• The Journal of the Korea Contents Association
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• v.13 no.10
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• pp.140-150
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• 2013

The Greek sculptor, Pygmalion, created a sculpture which was perfect in shape and fell in love with it. He prayed the goddess of love, Venus to transform it into a real woman. She answered his asking, and he finally got married to her. In Bernard Shaw's movie, , the linguist, Dr. Higgins, brought a street girl, Eliza Doolittle to his home and educated her standard London dialect and upper-class manners. Unlike the Greek sculptor, Higgins changed not only her appearance but also her inner identity, then she became 'a new woman' of the age. Abby in seems to live a successful life of thorough planning and pursuing knowledge, but there is no place for her to express natural instinct and human emotion. On the other hand, Mike is a totally different type of a person from her. Like a Greek sculptor, he changes her into a woman who can truly understand other people from her heart and listen to what her inner-self says to her. The Greek myth metaphorically suggests the way to build true relationships between people of all times.

• English Language & Literature Teaching
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• no.4
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• pp.285-305
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• 1998

In order to scrutinize what realism really means, this paper is to analyze and compare the major realistic plays of Yun Jo-byeong of Korea with the earlier realistic ones of Bernard Shaw of England. As all the scholars concerned admit, Shaw offered reality in all of his plays: social, political, economic, religious. He was a didact, a preacher who readily acknowledged that the stage was his pulpit. Though he preached socialism, creative evolution. the abolition of prisons, real equality for women, and railed against the insincerity of motives for war, he did so as a jester in some of the finest comedy ever written. Shaw brought serious themes back to the trivialized English stage, creating a body of drama that left him second to none among twentieth century dramatists. Today, evolution and creationism and Shaw's ideas on creative evolution and the Life Force remain timely issues. As for Yun Jo-byeong who has written many realistic plays lately, he is known as a major realist in Korea. But his realistic plays are more symbolic, poetic, and private than Shaw's. As a result, Korean realism has not been so flourished in Korea as in England. Therefore, we Korean playwrights who want to write really realistic plays should try to study Shaw's realism more closely than ever.

• English & American cultural studies
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• v.18 no.4
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• pp.163-188
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• 2018

Through the action of Major Barbara, Shaw advocates the improvement of human race and civilization through fabian eugenic socialism in the based on the Galtonian eugenics and social Darwinism in late Victorian period. In the play, Shaw contrasts two ideologies, Barbara's spiritual institutionalized Christianity with Undershaft's worldly power to control the conventional society. For the dramatic purpose, Shaw symbolically combines the power of the munitions maker, the intellect of the scholar and the faith of the Salvationist. Shaw seems to believe that the best way of improving the human society can be comprised by effective eugenic agencies regarded Shavian trinities. In relation to the eugenic discourses for social betterment, this essay explores how Shaw's ideas on social eugenic is perceived in Major Barbara through main characters as spiritual, intellectual and economic agencies in terms of social Darwinism for the progress of the human society. As always, Shaw's evolutionary agencies are disillusionized from the idealistic faith through the realistic awareness of economic facts, which is manifested in their practices to advance the institutional society Shaw attacked. It is obvious that the significant facts of eugenic socialism/social eugenics based on social Darwinism are promoted by Barbara, Cusins and Undershaft in Major Barbara to maintain a worthy evolution of society and humanity.

• English & American cultural studies
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• v.9 no.1
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• pp.51-70
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• 2009

For a long time Westerners have considered the Orient as unknown and mysterious, but Orientals soon came to be seen as weak and dependent, or feminine. The Oriental woman became a synecdoche for the Orient itself. We can find this theme in several British plays that deal with the Orient and Oriental women, including Shakespeare's Antony and Cleopatra and Dryden's All for Love. Both of these plays have Egypt as their setting and Cleopatra as a main character. For a better society, Shaw emphasizes the importance of education. In Caesar and Cleopatra, Shaw sees Egypt as a weak and dependent country which needs the help of Rome. Accordingly, he depicts Cleopatra as young and ignorant, needing to be educated in her role as a queen. Shaw finds possibilities for growth and independence in the Egyptians and Cleopatra, who recognize themselves as Egyptians and pursue their identity apart from the colonialization of Rome. Here the Egyptians attempt to resist and escape the oppression of Rome. Young, dependant and ignorant Cleopatra becomes independent and knowledgeable as the result of her education by Caesar and in the end she becomes a real Egyptian queen. According to Shaw, the Orient and women have the potential to develop themselves and ultimately to overcome the government of Western countries and men. In this play, Shaw emphasizes the potential of the Orient and women and the importance of education. Shaw thinks women can grow and develop through education. Especially through Cleopatra's growth, his thought can be applied for Oriental women as well as Western women. His thought is beyond the 19th century British society in which this play was written. Through this play, we can see Shaw's thought is not limited by race, time and place and also has universality to transcend everything.