Skip to main content

What is the relationship between the names “Doolittle, Higgins” and their social status? - Pygmalion

Pygmalion by George Bernard Shaw
What is the relationship between the names “Doolittle, Higgins” and their social status? What do they stand for?
Names are just names or do they stand for anything in our life? As far as we know from our society or just with the help of our background knowledge, yes they do have a meaning or at least they stand for something or just symbolize something according to some. There are names that are used among rich people, and those used by religious people, and those used by regular people, and those used by intellectual people and so on. In Pygmalion, I want to focus on only two families, which are Doolittle and Higgins. I haven’t looked anywhere but it sounded like to me that “Doolittle” is with a bit difference like “too little”. That was an interesting foundation maybe but I wasn’t very sure about it. Because it sounds a bit out of our aim here, I thought first. Now I see, when I search for the name “Higgins” in dictionaries, name dictionaries. From blurtit.com what I saw amazed me: Higgins means literally “fire”, “gangsta” each of which are according to anonymous sources. “Fire” is what we call something is in pace and move, it never stops and when it finds a way it just goes for it and attacks. If we look at Mr. Higgins personality in the play, it is not surprising that he is named after a name meaning “fire”. Whenever he finds an opportunity he just uses it and says and acts however he likes just like a fire would. I have found yet another definition for “Higgins”. From irelandseye.com, Higgins is “another family name with ancient royal connections”. It also means “knowledge” and “skill”. It is not very surprising for all of us that Higgins is used purposely for Mr. Higgins’ family.

Doolittle, is just an interesting name. It is, I am not going to argue, used on purpose in this play. The family of Doolittle are just we expect them to be. But the name used for them is just a bit harsh maybe because to me it sounds like “too little”. They are that small, tiny family with very low income when compared to Higgins. It is so obvious to us they are part of a lower status. Through the end of the play, Mr. Doolittle gets rich. So what about his name then? I say, did he properly become rich just like a normal higher class member or just like a common poor person would? So, the name used for them is just quite ok to show us what they really are in their society and how they are still seen by others.
     style="display:block; text-align:center;"
     data-ad-format="fluid"
     data-ad-layout="in-article"
     data-ad-client="ca-pub-9936240936478080"
     data-ad-slot="1524872611">

APPENDIX:

(1) Higgins: gangsta, toys, Higgins is basically a Gaelic origin and it literally means fire. (1)

(2) Higgins is another family name with ancient royal connections. This name is an anglicisation of O hUigin, from uiginn, meaning Viking. The word also means knowledge, skill or ingenuity. (2) The original hold er of the name was a grandson of Niall of the Nine Hostages, a High King of Tara. There is also a later English derivation too; Higgins as an English name comes from the medieval name Higgin, which was a diminutive of Hicke, a pet name given to anyone called Richard. In medieval Ireland, the Higgins were a sept, or clan, of the southern Ui Neills, who settled in Connacht, especially around Co. Sligo.

The most famous holder of the name was Bernardo O'Higgins (1778-1842), the first president of Chile and the founder of the Chilean Navy. The main street in Santiago is called Avenida O'Higgins in honour of the man who gave Chile its independence from Spain. O'Higgins was the son of Ambrosio O'Higgins, who came from a poor rural background near Summerhill in Co. Meath.

Resources:

1. http://www.blurtit.com/q965297.html
2. http://www.irelandseye.com/irish/traditional/names/family/higgins.shtm
Etiketler:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Thievery in Oliver Twist, an Analysis

Oliver Twist This project will try to help you find out the answers for the questions below: “Oliver Twist is full of thievery. Some of it is committed by criminals like Sikes against respectable people like the Maylies, while some of it is committed by “respectable” people like Mrs. Mann and Mr. Bumble against poor. How are these two types of thievery different? What do they have in common? Also, consider the various ways in which other people “rob” Oliver of his identity. What does the prevalence of thievery in the novel say about the world that it portrays?” THIEVERY IN OLIVER TWIST The story Oliver Twist is the masterpiece of Charles Dickens who lived in the 18th century. Although his family lived a poor life, Charles Dickens lived as rich and famous in his lifetime. With Oliver Twist, he wants to make it clear to his readers and the public that in their world they lived in, there were many crimes done by “respectable” people against poor and by poor people against respe...
34 comments
Read more

Effects of English Usage on Turkish Language and Society - Final Paper

English and Turkish Languages 1. Introduction It is an inevitable fact that languages keep changing throughout the history.  As they do, linguists keep asking why and how they are changing. One reason may be the wanting to be different. It is expectable that languages will change eventually (Yule 2003: 222). That’s a big problem for the whole world society in which there occurs many different languages and a lingua franca as well. According to Lass (1980, as cited in Chapman-Skousen, 2005) change of a language can be described in details but this progress cannot be explained why and how it occurs and it is always a significant challenge trying to understand and enlighten that. (p. 333).  As its being difficult to explain and understand this process, these changes in languages lead sometimes corruptions of the languages. But the thing that should be discussed that whether or not it is the lingua franca that forces languages to change and eventually to corrupt. ...
42 comments
Read more

Borrowed Words Help Languages to Improve not to Corrupt - An Analysis about Language Change

Language Change Languages have always been ever-changing, and will continue to change in the future. Linguists believe that this change is an expectable reality of languages (Yule 2003:222). In this sense, the important thing to be considered is how they change and to which direction the languages go; corruption or improvement. Actually, according to Lass (1980, as cited in Chapman-Skousen, 2005) change of a language can be analyzed and told in details but this process cannot be explained why and how it appears, and it is an important challenge trying to understand that (p. 333) . In this essay, other than understanding how, it is planned to be focused on trying to enlighten whether this change helps a language improve or causes the corruption of it by borrowing words from other languages. The Reasons to Change             First of all, languages change for many reasons, and these should be defined. It occurs sometime...
39 comments
Read more

The Legend of Ligeia

The basic aim of this study is to analyze the very first sample of gothic short stories, ligeia. I tried to explain the gothic symbolization of characters and gothic romanticism in it as it is told “The two stories “The Fall of the House of Usher” and “Ligeia” are very similar to Poe’s other short stories, in that they to have this thread of Gothic Romanticism.” [1] First of all, the characterization of Ligeia is very complicated and through the story it is symbolized by some terms like “spiritual” (Poe,”Ligeia”) used by the narrator to describe his love for Ligeia. The narrator’s acquaintance with Ligeia is, in the very beginning, managing to get our interest and release the story’s kind to be gothic with supporting details in the following pages and the narrator also manages to draw a gothic character by using the imageries like “the graceful medallions of the Hebrews” for her nose and “the gazelle eyes of the tribe of the valley of Nourjahad” for her eye and for her beauty the fa...
35 comments
Read more

Pride and Prejudice, Differences between the movie and the novel

With this study, the aim I have is to find and clarify the differences in the movie from the original book of Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice which is a mirror for the time it belongs. A question puzzling everyone may be that whether there have to be a difference or more between a book and its movie version. The answer comes with, “Yes, there are heart-breaking omissions, as must be necessary in any 2-hour version.” told in a review.[1] Through the past years, many books that have a literary value was transformed into movies and many had bad influence on the fans of the books because they had almost no relation to the original story in details. However, everybody may think that a movie version of a good book is necessary after reading it and may say, “Wow, the movie of that book might be fantastic.” And with a similarity to the beginning of the “Pride and Prejudice”, here is a support for it: “It is a truth universally acknowledged that the best romantic novel in the English la...
19 comments
Read more