A scene from the movie 'My fair lady'.
Mr.Dolittle is Eliza's father(a labourer who is seldom able to make both ends meet), while Colonel Pickering is the one(along with Higgins) who wants to give Eliza lessons in phonetics so that she can live like a lady and commands respect. In this respect, he wants to keep Eliza in his home for 6 months, and is having a conversation with her father regarding this issue.
Mr.Dolittle : If you want the girl, I ain't so set on 'avin' her home again.......but what I might be open to is an arrangement. All I ask is my rights as a father.You're the last man alive to expect me to let her go for nothing. I can see you'rea straight sort, Governor. So...what's a five pound note to you? An' what's Eliza to me?
Mr.Pickering : I think you should know, Doolittle...that Mr. Higgins' intentions are entirely honorable.
Mr.Dolittle : Of course they are, Governor.If I thought they wasn't, I'd ask for 50.
Mr.Pickering : You mean, you'd sell your daughter for pounds? Have you no morals, man?
Mr.Dolittle : No, I can't afford 'em, Governor. Neither could you if you was as poor as me.Not that I mean any 'arm, but......if Eliza is gonna have a bit out o' this, why not me, too? Why not? Look at it my way. What am l?I ask ya, what am l? I'm one o' the undeserving poor, that's what I am. Think what that means to a man. It means he's up against middle-class morality for all the time.If there's anything goin' an' I ask for a bit of it, it's always the same story: '"You're undeservin', so you can't have it.'" But my needs is as great as the most deservin' widows that ever got money......out of six different charities in one week for the death o' the same 'usband. I don't need less than a deservin' man, I need more. I don't eat less 'earty than he does and I drink...a lot more.I'm playin' straight with you. I ain't pretendin' to be deservin'. No, I'm undeservin'......and I mean to go on bein' undeservin'.I like it an' that's the truth. But will you take advantage of a man's nature......do him out of the price of his own daughter, what he's brought up......fed and clothed by the sweat of his brow......till she's growed big enough to be interestin' to you two gentlemen? Is five pounds unreasonable, I put it to you? And I leave it to you.
This tells us a lot about morality and survival. The poor cant afford to have morals. Survival is their basic instinct.I particularly found this issue interesting coz I am having a course on ethics right now, and I am always at a fix while deciding what is right and what is not. But this case makes it clear cut. Survival is the biggest driving force, ethics and morality have to take a back seat. Hell, we procreate so that our gene survives even after we expire. Te miracle of life is meant to be celebrated. But if we are in no position to continue living, then being ethical and dying is not the answer. Be smart, greedy, selfish, stealthy. Or as James Bond once said, 'Live today, to die another day'.
No comments:
Post a Comment