipresence of the author making philosophical diagrations on different matters is a characteristic feature of the novel. The passage contains of two paragraphs, and the most part of it is the author’s phylosophical and ironic contemplation on Vanity Fair representatives’ relation to those being presented at Court and to the King himself. The figure of the King is the central one in the extract. Portaying the King, Thackeray uses the words with positive connotations: “the Good, the Magnificent, the Great”, etc. They acquire the opposite sense in the context. And this is a common feature of ironic description. Irony turns to be the key device of the passage. In the presence of the monarch the representatives of the Vanity Fair seem to be going into ecstasies: “How they cheered, and cried, and waved handkerchiefs. Ladies wept; mothers clasped their children”. We observe here many sentences with homogeneous parts, parallel constructions, which are used to give a full image of a crowd cheering in the presence of their monarch. And, so, George V is represented as The King of the Vanity Fair. The process and consequences of being presented to the Sovereign at Court are likened to the sacrament of the Eucharist. In the first paragraph...
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...Romeo and Juliet | Shakespeare homepage | Romeo and Juliet | Entire play | ACT I PROLOGUE Two households, both alike in dignity, In fair Verona, where we lay our scene, From ancient grudge break to new mutiny, Where civil blood makes civil hands unclean. From forth the fatal loins of these two foes A pair of star-cross'd lovers take their life; Whose misadventured piteous overthrows Do with their death bury their parents' strife. The fearful passage of their death-mark'd love, And the continuance of their parents' rage, Which, but their children's end, nought could remove, Is now the two hours' traffic of our stage; The which if you with patient ears attend, What here shall miss, our toil shall strive to mend. SCENE I. Verona. A public place. Enter SAMPSON and GREGORY, of the house of Capulet, armed with swords and bucklers SAMPSON Gregory, o' my word, we'll not carry coals. GREGORY No, for then we should be colliers. SAMPSON I mean, an we be in choler, we'll draw. GREGORY Ay, while you live, draw your neck out o' the collar. SAMPSON I strike quickly, being moved. GREGORY But thou art not quickly moved to strike. SAMPSON A dog of the house of Montague moves me. GREGORY To move is to stir; and to be valiant is to stand: therefore, if thou art moved, thou runn'st away. SAMPSON A dog of that house shall move me to stand: I will take the wall of any man or maid of Montague's. GREGORY That shows thee a weak slave; for the weakest goes to the...
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...and he would also have to kill his friend. On the other hand, if he is to not kill him, he may never realize his ambitious dreams of ruling Scotland. Another of his internal struggles is his decision of killing his friend Banquo. After hiring murderers to kill him, Macbeth begins to see Banquo's ghost which drives him crazy, possibly a result of his guilty conscience. Macbeth's external conflict is with Macduff and his forces trying to avenge the king and end Macbeth's reign over Scotland. One specific motif is considered the major theme, which represents the overall atmosphere throughout the play. This motif is "fair is foul and foul is fair." In the first scene of the first act, three witches plan their next meeting in which they will encounter Macbeth. It is in this scene that the motif is first presented, as the tree witches chant, "Fair is foul, and foul is fair, hover through the fog and filthy air" (1.1.11-12). The witches meet again in scene three of act one. One of the witches discusses a curse she has placed on a woman's husband, because she refused to share her food. This display of evil...
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...Blind Leading the Blind In MacBeth, Shakespeare writes about a greedy, power-hungry man who murders the king to fulfill his selfish desires. MacBeth was one of King’s Duncan’s noblemen and honorable general. However, after he is claimed as the Thane of Cawdor and Glamis, he believes a prophecy by three witches that he will become King and, along with his wife, decides to murder King Duncan in an attempt to gain more power. Although MacBeth grew uncertain about going through with the assassination, his wife, Lady MacBeth, manipulates and deceives him to follow through. As a king, he becomes a tyrant and starts to kill anyone who he felt threatened his position on the throne, including one of his good friends, Banquo and the family of MacDuff. Throughout his reign, the MacBeth’s guilty consciences take a toll on them and eventually lead to both of their downfall. Furthermore, MacBeth’s reign does not last long when MacDuff gets revenge against the tormentor by killing him in the end. As a result, King Duncan’s son, Malcolm, becomes king. Through the use of symbolism and characterization, William Shakespeare, in MacBeth, depicts how one’s desire to gain power causes others to change gender roles to create deception within an environment. In MacBeth, MacBeth’s horrific murders proved how strongly he desired to gain power. Desire means to have a strong feeling of wanting to have something or wishing for something to happen. When a person desires something, he or she becomes...
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