Pygmalion

Background

In early 20th, the representative of this new era is George Bernard Shaw. He is famous for giving audiences a twist by being contrary to their expectation. In comedy, there are traditional and conventional elements. Someone in the bad moment rises to have better circumstances. And comedy involves romance, a woman working in the bad situation in the beginning is supposed to marry a wealthy man. It is consummated marriage giving audiences satisfaction at the end. Also, a villain is expected to be punished and ridiculed, which would lead feeling pleasure. In George Bernard Shaw’s representative play, Pygmalion, the flower girl in the miserable circumstance gets a better circumstance in the end. This girl selling flowers on the street rises to the upper class by changing her language. However, on the contrary to the audiences’ expectation, romance between Flower girl and Professor Higgins doesn’t happen. She doesn’t marry the rich man, Professor Higgins or Colonel Pickering. Also, George Bernard Shaw reflected his beliefs to reform the society in this play. In 20th, there were many poor people on the street. Especially, little girls worked all day for a tiny amount of money. The author had much interest in poor people and women’s emancipation. And he believed dialect was one of the devices to divide two classes, rich and poor people. That is, language variety functioned as a division of social rank. It is the starting point of his play, Pygmalion. He used the change of language as a means to rise to the upper class.

plot

A street girl selling flowers, Eliza, happen to meet Professor Higgins. Higgins was writing down her pronunciation for his study, but Eliza misunderstood him as a policeman and gave rise to a trouble. In this happening, Higgins says he can make her duchess by changing her pronunciation. After some time, she remembers what he said and goes to learn pronunciation with a desire to be an upper class woman. Higgins decides to do experiment with her, and it succeeds to deceive all the people at the party by making them believe her as a duchess. After this success, Higgins suggested two options after completing his experiment. One of them was marrying based on her beauty and the other was running a flower shop with money from a Pickering who is a rich man. Eliza refuses to do both of them. And she leaves his home. Higgins and Colonel Pickering looked for Eliza as soon as they knew that Eliza left. They found her in Mrs. Higgins’ house but Eliza refuses to go back. She says she would marry Freddy.

interpretation

In myth, Pygmalion was a legendary figure of Cyprus. He was a misogynist. He couldn’t find any woman to love and decided to make a sculpture, Galatea. Myth Pygmalion is reflected in the George Bernard Shaw’s play. In the play, Pygmalion is compared to Phonetician Professor Higgins and Galatea is compared to Eliza. Pygmalion made an ideal woman, Galatea, as he wanted, and Professor Higgins made Eliza, a flower girl, a perfect upper class woman. He taught everything from language to how she should behave in front of people. She qualified every condition as an upper class woman and behaved as he taught. This process of making Eliza an upper class woman is criticized as playing with a live doll, because she didn’t have her own soul. She just was made by Higgins. She is matched to Galatea in the myth. Higgins treats her as an object. Also, the common expectation of audiences that women’s fate is determined by men is criticized by Eliza’s reaction after the success of pretending a duchess. She regarded two options suggested by Higgins were selling herself. When she was selling flowers, at least she didn’t have to sell herself. This respect is connected to a new concept of woman. A concept of ‘new woman’ is represented by Eliza. New woman should be educated, pursue profession and be independent economically. Eliza was educated, and wants to have a teaching job. In addition, she doesn’t want to rely on a wealth man, but decides to marry a poor guy, Freddy, saying she can make something of him. She values love more than anything else.