The Quest Of Identity, Uprooting

Theme:

Initiation: uprooting, loss and quest of identity

List of texts:

•Struggle of class:

Play of initiation, extracts from Act I and Act V, from Pygmalion by George Bernard Shaw (1925)

•Clash of culture:

Novel of initiation, extract from The Buddha of Suburbia by Hanif Kureishi, 1990

Intro: The clash of culture and Struggle of classes are problems very present in the literature and the societies of 20th century. Indeed the satirical work of George Bernard Show, Pygmalion, is a criticism of this societies which discriminate the different social classes. as well as the bildungsroman of Hanif Kureishi, The Buddha of Suburbia which presents both the topic of initiation, uprooting, loss and quest of identity. This initiation symbolize the evolution of a personality to another that our main characters make. This travel enable them to have a new identity. So we can wonder if this Odyssey nevertheless brings benefits. In a first part I'm going to talk about the result of a change from a social class to another one, and in second part, the experience of an influenced uprooting.

Even a few centuries later, there is a distinct difference in class relations in 20th century and British were perceived as being different by their speech, money, wealth, style, manners, and appearance. Being a lady or a gentleman was a status desirable among most of London’s society. However, in Pygmalion, Shaw tells a story about the transition of a homeless young woman Eliza with the aspiration to become a respected lady, a duchess. That's right Eliza has come a long way because before, she lived in a poor house with her drunkard father, and she stole her flowers in the gutter, on Lisson Grove. After Professor higgings lodged her in his house in Wimpole street and to the end, she lived in Mrs Higgings's house which it's a sort of shelter to her. So she made a long pilgrimage to have a new identity.

For me the advantages are not seen immediately because we are used to concentrate on the relation which she has with Higgings in the story, and it is especially this relation which involve some disadvantages in this play, like the inequality of the social classes, the fact of treating her as an animal like a cabage, or a bilious pegeon in the Act 1, to improve her. Because yes Professor higgings is a perfectionist and that's why G.B Shaw recalls to people the old myth of Pygmalion in the metamorphoses of Ovide. Pygmalion was a sculptor, it made a beautiful statue and fell in love with his own creation. and asked Venus to turn it into a real woman. The statue becomes an alive perfect young woman named Galatea. Here Higgings is compared to Pygmalion. Because before he is misogynistic and after he falls in love with her because she becomes perfect thanks to his trainings to him. But in this identity she was lost. she isn't herself and doesn't feel independent. Whereas, I think, that this initiation allowed her much things, like having a good language, she not uses slang, she has a lot of fashionable dresses, money, a comfortable house, and she profits from a high education which will be able to enable her to advance in the life, as to become a Phonetic teacher like professor Higgings. Moreover, her metamorphose can be profitable to her entourage; because that will give hope to people of the same social class that her, working class, and will enable them to change to become a lady or a gentleman like his father who decided to take the same way as her. Then, she found the love because she wishes she could marry with Freddy, page 130 “I' ll marry with Freddy, I will!” so she becomes also an authoritative ambitious woman because the

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