Literacy – Pygmalion
Pygmalion was a play that we learned in the past English literacy class. In this play, we analyzed the play, and with the same time, we focused on our writing skills. I think I improved a lot with my writing in this class and I did a lot of planning before writing the paper. Here is my argument essay for the play Pygmalion.
A man can change how a girl look, but does the look can change the girl’s internal identity as well as her external identity? Well, in the play of Pygmalion written by George Bernard Shaw explains how Eliza’s internal identity revise along her exterior personality. When the experiment of Higgins on how he could turn a poor girl into a proper lady in less than 6 months was over, two important things happened in the play and both of the scenes are clearly shows how Eliza changed her internal identity in a very short time.
In act IV, we recognize the lacking of Eliza confidence made her look very weak and that she needed someone to rely on. Higgins was thanking God that the experiment was over and that Eliza can go anywhere she wants and do what she wants to do. Then Eliza started to yell, “What am I fit for? What have you left me fit for? Where am I to go? What am I to do? What’s to become of me?” Eliza quickly responds to Higgins about what should she do with her life because she was so confused. This clearly shows how Eliza automatically got emotional and kept asked so many questions because she’s doesn’t know what’s happening. At last, we understand that she is afraid to leave the wimpole street, and that she is not confident enough to live by her own.
However, everything changed near the beginning of Act VI, we recognize that Eliza become a girl who is having enough self-agency to make a decision, very self-confidence and not relying on Higgins. One scene that we can say it is supporting the central idea is when Higgins and Eliza got into a really big argument, where Eliza understand that all Higgins wanted to do was to get rid of her. When Higgins told her to get out of his way, Eliza immediately stand up for herself. She said, “So you are a motor bus, all bounce and go, and no consideration for anyone. But I can do without you, don’t think I can’t.” Eliza reply back to Higgins with anger because she knows Higgins was totally wrong about her personality. She certainly knows that she can live by her own and she dares to say she can do things without Higgins’ help. From that part, we know that Eliza meant to leave, so she will not be a needle in Higgins’s eye and by responding to Higgins, she wants to prove Higgins that she will not depend on him. This demonstrate that Eliza is now a girl who is believing in herself, she will do what she wanted to and if someone trying to get around her, she’ll defence herself.
To sum up, Eliza does changed her internal identity as well as her external identity throughout the play based on the reasons explained above. We can spot the differences between what’s happening in act IV and at the end of act V. Eliza has changed from a poor girl to a lady who well educated, wearing proper clothes and at the same time her internal identity which is about self-confident and self-sufficient has grown along the way.