Explain Pygmalion as a Problem Play
Explain Pygmalion as a Problem Play
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Lucifer Morningstar
Problem play takes up important issues of the society using the way of conversation between the characters or actors in the play before the audience. These characters express different ideas which clash with each other. These clashing ideas help the audience and the readers to understand the issue and reach a solution on their own.
In Pygmalion by GB Shaw, Professor Henry Higgins makes Cockney speaking flower girl Eliza Doolittle to master English. He succeeds in doing so within six months. Eliza succeeds in learning English and can speak it fluently. However, the rise in her standard because of her language now becomes a problem for her.
She develops the feeling of love for Professor Higgins but the latter remains cold to it. She can neither live with him nor she can go back to flower-selling business. Having no choice she has to marry Freddy, a poor and petty man.
This is what a person who is poor and uneducated feels when he suddenly becomes rich and literate. Hence it is a problem play. The playwright leaves it to the audience to decide what Eliza should have done.