LITERATURE (Bernard Shaw’s Pygmalion)

ESSAY ON ADAPTATION OF BERNARD SHAW 'S PLAY `PYGMALION ' IN TO FILM

I would like to select Film as the media to adapt Bernard Shaw 's play `Pygmalion . There has been two films on Shaw 's Pygmalion , `Pygmalion and `My fair lady` . And they have been instant hit . Film is one of the most popular media today . It has the potential of reaching to people all over the world . When I read Bernard Shaw 's Plays like `Arms and the Man , `Candida ' or `Pygmalion , I want the characters to come alive . The scenes

are memorable . Shaw 's characters are lovable , they touch our heart . The plays have such potential that they can truly be adapted into films . This has been proved correct by many attempts by film makers on his plays . Some names are `Arms and the Man` , `Caesar and Cleopatra `Androcles and the Lion ' and of course play `Pygmalion`

The play `Pygmalion ' is based on a Greek myth . Pygmalion is a sculpture who craved a woman of ivory so beautiful , that he himself fell in love with his own creation . This classic play `Pygmalion , tells the story of Eliza Doolittle , a poor flower girl of twenty who takes speech lessons from phonetician Henry Higgins in to fulfill her dream of working in a flower shop . Eliza succeeds to outgrow her low social status and she is thought as a princess by the high society . According to the myth Professor Higgins falls in love with Eliza . And thus the play has a happy ending . This claim is negated by Shaw in his Sequel . Shaw says The rest of the story need not be shown in action , and indeed , would hardly need telling if our imaginations were not so enfeebled by their lazy dependence on the ready-mades and reach-me-downs of the rag shop in which Romance keeps its stock of "happy endings " to misfit all stories . I believe that she should neither marry the professor nor should she marry Freddy . This idea has been elaborated in this essay . To accommodate the play into a film , I have contrived changes in the characters , setting and scenes in the play

In the first scene of the play Professor Higgins is shown as a man standing at one corner of portico of St Paul 's church taking notes . To adapt the play in to a film , I would like to add a beginning by pointing out how the professor comes to be present near the Covent Garden in the first place . I suggest that the professor was passing through Covent Garden when it started raining . He takes shelter under the portico of St Paul 's church where he meets the characters of the play , Colonel Pickering , Mrs . X Eynsford Hill , her daughter Miss Clara Eynsford Hill and her son Frederick Eynsford Hill and finally Eliza Doolittle , the flower girl . And it is here that he bets to Colonel Pickering that he can transform the unmannered , low class girl to a polished woman and...