CLASS STRUGGLE IN CAPITALIST SOCIETY AS DEPICTED IN GEORGE BERNARD SHAW S PYGMALION

Transcription

1 i CLASS STRUGGLE IN CAPITALIST SOCIETY AS DEPICTED IN GEORGE BERNARD SHAW S PYGMALION A THESIS Presented as a Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements to obtain the Magister Humaniora (M.Hum) Degree in English Language Studies by Yohanes Tuaderu Student Number: THE GRADUATE PROGRAM IN ENGLISH LANGUAGE STUDIES SANATA DHARMA UNIVERSITY YOGYAKARTA 2008 i

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4 iv STATEMENT OF ORIGINALITY This is to certify that all ideas, phrases, and sentences, unless otherwise stated, are the ideas, phrases, and sentences of the thesis writer. The writer understands the full consequences including degree cancellation if he takes somebody else s ideas, phrases, or sentences without proper references. Yogyakarta, October 15, 2008 Yohanes Tuaderu iv

5 v LEMBAR PERNYATAAN PERSETUJUAN PUBLIKASI KARYA ILMIAH UNTUK KEPERLUAN AKADEMIS Yang bertanda tangan di bawah ini, saya mahasiswa Universitas Sanata Dharma: Nama : Yohanes Tuaderu Nomor Mahasiswa : Demi pengembangan ilmu pengetahuan, saya memberikan kepada Perpustakaan Universitas Sanata Dharma karya ilmiah saya yang berjudul: Class Struggle in Capitalist Society as Depicted in George Bernard Shaw s Pygmalion Beserta perangkat yang diperlukan (bila ada). Dengan demikian saya memberikan kepada Perpustakaan Universitas Sanata Dharma hak untuk menyimpan, mengalihkan dalam bentuk media lain, mengelolanya dalam bentuk pangkalan data, mendistribusikan secara terbatas, dan mempublikasikan di Internet atau media lain untuk keperluan akademis tanpa perlu meminta ijin dari saya maupun memberikan royalti kepada saya selama tetap mencantumkan nama saya sebagai penulis. Demikian pernyataan ini yang saya buat dengan sebenarnya. Di buat di Yogyakarta Pada tanggal: 23 Januari 2009 Yang menyatakan (Yohanes Tuaderu) v

6 vi ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Praise the Lord for all of His blessings. It is solely His grace that I can get this very special opportunity to pursue my education to the graduate program. It is only with His companion and guidance that I eventually finish this thesis. Deo gratias. Great gratitude is sincerely addressed to my supervisor, Bapak Prof. Dr. C. Bakdi Soemanto, SU., for his critical guidance and his patience that allow me to go deep down into the essence of the analysis of the thesis. I am very impressed to his welcome invitation to me to come to his house in Podang 2 Demangan Baru anytime I need his help. Honestly, his friendly and familiar attention has become a very helpful factor that encourages me to finish the thesis. A special thanks goes to Ibu Dr. Novita Dewi, M.S., M.A., who gives so many inputs through her careful reading on this thesis. She is also very friendly and welcoming as well. My thankfulness should also be addressed to Ibu Sri Mulyani, M.A and Bapak Paulus Sarwoto, M.A who taught and guided me in literature classes in very interesting teaching and approaches. I will not forget the special meeting held on June, 26, 2008 when Bapak Dr. B.B. Dwi Jatmoko (the Head of English Language Studies Program), Bapak Dr. J. Bismoko, Bapak F.X. Mukarto, Ph.D., and Ibu Dr. Novita Dewi, M.S., M.A. encourage all students of ELS to finish vi

7 vii their thesis as soon as possible. This meeting is very important for me since it makes me aware again to continue compiling this thesis. Thank you for your warm attention and powerful motivation. I dedicate this thesis especially to my beloved wife, Ika Situmorang, and my lovely and smart children I left, Febby and Nuel, for more than two years to finish this study. They are the greatest inspiration and the strongest motivation when I encounter hard and boring times in my period of study. For them, I will give whatever I have for I love them very much till the end of my life. Last but not least, I thank all my friends of KBI 2006 batch for their warm friendship I may enjoy for more than two years. I need to mention some names: Mbak Endang, Mas Suryo, Mas Widya, Mbak Ari, Mbak Ully, Mbak Zaki, Mas Tigor, Mbak Santi, Mas Davy, Mbak Ruth, Thomas, Dian, Kapris, Yuni and Venty. When I remember and imagine their faces, I remember the unforgettable togetherness I experienced with them in Yogyakarta. Good luck, Friends. God bless you all! vii

8 viii TABLE OF CONTENTS Page TITLE PAGE... i APPROVAL PAGE.. ii BOARD OF EXAMINERS.. iii STATEMENT OF ORIGINALITY. iv LEMBAR PERNYATAAN PERSETUJUAN PUBLIKASI KARYA ILMIAH UNTUK KEPERLUAN AKADEMIS... ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS. v vi TABLE OF CONTENTS. viii LIST OF TABLES... x ABSTRACT. xi ABSTRAK... xiii I. INTRODUCTION.. 1 A. Background of the Study. 1 B. Problem Limitation. 9 C. Problem Formulation D. The Objectives of the Study 11 E. Research Method. 12 F. The Significance of the Study.. 14 II. LITERATURE REVIEW.. 16 A. Review on Related Studies.. 16 B. Review of Related Theories Theory of Homology 23 a. Class Distinction 27 b. Human Exploitation Marxist Criticism.. 33 C. Theoretical Framework 40 III. SOCIAL CONDITION IN CAPITALIST SOCIETY AS PORTRAYED IN PYGMALION A. Class Distinction Physical Appearance Names of Characters Way of Behaving and Speaking B. Human Exploitation. 67 C. Social Implication of Class Distinction and Human Exploitation Dehumanization 83 2 Poverty.. 93 viii

9 ix IV. MAIN CHARACTER S REACTION TO THE SOCIAL CONDI- TIONS AS THE PORTRAIT OF THE WORKING CLASS STRUGGLE IN CAPITALIST SOCIETY A. Class Struggle to Oppose the Capitalist Oppression 101 B. Class Struggle to Abolish Class Distinction 125 V. CONCLUSION 140 BIBLIOGRAPHY 146 APPENDICES Biography of George Bernard Shaw Synopsis of Pygmalion ix

10 x LIST OF TABLES Table 1. Description of Physical Appearance and Clothes.. 44 Table 2. The Comparison of Room Items. 54 x

11 xi ABSTRACT Tuaderu, Yohanes Class Struggle in Capitalist Society as Depicted in George Bernard Shaw s Pygmalion. Yogyakarta: The Graduate Program in English Language Studies. Sanata Dharma University. Class struggle is a collective reaction of the workers toward the inhumane treatments of the capitalists. The bad treatments manifest in low wages, long working hours (12 to 19 hours per day), and the imposition of bad discipline and fine system. The capitalists avarice to accumulate the surplus value as high as possible is believed as the main causal factor of the treatment. By employing sociological approach of literature, Pygmalion a play of five acts written by George Bernard Shaw is considered as one of the literary pieces of the early twentieth century that portrays the social condition of British society at the era when capitalism reached its height. Shaw himself is a socialist who supports the working class struggle through his propaganda, public lectures, critical essays, and literary works that attack the human exploitation in industrial sphere. The objectives of this research are: 1) to reveal the social conditions in capitalist society in England in the end of nineteenth century and the early twentieth century as reflected in Pygmalion, 2) to present the class struggle which is done by the main character of Pygmalion as the reaction toward the social condition in capitalist society. These two objectives are formulated in their inseparable relationship with the practices in capitalist society where human relation is always related to the economic affair between the capitalist and the workers. The capitalist has a big economic power since the capital, production machinery, and raw materials are fully in his hands. Meanwhile the workers do not have anything except their labor power that they sell in a very low price to earn their living and to stay survive. This is a qualitative research using two main theories i.e., 1) Theory of Homology postulated by Lucien Goldmann which is used to prove the interdependent relationship between the society which is told in Shaw s Pygmalion and the real society in England at the time when Pygmalion was written, 2) Marxist criticism which is theorized by some scholars to analyze class struggle done by the main character of Pygmalion which is assumed as the portrait of the unstopped struggle of the proletariat to achieve their rights which are ignored by the bourgeoisie for hundred of years. These two theories are considered as the most appropriate instruments to analyze one of Shaw s masterpieces, Pygmalion, since Shaw himself was a genuine socialist who strived for the social reform of British society which is signed by the presence of democracy, the admission of human rights, the just distribution of social welfare, and the reasonable respect to the individual freedom. The data which are used in the analysis consist of the main data and the supporting data. The main data are gathered from the text of Pygmalion in forms of xi

12 xii dialogue and stage direction. Meanwhile, the supporting data are collected from various references such as books, articles, and magazines which are available both in the university library as well as on-line sources about the social condition in England in the early twentieth century and critiques of Shaw s literary works. The result of the study shows that the social condition in England in the end of nineteenth century to the early twentieth century is mostly affected by the practice of class distinction and human exploitation in industry sphere. Meanwhile, the class struggle which is done by the main character of Pygmalion is the portrait of the struggle of the working class to free themselves from poverty, to release them from the capitalist oppression, and to gain the admission from the society that they have equal dignity as other human beings in society. This thesis intends to indicate to the readers that by employing the sociological approach of literature, a play prose and poetry as well can reveal the social condition of a group of people of certain place and time. It may happen since literary works are one of the social documents which reflect social phenomena and human interrelation aesthetically. In addition, the writer of this thesis also wants to underline the truth that has been trusted for a long time that literary pieces can be utilized as educational means to teach the society by using their moral messages that exist beyond the works. xii

13 xiii ABSTRAK Tuaderu, Yohanes Class Struggle in Capitalist Society as Depicted in George Bernard Shaw s Pygmalion. Yogyakarta: The Graduate Program in English Language Studies. Sanata Dharma University. Class struggle merupakan reaksi kolektif dari kaum buruh terhadap perlakuan yang tidak manusiawi dari kaum kapitalis. Perlakuan itu menjelma dalam bentuk rendahnya upah kerja, jam kerja yang sangat panjang (12-19 jam sehari), dan pemberlakuan disiplin dan system denda/hukuman yang sangat berat. Keserakahan kaum kapitalis untuk mengumpulkan surplus value sebesar-besarnya dianggap sebagai penyebab utama dari perlakuan yang buruk itu. Dengan menggunakan pendekatan sosiologi sastra, Pygmalion sebuah drama 5 babak karangan George Bernard Shaw diyakini sebagai karya sastra awal abad ke-20 yang memotret situasi sosial masyarakat Inggris ketika sistem kapitalis mencapai puncak kejayaannya. Shaw sendiri adalah seorang sosialist yang mendukung class struggle kaum buruh melalui propaganda-propaganda, kuliah umum, essai-essai berisi kritikan pedas terhadap eksploitasi manusia di lingkungan industri, dan yang paling banyak adalah melalui karya-karya sastranya. Tujuan penelitian dari tesis ini adalah untuk: 1) mengungkapkan kondisi sosial dalam masyarakat kapitalis di Inggris pada akhir abad ke-19 sampai awal abad ke-20 sebagaimana direfleksikan dalam Pygmalion, 2) melihat class struggle yang dilakukan oleh pelaku utama dalam Pygmalion sebagai reaksi terhadap kondisi sosial dalam masyarakat kapitalis saat itu. Kedua tujuan ini dirumuskan dalam kaitan yang erat dengan pengaruh dari kehidupan dalam masyarakat kapitalis di mana hubungan antarmanusia (baca Gary Day) dilihat sebagai hubungan ekonomi antara pemilik perusahaan dengan kaum pekerja. Pemilik perusahaan memiliki kekuatan ekonomi yang besar karena modal, mesin produksi, dan bahan baku sepenuhnya berada dalam kekuasaannya. Sedangkan kaum pekerja tidak memiliki apa-apa selain tenaga fisik (labor power) yang terpaksa mereka jual murah supaya bisa tetap bertahan hidup. Penelitian ini adalah penelitian kualitatif dengan menggunakan 2 (dua) teori utama yaitu: 1) Teori Homologi dari Lucien Goldmann untuk membuktikan hubungan resiprokal antara masyarakat yang diceritakan oleh Shaw dalam Pygmalion dengan masyarakat dalam realita di Inggris pada saat Pygmalion ditulis, 2) Teori Marxisme dari berbagai ahli yang dipakai untuk menganalisis class struggle si pelaku utama dalam Pygmalion yang merupakan potret dari perjuangan tanpa henti dari kaum proletariat untuk mendapatkan hak-hak mereka yang selama sekian ratus tahun tidak mereka dapatkan dari kaum borjuis. Kedua teori ini dianggap sebagai alat yang paling tepat untuk menganalisis karya besar Shaw, Pygmalion, sejalan dengan perjuangan Shaw sendiri dalam melakukan reformasi sosial yang ditandai dengan hadirnya demokrasi, pengakuan hak-hak asasi manusia, pemerataan kesejahteraan, dan penghargaan terhadap kebebasan individu. xiii

14 xiv Data yang dipakai dalam analisis terdiri dari data utama dan data pendukung. Data utama diperoleh dari teks drama Pygmalion berupa dialog antarpelaku dan stage direction. Sedangkan data pendukung diperoleh dari berbagai referensi seperti bukubuku, artikel-artikel, dan majalah baik yang tersedia di perpustakaan universitas maupun yang diakses dari situs-situs internet yang memberi masukan tentang situasi sosial di Inggris pada awal abad ke-20 maupun kajian sastra dari para kritikus terkenal terhadap karya-karya Shaw. Hasil penelitian menunjukkan bahwa kondisi sosial di Inggris pada akhir abad ke-19 sampai awal abad ke-20 sangat dipengaruhi oleh praktek pembedaan manusia menurut kelas-kelas sosial dan eksploitasi manusia dalam lingkungan industri. Pembedaan manusia menurut kelas dan praktek ekploitasi manusia oleh manusia lain berdampak pada dehumanisasi dan kemiskinan berkepanjangan yang dialami oleh kaum pekerja. Sedangkan perjuangan kelas yang dilakukan oleh pelaku utama dari Pygmalion ternyata merupakan potret dari perjuangan kaum pekerja untuk membebaskan dirinya dari kemiskinan, untuk lepas dari penindasan pemilik modal, dan untuk mendapatkan pengakuan sebagai manusia yang memiliki harkat, derajat dan martabat yang sama dengan manusia lain dalam masyarakat. Tesis ini ingin menunjukkan kepada para pembaca bahwa dengan menggunakan pendekatan sosiologi sastra, sebuah drama sebagaimana juga prosa dan puisi dapat mengungkapkan situasi kemasyarakatan di suatu tempat pada zaman tertentu. Hal itu terjadi karena karya sastra merupakan salah satu dokumen masyarakat yang merefleksikan persoalan-persoalan sosial dan hubungan antarmanusia secara estetik. Selain itu, penulis tesis ini ingin juga menggaris-bawahi apa yang telah diyakini benar bahwa karya sastra dapat pula menjadi sarana untuk mendidik masyarakat melalui pesan-pesan moral yang dikemas secara metaforik dalam dialog, monolog, dan arahan lakon yang menyertai karya tersebut. xiv

15 1 CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION A. Background of the Study Literature does not stand in isolation. It arises in its strong connection with other elements outside the text. One of the most obvious elements is social context. This is to say that literature never exists without any reciprocal relationship with social condition, political issue, and economic situation at the time when a literary work is written. Wolff (1989:12) asserts, So far I have argued that art is not necessarily produced in isolation and in opposition to any social group. I now want to examine the actual nature of artistic production, and compare this with other forms of production. Most sociologists of art and Marxist proponents believe that literature is the expression of society. Every society has its own artistic production to portray its social phenomenon, human intercourse, and political or economic problems. Louis Althusser, for example, through his production theory, argues that literature is influenced by dominant hegemony or prevailing ideology of a society that shape the authors worldview in producing arts (Bressler, 1999:217). The authors imagination is grasped as the main strength to employ certain social phenomenon or event to be an aesthetic product in forms of plays, poems, and novels to reflect and mirror certain ideas and values underpinned by a particular social community. These works flourish from and root in certain social condition and therefore become a social production. The authors,

16 2 who represent society of a given period, produce literary works based on certain social context. As members of society, they interact with many people. They witness what people experience and feel as the implication of poverty, social and economic injustice, political instability, wars, technological invention in new industrial era, and the emergence of new way of thinking about many aspects of life. Generated by all those facts they then write their poems or plays or novels. Here, authors play roles as spokesmen and women who voice the actual social situation through their writings. From this perspective, the ultimate source of the writings is not the individual author but rather the social situation from which the authors emerge and of which they role as the midwives who assist the birth of literary pieces. In fact, they do not write from their own intelligences but from the momentum they catch from the society where they live. In accordance with this concept, Barry (1995,158) states that instead of seeing authors as primarily autonomous inspired individuals whose genius and creative imagination enables them to bring forth original and timeless works of art, the Marxist sees them as constantly formed by their social context. The material object of this thesis is Pygmalion a play written by George Bernard Shaw; an art critic, a social reformer, and a socialist lecturer. His meeting with Henry George in 1884 who proposed that national revenue should be collected by a single tax on land rather than by a numerous taxes on several things and his new acquaintance to the works of Karl Marx introduced by H.M. Hyndman was considered as a turning point in Shaw s life that directed him to be an activist in Fabian Society and Social Democratic Federation (see Appendix 1).

17 3 Written in England between 1913 and 1916, Pygmalion is a comedy about a phonetics expert, Professor Henry Higgins, who attempts to make a lady out of an uneducated flower girl for his linguistic and social experiment. The comic nuance is found in the vision of the folly, the lack understanding and the stupidity of the professor who thinks that social reconstruction can be simply conducted by teaching English people to speak proper language. In this sense, Pygmalion is a satirical comedy that not only stimulates its audience to laugh but also satires certain social ignorance and injustice. In fact, class distinction is not simply the matter of different way of speaking but a reality of the presence of capital holding class and the working class as the consequence of the concept and the practice of capitalist system. Shaw points out how language creates divisions in society based on the fact that the way ones speak a language indicates their social class. The scene in the portico of St Paul's Church is a brilliant introduction to the play because in that small area and within a short space of time Shaw has exposed to his audience a small cross-section of English society. Eliza and the bystanders occupy the lower class in society. Colonel Pickering represents the force and authority of that society used with some charity and humanity sense. Freddy and his mother and sister are the representatives of ineffectual gentility, while Higgins himself is the power of the intellectual and the social engineer, as he himself proceeds to boast, HIGGINS: You see this creature with her kerbstone English: the English that will keep her in the gutter to the end of her days. Well, sir, in three months I could pass that girl off as a duchess at an ambassador's garden party. I could even get her a place as lady's maid or shop assistant, which requires better English.

18 4 (Chin, 2000:897) Shaw shows explicitly the different way of speaking among people who are seeking for shelter during a heavy rain under the portico of St. Paul s Church, Covent Garden. The chaotic way of uttering words shown by Eliza and the bystanders indicates that they are from lower class supported by their ill-mannered, uncouth, coarse and grimy performance. While the subtle way of speaking performed by Colonel Pickering, the Eynsford Hills, and Higgins shows that they are from higher social class who are characterized by well-mannered, well-spoken, socially refined, having civilized benefits supported by wealth and education. Pygmalion probes important issue about social class division based on the way people speak their language and Shaw is the midwife who helps the birth of this famous play. Actually, long time before the industrial revolution, there had been social class divisions in England regarding to the feudal society s policy on land-tenure. There were, as informed by Gregg (1957, 20), five classes connected with the land. They were the lord of manor who was the largest landowner in the village and the legal owner of wasteland, the freeholders who had been noted from the Tudor times for their sturdy independence and were considered as the backbone of England, people who held their land by varying tenures (but who all paid rent for it), the squatters and cottagers who had no land but may build cottages on the wasteland to feed pigs or to pasture cows or to gather firewood from the woodland and cut turf from the waste, and the farm servants and laborers who worked for the farmers. When the industrial revolution occurred in

19 5 the period of the late 18th and early 19th centuries the notion of class changed. Kuper (1996, 90) asserts, In the course of the first decades of the nineteenth century the term class gradually replaced estates, ranks and orders as the major word used to denote divisions within society. The change of vocabulary reflected the diminishing significance of rank and ascribed or inherited qualities in general, and the growing importance of possessions and income among the determinants of the social position. Since this period of time, class no longer refers merely to the existing social groups but also to the new characteristics of social classes in industrial society. It is the new social divisions created by a new way of interactions and behavior among people based on the possession of capital the capital owner and the waged workers. Class, here, has an economic meaning located in the economic process of production, distribution, and consumption. In this economic process and relation, each class gives their special contribution and receives in different amount the labor wage depend on their position in the factory. This notion makes a clear cut difference between the owners of the manufacture (the capitalists) whose livelihood depends on the profits of the company and the labourers (the working class) who work in the manufactures by selling their labour power. As a social reformer, Shaw was so concerned with that new atmosphere of human interaction and behavior in society. All dialogues between Higgins and Eliza in Pygmalion, for instance, are deliberately created to portray how the upper class treats the lower class. Eliza represents the lower class people in England who strive for better life because of the poverty they face. Shaw satirizes the social norms of his time

20 6 through a comedy about Eliza who wants to improve her life by learning a proper way of speaking in Higgins laboratory. Purdom (1964:9) states, In the early eighteen eighties there was constant and increasing unemployment in London and much social distress of a kind altogether unfamiliar today. Shaw was deeply impressed by the widespread poverty, and being not far from poverty himself. This quotation informs that by the end of nineteenth century, caused by the great effect of industrial revolution lasting for more or less one century, poverty had become a problem in more complicated dimensions. Occurring at a time when the influence of the mechanical system in industry for mass product and the ignoring of human manual system in home industry for individual product, the poverty constituted a serious threat to national stability. Industrialization had brought a demographic shift causing many more unskilled laborers to seek work in the city. So, humanity and public interest was directed to the problem of the poor. Purdom (1964, 99) has this to say, Shaw s socialism was the outcome of his passion for order. His constant charge against the existing social order was that it was inefficient, wasteful, cruel, stupid, and shameful. Highly individualistic as he was, he was opposed to any form of anarchy, which he considered the existing order to be. With his strong background in economics and politics, Shaw s socialist viewpoint reacts toward the problem through his writings one of them is Pygmalion with a hope for human improvement. His political feeling encouraged him to found The Fabian Society in 1884, a socialist political organization dedicated to transforming England into a socialist state, not by revolution but by systematic progressive legislation, supported by persuasion and mass education. Through this organization he started to make socialism a practical, constitutional and respectable belief. He took part

21 7 in all controversies of the age and became a famous speaker, although always unpaid. At the general election of 1892, the Fabians induced the Liberal Party to adopt their New Castle programme of social reform. Having won the election on it, the Liberals quickly dropped it; and the Fabians determined to form their own political group. The result of their hard efforts is the appearance of Labour Party in parliament in 1906 (Arnstein, 1988:195). In 1914, World War I or the Great War began with the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand of Austria in Sarajevo, Bosnia (Galens, 1998). Personally, Shaw s interest in education preventing the tragic destruction of human life due to wars was demonstrated in Pygmalion also. Great Britain was still a colonial power with colonies in the Pacific, Atlantic, Africa and the Caribbean. Queen Victoria characterized the times with a set of values called Victorianism which revolved around social highmindedness, domesticity, and a confidence based on the expansion of knowledge and the power of reasoned argument to change society. In 1956, Pygmalion was adapted into a musical play entitled My Fair Lady by American song writers: Alan Jay Lerner and Frederick Loewe. It became one of the most commercially successful plays in the history of international musical theatre that attracts millions of spectators in more than 21 countries (especially in the two most influential and famous theatres: New York s Broadway and London s West End), translated into 11 languages, played in thousands performances, and takes great financial profit from the ticket selling. Shepard s article in The New York Times (October 21, 1964:56), claims that,

22 8 The musical adaptation of George Bernard Shaw s Pygmalion, by Alan Jay Lerner and Frederick Loewe, has been jingling tunefully at box offices ever sing the first curtain was raised on Broadway on March 15, Since that date, the show has smashed records blithely. A six-and-a half-year Broadway run was seen by 3,750,000 persons (60,000 of them standees), who paid $20,233,918 to see 2,717 performances. In other page, Shepard adds, The show has played in 21 countries from Iceland to Japan, where 15 million playgoers have paid more than $30 million in pounds, marks, yen and pesos to enjoy, in 11 languages. In England, it had a record run of five and a half years- 2,281 performances. In 1964, supported by its great success as a musical play, My Fair Lady was produced as a film directed by George Cukor under the same title. It won several awards such as Oscar Award, Tony Award, Olivier Award, Drama Desk Award, and Theatre World Award in various categories such as the best musical, the best actor and actress in musical, the best scenic design, the best choreography, the best costume design, the best conductor and musical director, the outstanding featured actor in musical, and the outstanding musical production (Shepard, 1964). The facts that Pygmalion is written by a very prominent playwright who is also a social reformer, that Pygmalion has a great entertaining quality when it is adapted into a musical play entitled My Fair Lady, and that Pygmalion reflects the social distinction and human exploitation in industrial environment in England has encouraged the writer of this thesis to choose it as the material object of his analysis. Focusing on the issue about class struggle as the reaction of the main character, the writer of this thesis decides to entitle his thesis CLASS STRUGGLE IN CAPITALIST SOCIETY AS DEPICTED IN GEORGE BERNARD SHAW S PYGMALION. The analysis will be

23 9 employed by using sociological approach as the most suitable way to answer the research questions deal with the social conditions that motivates the main character to do class struggle. There are many modes of class struggle practiced by people of lower class to reach higher social class. The most common ways we know through human history are class struggle through violence, proletarian revolution, and the dictatorship of the proletariat (Wilczynski, 1984:343). In this analysis, class struggle is understood as an extreme effort of a certain member of society to have better life not through violence or revolution but through education and self-awareness as free and independent social beings. The decision to struggle for a better and happier life is an independent choice made in free atmosphere and full consciousness as dignified human being. It means that one should act as subject of his own life not as the object exploited by others. The writer believes that individual fulfillment and liberty are of prime importance. B. Problem Limitation The close reading on Pygmalion reveals the play s social contexts symbolized by the characters behaviors, dialogues, and way of thinking. Their behaviors picture how they perceive the social world. The dialogues in every act show how they develop a social interaction as the representation of human interaction and social intercourse in real life. Their attitudes reflect how human beings act individually and collectively to build up their relationship in society. In this thesis, the researcher focuses his analysis primarily on the social aspects

24 10 of the class struggle represented by Eliza s desire to attain better life and higher status than a flower girl in society. Since there are so many plays written by Shaw (see Appendix 1), the writer only chooses Pygmalion as single selected play to be his material object of study. It is assumed that this play contains the message on class struggle in capitalist society to convey to the audience. Since Shaw is a socialist and one of the key figures in the establishment of the Fabian Society a middle-class socialist group who believed that social reform should come through the gradual education of the people and through changes in intellectual and political life, not through revolution the theories used are socialist perspectives based on Marxist teaching. The elaboration in the analytical chapters focuses on the social condition that encourages the main character of Pygmalion struggle for a better social status. C. Problem Formulation Based on the information in the background of the study, there are two main questions to be answered through this thesis, 1. What social conditions in capitalist society are portrayed by Pygmalion? 2. What is the main character s reaction to the social conditions that portrays the working class struggle in capitalist society? The first question deals with the social condition that is portrayed in Pygmalion. To answer this question the writer uses sociological approach to see the relationship between the society in the play and the real society in the end of nineteenth century and the early of twentieth century. The description of the society both in the play and in real

25 11 life at the given time helps the writer to answer the second question and understand why the main character in the play decides to do class struggle. This second question is analyzed by using Marxist criticism since class struggle which usually leads to class conflict that performed by Shaw in Pygmalion satirically - is one of the main concerns in Marxism. D. The Objectives of the Study Since the analysis of this thesis deals with the social condition and the character s class struggle depicted in Pygmalion, so the objectives of the study are: 1. The presentation of social condition in capitalist society in England in the end of nineteenth century and the early twentieth century that become the background of the production of Pygmalion. 2. The presentation of the main character s reactions to the social conditions as the portrait of the working class struggle in capitalist society. The first objective is elaborated in Chapter III with the main investigation on social conditions in capital society in England. This assumption emerges from the belief that Pygmalion is a social document that reflects the society at the time when it was written and therefore can be used to portray the social condition as well. While the second objective is analyzed in Chapter IV to verify a hypothesis that certain social condition of society establishes in its members a special reaction whether to remain survive under any life oppression or more than to be survived to struggle to attain higher social and economic status. The analysis used to achieve these two objectives

26 12 will be based on the characters statements, judgments or comments stated explicitly in the play that show their behaviors, feelings, and thoughts on both the social condition they are engaging and the reaction toward the social conditions. E. Research Method The object of this thesis is the text of Pygmalion written by George Bernard Shaw. The discussion focuses on the plot of the play. The analysis on the plot shows the relationships between sequences and acts. It is assumed that the relationships between those elements can be elaborated with the use of sociological approach and Marxist criticism to find the answers of the research problems. Sociological approach is used to find the answer of social condition based on the theory of sociology of literature that considers literary work as social product of certain identifiable social group in certain historical period and as social document that reflects social reality. In line with this consideration, the writer of this thesis also tries to show the interdependent relationship between the society in the play and the society in real life based on the theory of homology. It is assumed that in writing a literary work an author is influenced by his or her society structurally. The result is the social structure in literary work is similar to that in real life. As this is a qualitative research, the data collection is done through a library research. There is no interview with certain people or questionnaires distributed to particular group of respondents. The collection of data is conducted by finding and reading references that relate to and support the discussion on the theories used in the

27 13 analysis. This is done by reading books in the university library or books that are available in internet website. There are two types of data used in this research; the primary data and the secondary data. The primary data are taken from the play script. Secondary data are collected from Shaw s biography and prominent critics writings on Pygmalion. Further more, since the play tells about life in the early of twentieth century, the writer also collects the data on the British history related to the setting of time and place of the play. This historical data is used to grasp the sociopolitical contexts that backgrounds the production of Pygmalion. There are three steps taken in the research, i.e. explication, interpretation, and description. In the explication step, the researcher attempts to master and to understand the primary data in details as the material object of the research. In this step the researcher gets the surface meaning of the story. The second step is developed to find the hidden meaning of the primary data. It is done by finding out the meaning from the written text or from things which are not stated literarily in the play. The availability of the secondary data is very crucial in this step. The study needs to dig the author s hidden message by the help of available books and references. In this sense, the availability of information talking about the sociopolitical context of Pygmalion is very helpful. The understanding of the sociopolitical background provides important clues to make more accurate and qualified interpretation since interpretation demands adequate historical information to correlate the research finding and the Zeitgeist of the

28 14 play. And the third step deals with the effort to formulate the interpretation in forms of description or explanation sequenced in logic sentences and paragraphs. F. The Significance of the Study Regarding to the objectives of this study, the first contribution this thesis may offer is that the readers may know the social condition in capitalist society in England in the era of more or less one century ago and how the spirit of class struggle has influenced the labor movements at that time. In this sense, this study helps the readers in Indonesia in this era including the students of English and even my institution in Padang to understand the reason why labor movement was so popular in capitalist society as the way to strive for working class rights and freedom. Labor movement arises from the fact that most laborers are exploited, dehumanized, and therefore pauperized by the capitalist system. The second contribution is the understanding the readers may get in accordance with Marxist teaching. The breaking up of the USSR in the late 1980s and other states in the Balkan region till the early years of the 21 st century lead many people to draw a conclusion that Marxism has come to its end at the same seconds with the death of those communist and socialist countries. But it is, of course, not a right conclusion at all. Marxist concept is still and will always be one of the most influential alternatives when the sociopolitical struggles deal with the working class fate and welfare. Marxism, as stated by Bressler (1999:211), details a plan for changing the world from a place of bigotry, hatred, and conflict due to class struggle to a classless society where wealth,

29 15 opportunity, and education are accessible for all people. Perhaps this is the answer why Marxist concepts will never disappear from human s mind. Inspired by this study, hopefully, this thesis can motivate other researchers to do studies on other topic deals with the struggle for human development in other Shaw s works. Furthermore, as far as the situation is possible, this study also encourages the readers to support everyone who struggles for better life.

30 16 CHAPTER II LITERATURE REVIEW This chapter discusses the theoretical bases of this research. The first subchapter will focus on the related studies that review the existing scholars criticisms on Pygmalion to show how this research has a relationship to previous criticisms and how the analysis can be related to literature in general. The second sub-chapter deals with the theories which are assumed as the most appropriate instruments to use in answering the research questions stated in the previous chapter. There are two main theories used in this thesis analysis. The first theory is homology which is utilized to bridge the relationship between the society in Pygmalion and the society in real life. The second theory is Marxist criticism which deals with the idea of class struggle. These two theories are chosen since the objectives of this research are the presentation of the social conditions in capitalist society as portrayed in Pygmalion and the presentation of the main character s reaction to the social conditions that reflects the working class struggle in capitalist society. The third sub-chapter is the theoretical framework that describes how each theory is employed to answer the research questions presented in chapter I. A. Reviews on Related Studies There have been many critics who write literary criticisms of Pygmalion as one of the most important plays of Shaw. All these studies help the writer of this thesis to relate his analysis on the problem he is working on, to provide a context for his research, to

31 17 enable him to learn from previous theories on the subject, and to ensure the readers that the research has not been done before. Pygmalion was written in the age, when the romantic spirit was replaced by the spirit of realism. Shaw frequently repeated that observed life is the subject of his plays that fit most obviously under the rubric of realism chiefly, perhaps, because of their subjects are slum life condition, landlordism, prostitution, and cockney peculiar language. Shaw points real life as the original source of his drama by stating, I... have collected slum rents weekly with these hands, and for four and a half years have been behind the scenes of the middle class landowner. After triumphantly quoting several military authorities to authenticate the verisimilitude of Bluntschli s words and actions in Arms and the Man, he rhetorically admitted, I created nothing; I invented nothing; I imagined nothing; I perverted nothing; I simply discovered drama in real life. Even the mythic and almost fairy-tale transformation of the flower-girl Galatea by the phonetician Pygmalion, says Shaw in his Preface to Pygmalion, "is neither impossible nor uncommon (Dukore, 1973:7-9). Pygmalion highlights the complexity inherent in human relationships and reflects how the problems should be overcome. From sociological perspective, Pygmalion parodies and satirizes the capitalist society in the early twentieth century. It is used as the medium of mass education since it contains didactic values as one of the strongest voice to influence the public opinion to reform their life. By considering Shaw s Pygmalion as a natural history, Bentley (1988, 14) underlines the role of Pygmalion in criticizing the society. He states,

32 18 Pygmalion is a serious parody, a translation into the language of "natural history." The primary inversion is that of Pygmalion's character. The Pygmalion of Romance turns a statue into a human being. The Pygmalion of "natural history" tries to turn a human being into a statue, tries to make of Eliza Doolittle a mechanical doll in the role of a duchess. It is tangible for Bentley that Shaw s Pygmalion is a parody of the social situation. The inversion that is intentionally designed by Shaw is considered as the way to criticize the powerful influence held by the ruling class to treat other people as they wish. The problem that is portrayed by Pygmalion according to Bentley is a system that exists in society where the exploitation of human beings is practiced; even more than the exploitation of mankind there also exists the practice of dehumanization. Men are treated as statue or mechanical doll as can be clearly seen that Higgins cannot treat Eliza and others humanely. He sees them as only the object to achieve his experimental goals. While the use of natural history in Pygmalion shows how Shaw holds the naturalism he gets from Ibsen mostly to replace romance with the story that pictures the real social situation in England. It seems that Shaw is obviously ignoring the entertaining content of the play by his insistence on didacticism. He brings into the public s perception that a play can be used to teach the society how to improve human life. A play might not be merely romantic but must be also didactic. In the Preface of Pygmalion (Chin, 2000:890), he states, It (Pygmalion) is so intensely and deliberately didactic, and its subject is esteemed so dry, that I delight in throwing it at the head of wiseacres who repeat the parrot cry that art should never be didactic. It goes to prove my contention that art should never be anything else.

33 19 Pygmalion is addressed to the audience who considers the activity of watching a play as an intellectual activity, not merely an entertaining activity that needs only emotional involvement. The audiences are asked to use not only their emotion to enjoy the play but also their thought to grasp the message. Consequently, Pygmalion was not really attractive when it was first produced on April 11, 1914, with Mrs. Patrick Campbell playing Eliza and Beerbohm Tree playing the part of Higgins. It arises in the audience s mind many questions especially the question about the end of the play; a question that was answered by Shaw one year after the first performance by writing the Sequel or Epilogue (Chin, 2000: ). In line with Shaw s statement about the didactic aspect of Pygmalion, Berst (1988, 59) underlines that, The didacticism of Pygmalion is thus important primarily as it informs the action, providing a ballast of social observation and giving further dimension to the characters. By themselves, the didactic message regarding phonetics may be interesting and the social didacticism may be true, but the phonetic lesson is scarcely world-shaking and the social implications are rather obvious. Through Pygmalion, Shaw offers to his audience not a fairy and mythic story as the audience gets from the Greek Pygmalion but a number of questions about education of the human soul and conscience. When the audience listens to the dialogues and observes every character s word, it might happen that the audience understands a little more about human life and the surrounding world. The audience, as if, gets new knowledge input to widen their perspective. However, since the human soul can be educated in an infinite variety of ways, there is no definite message that can be

34 20 extracted from Pygmalion and offered to the world as the essential goals of Shaw s movement. Shaw offers his audience a variety of entertaining dramatic pictures in which a number of serious human problems are presented in a dramatic form. To expect Shaw, and other playwrights, to unlock the secret of life is to expect from him more than he can give. Shaw offers to his audience the same experience as Eliza the emotional and intellectual independence of a free spirit. Related to the quotation above, Crompton (1988, 46) states, For the issue about phonology, it is possible with a little analysis to see that it is really manners and not speech patterns that provide the clue to character contrasts in Pygmalion, accents being, so to speak, merely their outer clothing. Berst and Crompton reconfirm Shaw s expectation to the audience of the play to realize that the issue of phonetics is not the focal point of his play. By presenting such a man as phonetician, and it is to say that the phonetician himself is among the important people in England at that time, Shaw wants to say that one can improve his/her life by speaking proper language and accent but the importance of phonetics is not the most vital. In this sense, Pygmalion can be called as a play that expresses a very accurate idea about the study of the English language in its relation with the nature of English society. It asks a number of questions about the relations that exist between individuals in society. The issue about phonetics is only a stepping stone to ask other questions about human beings and the social implication the audience face in their daily real life. In line with this, Alexander (1988, 20) asserts, The play (Pygmalion) is didactic: but what does it teach? It is clear that the play deals with an important social question and, as Shaw himself said: social

35 21 questions are produced by the conflict of human institutions with human feeling. In this case the human institution is the class structure of society, one of the most visible and distinguishing mark in England in nineteenth and early twentieth century. The conflict of human institutions with human feeling becomes the main issue that is criticized by Shaw as he reflects in the conflict between characters in Pygmalion. The characters represent some classes in society. Society becomes something important in Pygmalion because only society that constructs class structure. And class structure according to Shaw is something related to human attitudes and manners, not to one s accent or way of speaking. The real reaction to anyone's dialect is the association of particular kinds of speech with particular classes and particular manners. Shaw uses this kind of perspective to make his Pygmalion a comedy because his concept about manners is opposed to the social perception about way of speaking. Crompton (1988: 47) argues, He seems even to have harbored some limited admiration for the dignified code of manners of the Victorian period, though he found its artificialities cramping. He gives Mrs. Hill, Mrs. Higgins, and the Colonel exquisite manners to contrast with the Eliza's lack of them Pygmalion contains the comic genus of drama since it arises from the vision of the folly, the lack understanding and the stupidity in society or in a particular man. It shows the imperfections in human nature as the subject matter of amusement. This amusement brings so many satirical aspects focused in the relationship between Higgins and Eliza. Comic genus in drama, as stated by Purdom (1964, 83), is the power to perceive the general predicament of mankind, or a particular predicament of an individual, as absurd