| Ibsen and Shaw are two well-known playwrights, and they play decisive roles in the history of European and world literature. Henrik Ibsen (1828-1906), a Norwegian playwright, enjoys world popularity for his glorious contribution to Norwegian literature and opens a new epoch in European modern drama. He has been considered "the Father of Modern Drama" in the international literary circle and enjoys the same high reputation as William Shakespeare and Moliére. He created twenty-nine famous plays altogether in his lifetime, which have exerted an extensive and far-reaching influence on the development of realistic drama. George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950) is considered to be the greatest playwright in England since Shakespeare and was awarded the Nobel Prize for literature in 1925. He wrote fifty-one well-known plays, and his drama has been generally acknowledged the mainstream in the 20th century English theater. These two playwrights devoted themselves to drama greatly, assiduously and faithfully that they are also held in high esteem in the world of critics, and are admired by their contemporaries and later generations. Many biographies of them and criticisms upon their works have been issued since they died. It is certain that Ibsen's immortal, celebrated play A Doll's House is familiar to the readers and audience of the 20th century in China. Nora's departure declares a female's complete break with her family in which her freedom that should be given to her as a human being is deprived. Nora's triumphant slamming of the door behind her creates a great stir in the world. Pygmalion has been one of Bernard Shaw's most popular plays since its original productions. Not only have there been numerous stage productions of the play, but also a film in 1938 and the overwhelmingly successful musical comedy adaptation of the 1950's My Fair Lady gives evidence of its great vitality. Today people are probably more acquainted with Pygmalion than with any other play by Shaw. There have been many comments on these two plays in the critical circle. Through careful study of the given comments, the two plays are found to enjoy amazing similarities both in theme and in character portrayal. After an analysis of the heroines in the two plays carefully in feminist perspectives and applied theories of heroic pattern to the study of the creation of the characters, the dissertation came to the conclusion that these two plays are different in approach but equally satisfactory in result in reflecting the feminine rebellion in a patriarchal culture and criticizing the bourgeois society. This dissertation falls into four chapters. There is an introduction before chapter one, and the writer introduces the reasons and objectives why she chooses the topic of this dissertation firstly and then she talks about her study methodology. At the end of this part, the writer gives a detailed description of the organizations of the whole dissertation. Chapter one is a review of two playwrights as well as their representative great plays. Firstly, the writer gives an account of the life and literary career of Henrik Ibsen and George Bernard Shaw respectively, with the focus on their status in and contribution to the world literature. Then the writer talks about the main plots of the two plays, A Doll's House and Pygmalion, introducing relative comments on them. As the main body of this dissertation, chapter two and three are analysis mainly analyzing the similarities and the differences between two female protagonists, Nora and Eliza. Chapter two is an analytical study of them in feminist perspectives. After a definition of feminism and an introduction to the development of the feminist literary theory, this chapter analyzes the similarity of the personalities of them, their strong feminine consciousness, namely, their awakening and transformation. Chapter three is an analytical study of the two female protagonists according to theories of heroic pattern. The exit of Nora and Eliza as well as Eliza's life afterwards reexamined with theories ofheroic... |
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