Pygmalion

Pygmalion is a play by George Bernard Shaw. It is Shaw’s most popular play. The play is a sharp lampoon of the rigid British class system of the day and a commentary on women’s independence.It tells the story of Henry Higgins, a professor of phonetics who makes a bet with his friend Colonel Pickering that he can successfully pass off a Cockney flower girl, Eliza Doolittle, as a refined society lady within six months by teaching her how to speak with an upper class accent and training her in etiquette. During the training process, Higgins and Eliza grow close, but she ultimately rejects his domineering ways and declares she will marry Freddy Eynsford Hill, a young and poor gentleman.

George Bernard Shaw took the title Pygmalion from Greek mythology. The Pygmalion is a myth in Metamorphoses, a work by the Roman poet Ovid. In Ovid’s telling of story, Pygmalion is a lonely sculptor who carves an ivory statue representing his ideal of womanhood. He falls deeply in love with his own creation. In time, Aphrodite’s festival day came, and Pygmalion made offerings at the altar of Aphrodite. There, too scared to admit his desire, he quietly wished for a bride who would be “the living likeness of my ivory girl.” When he returned home, he kissed his ivory statue, and found that its lips felt warm. He kissed again, and found that ivory had lost its hardness. Aphrodite had granted Pygmalion’s wish. Pygmalion married the ivory sculpture changed to a woman under Aphrodite’s blessing.

Pygmalion is not only based on the Greek mythology, but also adds new content to it. Higgins’s character is similar to Pygmalion’s. Both of them creates ideal women and falls in love with those women. However what is worth noticing is the difference between Higgins’s ideal woman and Pygmalion’s i deal woman. In Greek mythology, Pygmalion creates an ivory statue, his ideal woman, but it is Aphrodite, a God, who gives life to the ideal woman. To a large extent, Pygmalion’s ideal woman is just a puppet which has given life and given character, without thoughts.The ideal woman is created totally according to Pygmalion’s will. While i n Shaw’s play, Higgins teaches Eliza how to speak and act like a lady in upper society, finally making her have the speaking style and bearing of upper society and become a perfect creation. But what should be notable is that this perfect creation is a man who has thoughts, without given life and given character. Higgins just changes Eliza’s hardware equipment, not her software equipment.Eliza, Higgins’s ideal woman, is just perfect creation in speaking and bearing, not in soul. Her changes are not totally according to Higgins’s will.

In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries of Victorian era, English was the pride and pride of the British Empire, representing Shakespeare and Milton. Prof. Higgins is a true defender of the idea that linguistic competence represents not only knowledge but also status and power, and the privilege and superiority of upper-class society. Ironically, in his eyes just a "rotten leaves," Eliza took only six months to master it all! The original elegant language and elegant demeanor are not born! Finally, when Professor Higgins on the departure of the loss of Eliza when the loss; when the face of Professor Higgins's unreasonable and unreasonable to Eliza learned from his courtesy and elegance; when Eliza was invited and prince dancing, Eliza graceful dance, elegant demeanor, once again confirmed to the people that the

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