This September, it's all about the women who are #killingit in literature. We talk about our favorite female characters, why fanfictions are real books too, writing characters with disabilities, and discuss self-publishing. This issue is jam-packed...
Literature is more than a form of entertainment. Even more than a reflection of the society. It happens to be one of the most powerful tools to influence the mindsets of people.
A reader has the capability to live a thousand lives, experience the bliss and tragedies, travel the world and feel the essence of adventure, all while living a single life. The true beauty of reading comes when you realize how every word, every metaphor affects different people in a unique manner of ways.
One such character to affect my mind and soul was Eliza Doolittle from the play Pygmalion.
The dimensions of play are simple, a huffy Professor, overly confident of his abilities, takes up the task to make a simple, rowdy, ill-mannered flower girl into a high-class lady through the power of phonetics for a bet with his friend.
The transformation is awe inspiring and indeed, he wins the bet. But the story goes beyond that.
Look at the transformation with your own eyes first.
Hoppla! Dieses Bild entspricht nicht unseren inhaltlichen Richtlinien. Um mit dem Veröffentlichen fortfahren zu können, entferne es bitte oder lade ein anderes Bild hoch.
Yes, Eliza has her priorities sorted. Chocolates first.
Eliza, though, doesn't just transform physically and pronunciation-wise, but her true transformation is of her intellect.
Her dilemma is she could not go back to being a flower girl now, she would not be accepted there, and she had no alms or resources to live the life of a lady.
Professor Higgins, very much like the Greek sculptor, Pygmalion carves her to his preferences, and the question rises, what will happen to this sculpture when it comes to life?
This made me wonder, are women today truly independent? Or trapped in their own archetypes...
Especially Eliza's dialogue, "What is to be of me?" hits me hard.
What is to be of me now that I am living life as the society expects me to be? What is to be of me now that I have carved myself to your preferences? What is to be of me now that I have forgotten what I used to be? What is to be of me now that I have lost sight of what I aspired to be?
Hoppla! Dieses Bild entspricht nicht unseren inhaltlichen Richtlinien. Um mit dem Veröffentlichen fortfahren zu können, entferne es bitte oder lade ein anderes Bild hoch.
