Subversion and Containment in George Bernard Shaw's Pygmalion

This paper sheds light on power relations in class struggle in George Bernard Shaw’s Pygmalion. Relying on Greenblatt’s dialectic of subversion and containment, it discusses the power of language in the hands of Professor Higgins to educate Eliza Doolittle, a member of lower class, to become a duchess with values of Bourgeoisie. The survival of a cultural order with the predominance of Bourgeoisie requires possibilities of crossing in class border and social roles. Language, in this dialectic, plays the identical role that religion has for the Natives to be contained in Christian ideology be Renaissance colonialists. And Higgins’ marvelous knowledge of the accents has the same function that scientific objects rendered for the Natives. Although this power relation takes advantage of a gap in the knowledge and perception of the subordinating group, the subjectivity, which is not authentic and humane, shaped by it is catastrophic leading to identity loss.

کلیدواژه ها:

subversion ، containment ، language ، class ، power