Ovid's Metamorphoses's Pygmalion and George Bernard Shaw's Pygmalion....

As my class has started reading the play “Pygmalion”, I tried to surf on the Internet on the definition of Pygmalion. This word is very new to me as I have never heard this word before. So, I just try my luck to search the definition online. Then, I went to the google search and type the word “Pygmalion” and bundles of results show up with the word “Pygmalion” in it. As I was in no hurry, I checked and read most of it and one that had caught my attention was the one about the sculpture and its creator in Ovid’s Metamorphoses. In Ovid’s Metamorphoses, it talks about a man who carved a sculpture and soon fell in love with his own sculpture. To him, everything about the sculpture is so perfect that he treated the sculpture like a real woman. He kisses the sculpture and treated it as his wife. This shows that the creator is in love with his own creation like such in the play “Pygmalion” as Mr Higgins fell in love with Eliza, a flower girl whom he made a lady. He molded her to become a lady, something that he himself had created and later he fell in love with it. But the differences it that, in Ovid’s metamorphoses, the sculpture is lifeless, therefore, it could not reject its creator’s love but in George Bernard Shaw’s “Pygmalion”, Eliza is very much human and she rejects Mr Higgins’s love to her and marry Freddy, a very common gentleman. In my opinion, the play “Pygmalion” was given its name as it is similar with the story of the sculpture and its creator in Ovid’s Metamorphosis. Both of them fell in love with their own inventions. The differences are that in George Bernard Shaw’s “Pygmalion”, Eliza was a human and Mr Higgins’s love was not returned while in Ovid’s Metamorphoses, the sculpture is lifeless and its creator’s love was not rejected as the sculpture could not speak. From the online search, I gain more information and knowledge about what “Pygmalion” is all about. Besides, I had also obtained a clearer idea of what “Pygmalion” is, which I think this is crucial in helping me to understand the play better. After gaining a closer view about this play, I felt that my interests in reading the play has grown as I wanted to know how would the story be presented in a play. Interesting! What a beautiful and unique story!

It is so ironic!

Today, Monday, August 13, 2007, we had our class as usual at FPP 211(A) and we continued reading the play “Pygmalion”. We continued reading from Act 2 up to the beginning of Act 3. In today’s lesson, once again, we identified a lot of irony used in the story. For example, Higgins are actually the one who is going to educate Eliza to be lady but he, himself had to be educated by Mrs Pearce on his way of behaving as a gentleman. Mrs Pearce also warned Higgins not to wipe his fingers on his shirt, the same way Higgins warned Eliza not to wipe her tears with her sleeves. It is ironic as Higgins is going to educate Eliza but he himself does not have the proper manners. Then, we also see the changes in Eliza in the way she speaks but she is still not a lady yet as she picks up from Higgins the way Higgins swears. From this lesson, we also get to see how rude or improper Higgins behaves himself although he is a gentleman. The humorous part is the ironic part of Higgins to educate Eliza as he himself needs to be educated.

It is really funny! Really!

It was Friday and we were having our class as usual from 3 pm to 4 pm at dkap B2-06. Today, our lecturer continued to read with us the play “Pygmalion”. Lecturer started reading from the last part of Act 1 and as usual, we will be busy jotting down notes and explanation from the lecturer. The play was really humorous and funny. Our lecturer tried to explain the play to us, just in case if there is anyone of us who could not understand the play will not miss the humorous part of the play. Thanks to our lecturer, we could understand the play better with his explanation. Our lecturer also asked us to take note of the terms used by Mr Higgins in referring to Eliza. While our lecturer was reading the play to us, we highlighted the important phrases in the play. As this lesson is only an hour class, our class ended very soon and we were assigned to read the play to identify the duration of the time taken for the play to take place. Again, the reading of “Pygmalion” was funny !! I love it!

The new has been discovered!

At the beginning of Wednesday class, we were taught about the theme of the play “Antigone”. Lecturer called out some of our names to go to the front of the class to write the theme of the play. Most of us have the chance to attempt this task and lecturer tried to explain to us what is a good theme and the appropriate theme for the play. Then, we were given the appropriate theme of the play by our lecturer. After that, we started the lesson by reading the new play “Pygmalion” by George Bernard Shaw. The new play was totally different from “Antigone”. By reading this play, I get a new insight to a new play which is not so much about tragic but it is closer to our recent lives. The play is about a flower girl, Eliza, who speaks lousy or non-standard English. Then, this girl met with a linguistics professor, Mr Higgins who later will teach her about pronunciation and phonetics that make her a lady out of a flower girl. I found that the play was rather humorous as the girl speaks English that is hard to be comprehended. She also made a lot of awful sound such as “Ah-ah-ow-ow-oo-oo”. It is so funny. After reading for a while, soon, our lesson stopped at the last part of Act 1. Lecturer asked us to do some reading at home before our next class on Friday and we will start reading the rest of the play on the next class. I love reading this play as it is humorous and funny! Really. It is funny!

Antigone ended......

On Monday, 6th of August 2007, we continued reading “Antigone” with our lecturer. Our lecturer tried to explain to us all the main and important points of the play to us. While our lecturer was reading the play to us, we tried to highlight the important phrases in the play and we even jotted down the important points and notes given by our lecturer. Although most of us can barely understand this play, our lecturer had been very patient with us. He did not scold us for being dummies for this play, but he spent a lot of time explaining to us the whole idea of the play as for us to comprehend the play better. In this lesson, we learnt about the relationships between the different characters in the play and the way they communicate with each other in order to identify their terms of relationship. We also learnt about the element of irony in this lesson as we tried to identify that what Creon said in the play is very ironical from his acts. We learnt a lot about fate, God, and destiny. Finally, we finished reading “Antigone” by the time our class ended. To sum up the lesson, lecturer revised with us what we had learnt about the play, the literary element we identified in the play and the whole idea of the play. “Antigone” is really a very tragic play indeed. It is interesting to be read as this play stimulates my thinking skills. “Antigone” rules!

The story continues......

On Friday, we had a one-hour class at dkap b2-06. It was really a hot day and as usual, we entered the class and got ourselves ready for the lesson. Then, our lecturer continued to read the play “Antigone” with us. The lecturer provided us with a lot of explanations on the text as he read it with us. In this lesson, we examined the relationship between all the characters in the play. We tried to identify the tone used by each character when they are talking to each other. We tried to rationalize the way and the tone they used when they are talking to each other in the play. In this lesson, we really examined the dialogue between each character very closely in order to find out their terms of relationships and the way the characters are behaving towards each other. As this Friday class was a short one, we could not examine completely all the relationships and the dialogues spoken by all the characters in the play. We will continue examining all these elements in our next Monday class. I am really looking forward to attend the next Monday class as to obtain more information and to gain a better understanding on the text.

Antigone begins..........

On Wednesday, 1st of August 2007, we learned about the play “Antigone” in the class. It was so nice of our lecturer to do the reading of the play with us and explained to us line by line the implicit meaning of the dialogues. There were so many implicit that resides in the dialogues that we, students, could not identify until our lecturer pointed out to us the meaning of the certain dialogues. We learned about some literary devices such as foreshadowing and metaphors in the class. Besides that, we also learned to identify the characteristics of the characters in the play through their dialogues. Lecturer taught us the way to identify the characteristics of the characters in the play by giving some hints and clues to us. Lecturer kept on making us to think so that we, readers will be more involved with the text by asking us some questions of why the characters act like the way they did in the play. I felt that by asking questions, the lecturer did really managed to get us to be more involved with the text. I, personally like the way our lecturer tries to get our attention to the text as I felt that this will keep me on track with what we are doing in the class and indirectly I can gain better comprehension on the text.
But the one thing that caught my attention the most in reading the text is the usage of the word “wisdom”, “wise”, “folly”, “foolishness” and “fool” in the text. All these words were in used for so many times in the text. I did not notice this at first until our lecturer highlighted those words to us and asked us to think about the usage of those words in the text. Soon, I realized that this play revolved around foolishness versus wisdom. These two words are very contrasting in this play. Only then, I realized that all those five words have their own different meaning that connotes in them. Although wise and wisdom sound almost the same, but actually they are of different meanings. Only after the explanations given by our lecturer, I realized that words can be so sophisticated.
All in all, the lesson was interesting as I had indulged myself in a lot of deep thinking. I love to think as thinking brings me closer to the subject that I am studying. Finally, I realized that by thinking, I am actually learning!