When an adaptation changes an older story’s theme, it
When an adaptation strengthens or adds to an older story’s theme, it
Read the excerpt from "Prometheus Unbound” by Percy Bysshe Shelley.SCENE.—A Ravine of Icy Rocks in the Indian Caucasus. Prometheus is discovered bound to the Precipice.* Panthea and Ione are seated at his feet. Time, night. During the Scene, morning slowly breaks.Prometheus. Monarch of Gods and Dæmons, and all SpiritsBut One, who throng those bright and rolling worldsWhich Thou and I alone of living thingsBehold with sleepless eyes! regard this EarthMade multitudinous with thy slaves, whom thouRequitest for knee-worship, prayer, and praise,And toil, and hecatombs of broken hearts,With fear and self-contempt and barren hope.Whilst me, who am thy foe, eyeless in hate,Hast thou made reign and triumph, to thy scorn,O’er mine own misery and thy vain revenge.Three thousand years of sleep-unsheltered hours,And moments aye divided by keen pangsTill they seemed years, torture and solitude,Scorn and despair,—these are mine empire:—More glorious far than that which thou surveyestFrom thine unenvied throne, O Mighty God!Almighty, had I deigned to share the shameOf thine ill tyranny, and hung not hereNailed to this wall of eagle-baffling mountain,Black, wintry, dead, unmeasured; without herb,Insect, or beast, or shape or sound of life.Ah me! alas, pain, pain ever, for ever!***very steep rock face or cliff**Jupiter has chained Prometheus to the face of a steep cliff to be tortured for all eternity as punishment for giving humans fire. In this excerpt, Prometheus is raging against Jupiter for the injustice being done to him. Prometheus defiantly tells Jupiter that, even though Jupiter is an all-powerful god, Prometheus does not envy him. Prometheus also criticizes Jupiter’s treatment of humans. (Note: Jupiter and Zeus are the same god; the only difference is the name. Jupiter is the supreme god in Roman mythology, and Zeus is the supreme god in Greek mythology.)Read the excerpt from Prometheus by Josephine Preston Peabody.This was his greatest gift to man, but it was a theft from the immortal gods, and Zeus would endure no more. He could not take back the secret of fire; but he had Prometheus chained to a lofty crag in the Caucasus, where every day a vulture came to prey upon his body, and at night the wound would heal, so that it was ever to suffer again. It was a bitter penalty for so noble-hearted a rebel, and as time went by, and Zeus remembered his bygone services, he would have made peace once more. He only waited till Prometheus should bow his stubborn spirit, but this the son of Titans would not do. Haughty as rock beneath his daily torment, believing that he suffered for the good of mankind, he endured for years.. . . Year after year, lashed by the storms and scorched by the heat of the sun, he hung in chains and the vulture tore his vitals, while the young Oceanides* wept at his feet, and men sorrowed over the doom of their protector.*water nymphs who were the daughters of Titans Oceanus and Thetis
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Read the excerpt from Pygmalion and Galatea by Josephine Preston Peabody.He drew near in wonder and delight, and felt, instead of the chill air that was wont to wake him out of his spell, a gentle warmth around her, like the breath of a plant. He touched her hand, and it yielded like the hand of one living! Doubting his senses, yet fearing to reassure himself, Pygmalion kissed the statue.In an instant the maiden’s face bloomed like a waking rose, her hair shone golden as returning sunlight; she lifted her ivory eyelids and smiled at him. The statue herself had awakened, and she stepped down from the pedestal, into the arms of her creator, alive!There was a dream that came true.Read the excerpt from Pygmalion by George Bernard Shaw.LIZA. Oh! if I only COULD go back to my flower basket! I should be independent of both you and father and all the world! Why did you take my independence from me? Why did I give it up? I’m a slave now, for all my fine clothes.HIGGINS. Not a bit. I’ll adopt you as my daughter and settle money on you if you like. Or would you rather marry Pickering?LIZA [looking fiercely round at him] I wouldn’t marry YOU if you asked me; and you’re nearer my age than what he is.HIGGINS [gently] Than he is: not "than what he is.”LIZA [losing her temper and rising] I’ll talk as I like. You’re not my teacher now.HIGGINS [reflectively] I don’t suppose Pickering would, though. He’s as confirmed an old bachelor as I am.
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Read the excerpt from Pygmalion and Galatea by Josephine Preston Peabody.Day after day the ivory maiden looked down at him silently, and he looked back at her until he felt that he loved her more than anything else in the world. He thought of her no longer as a statue, but as the dear companion of his life; and the whim grew upon him like an enchantment. He named her Galatea, and arrayed her like a princess; he hung jewels about her neck, and made all his home beautiful and fit for such a presence.Read the excerpt from Pygmalion by George Bernard Shaw.The flower girl enters in state. She has a hat with three ostrich feathers, orange, sky-blue, and red. She has a nearly clean apron, and the shoddy coat has been tidied a little. The pathos of this deplorable figure, with its innocent vanity and consequential air, touches Pickering, who has already straightened himself in the presence of Mrs. Pearce. But as to Higgins, the only distinction he makes between men and women is that when he is neither bullying nor exclaiming to the heavens against some featherweight cross, he coaxes women as a child coaxes its nurse when it wants to get anything out of her.
Read the excerpt from Pygmalion and Galatea by Josephine Preston Peabody.But it chanced that Pygmalion fell to work upon an ivory statue of a maiden, so lovely that it must have moved to envy every breathing creature that came to look upon it. With a happy heart the sculptor wrought day by day, giving it all the beauty of his dreams, until, when the work was completed, he felt powerless to leave it. He was bound to it by the tie of his highest aspiration, his most perfect ideal, his most patient work.Read the excerpt from Pygmalion by George Bernard Shaw.HIGGINS. It’s only imagination. Low spirits and nothing else. Nobody’s hurting you. Nothing’s wrong. You go to bed like a good girl and sleep it off. Have a little cry and say your prayers: that will make you comfortable.LIZA. I heard YOUR prayers. "Thank God it’s all over!”HIGGINS [impatiently] Well, don’t you thank God it’s all over? Now you are free and can do what you like.LIZA [pulling herself together in desperation] What am I fit for? What have you left me fit for? Where am I to go? What am I to do? What’s to become of me?HIGGINS [enlightened, but not at all impressed] Oh, that’s what’s worrying you, is it? [He thrusts his hands into his pockets, and walks about in his usual manner, rattling the contents of his pockets, as if condescending to a trivial subject out of pure kindness]. I shouldn’t bother about it if I were you. I should imagine you won’t have much difficulty in settling yourself, somewhere or other, though I hadn’t quite realized that you were going away. [She looks quickly at him: he does not look at her, but examines the dessert stand on the piano and decides that he will eat an apple]. You might marry, you know. [He bites a large piece out of the apple, and munches it noisily]. You see, Eliza, all men are not confirmed old bachelors like me and the Colonel. Most men are the marrying sort (poor devils!); and you’re not bad-looking; it’s quite a pleasure to look at you sometimes—not now, of course, because you’re crying and looking as ugly as the very devil; but when you’re all right and quite yourself, you’re what I should call attractive. That is, to the people in the marrying line, you understand. You go to bed and have a good nice rest; and then get up and look at yourself in the glass; and you won’t feel so cheap.
What is plot?
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