Pygmalion

by

G. B. Shaw

About Pygmalion

The Source of the Title: The Legend of Pygmalion and Galatea

Shaw took his title from the ancient Greek legend of the famous sculptor named Pygmalion who
could find nothing good in women, and, as a result, he resolved to live out his life unmarried.
However, he carved a statue out of ivory that was so beautiful and so perfect that he fell in love
with his own creation. Indeed, the statue was so perfect that no living being could possibly be its
equal. Consequently, at a festival, he prayed to the goddess of love, Aphrodite, that he might
have the statue come to life. When he reached home, to his amazement, he found that his wish
had been fulfilled, and he proceeded to marry the statue, which he named Galatea.

Even though Shaw used several aspects of the legend, most prominently one of the names in the
title, viewers, writers, critics, and audiences have consistently insisted upon there being some
truth attached to every analogy in the myth. First of all, in Shaw's Pygmalion, Professor Henry
Higgins is the most renowned man of phonetics of his time; Higgins is also like Pygmalion in his
view of women — cynical and derogatory: Higgins says, "I find that the moment I let a woman
make friends with me, she becomes jealous, exacting, suspicious, and a damned nuisance." And
whereas in the myth, Pygmalion carved something beautiful out of raw stone and gave it life,
Shaw's Higgins takes a "guttersnipe," a "squashed cabbage leaf" up out of the slums and makes
her into an exquisite work of art. Here, however, the analogies end. Shaw's "Galatea," Eliza,
develops a soul of her own and a fierce independence from her creator.

In the popular film version and in the even more popular musical comedy version (My Fair
Lady),  the ending allows the audience to see a romantic love interest that blends in with the
ancient myth. This, however, is a sentimentalized version of Shaw's play. Shaw provided no such
tender affection to blossom between professor and pupil.
Preface to Pygmalion

Shaw ultimately wrote a preface to almost all of his plays that he considered important. In fact,
sometimes the Prefaces, the Prologues, and the Afterwords exceeded the length of the original
dramas. In one of his prefaces, he comments that most dramatists use the preface to expound on
things that have little or no importance to the drama. Here, Shaw's preface does not comment
upon the drama that is to follow, but instead, since the play deals with phonetics, and since the
character of Henry Higgins is based largely upon a man named Henry Sweet, and since Shaw
ultimately did  leave a large sum of money upon his death for a thorough revision of English
spelling rules, he uses this preface to comment upon the absurdity of English spelling in
connection with English pronunciation. Finally, Shaw sarcastically refers to those critics who say
that a successful play should never be didactic; this play is obviously didactic, and it has been
immensely popular ever since it was first presented.

Summary

Two old gentlemen meet in the rain one night at Covent Garden. Professor Higgins is a scientist
of phonetics, and Colonel Pickering is a linguist of Indian dialects. The first bets the other that he
can, with his knowledge of phonetics, convince high London society that, in a matter of months,
he will be able to transform the cockney speaking Covent Garden flower girl, Eliza Doolittle,
into a woman as poised and well-spoken as a duchess. The next morning, the girl appears at his
laboratory on Wimpole Street to ask for speech lessons, offering to pay a shilling, so that she
may speak properly enough to work in a flower shop. Higgins makes merciless fun of her, but is
seduced by the idea of working his magic on her. Pickering goads him on by agreeing to cover
the costs of the experiment if Higgins can pass Eliza off as a duchess at an ambassador's garden
party. The challenge is taken, and Higgins starts by having his housekeeper bathe Eliza and give
her new clothes. Then Eliza's father Alfred Doolittle comes to demand the return of his daughter,
though his real intention is to hit Higgins up for some money. The professor, amused by
Doolittle's unusual rhetoric, gives him five pounds. On his way out, the dustman fails to
recognize the now clean, pretty flower girl as his daughter.
For a number of months, Higgins trains Eliza to speak properly. Two trials for Eliza follow. The
first occurs at Higgins' mother's home, where Eliza is introduced to the Eynsford Hills, a trio of
mother, daughter, and son. The son Freddy is very attracted to her, and further taken with what
he thinks is her affected "small talk" when she slips into cockney. Mrs. Higgins worries that the
experiment will lead to problems once it is ended, but Higgins and Pickering are too absorbed in
their game to take heed. A second trial, which takes place some months later at an ambassador's
party (and which is not actually staged), is a resounding success. The wager is definitely won,
but Higgins and Pickering are now bored with the project, which causes Eliza to be hurt. She
throws Higgins' slippers at him in a rage because she does not know what is to become of her,
thereby bewildering him. He suggests she marry somebody. She returns him the hired jewelry,
and he accuses her of ingratitude.

The following morning, Higgins rushes to his mother, in a panic because Eliza has run away. On
his tail is Eliza's father, now unhappily rich from the trust of a deceased millionaire who took to
heart Higgins' recommendation that Doolittle was England's "most original moralist." Mrs.
Higgins, who has been hiding Eliza upstairs all along, chides the two of them for playing with
the girl's affections. When she enters, Eliza thanks Pickering for always treating her like a lady,
but threatens Higgins that she will go work with his rival phonetician, Nepommuck. The
outraged Higgins cannot help but start to admire her. As Eliza leaves for her father's wedding,
Higgins shouts out a few errands for her to run, assuming that she will return to him at Wimpole
Street. Eliza, who has a lovelorn sweetheart in Freddy, and the wherewithal to pass as a duchess,
never makes it clear whether she will or not.

Character List

Professor Henry Higgins Higgins is a forty-year-old bachelor who specializes in phonetics and

who is an acclaimed authority on the subject of dialects, accents, and phonetics.

Eliza Doolittle She is an uneducated, uncouth "guttersnipe," the flower girl whom Higgins (for a
dare) decides to mold into a duchess. She is probably twenty years younger than Higgins.
Alfred Doolittle Eliza's father; he is a dustman with a sonorous voice and a Welsh accent, who
proudly believes in his position as a member of the "undeserving poor."

Colonel Pickering A distinguished retired officer and the author of Spoken Sanskrit. He has
come to England to meet the famous Professor Henry Higgins. He is courteous and polite to
Eliza, and he shares in Higgins' experiments in phonetics in teaching Eliza to speak as a duchess.

Mrs. Higgins Henry Higgins' mother, who thoroughly loves her son but also thoroughly
disapproves of his manners, his language, and his social behavior.

Mrs. Eynsford-Hill A lady of the upper-middle class who is in a rather impoverished condition
but is still clinging to her gentility.

Clara Eynsford-Hill Her daughter; she tries to act the role of the modem, advanced young
person.

Freddy Eynsford-Hill Her son; he is a pleasant young man who is enchanted by Eliza upon first
meeting her.

Mrs. Pearce Professor Higgins' housekeeper of long standing. She is the one who first sees the
difficulty of what is to happen to Eliza after Higgins and Pickering have finished their
experiment with her.

Pygmalion Themes

 Class
The social hierarchy is an unavoidable reality in Britain, and it is interesting to watch it play out
in the work of a socialist playwright. Shaw includes members of all social classes from the
lowest (Liza) to the servant class (Mrs. Pearce) to the middle class (Doolittle after his
inheritance) to the genteel poor (the Eynsford Hills) to the upper class (Pickering and the
Higginses). The general sense is that class structures are rigid and should not be tampered with,
so the example of Liza's class mobility is most shocking. The issue of language is tied up in class
quite closely; the fact that Higgins is able to identify where people were born by their accents is
telling. British class and identity are very much tied up in their land and their birthplace, so it
becomes hard to be socially mobile if your accent marks you as coming from a certain location.
 Gentility and Manners
Good manners (or any manners at all) were mostly associated with the upper class at this time.
Shaw's position on manners is somewhat unclear; as a socialist, one would think that he would
have no time for them because they are a marker of class divisions. Yet, Higgins's pattern of
treating everyone like dirt--while just as democratic as Pickering's of treating everyone like a
duke or duchess--is less satisfactory than Pickering's. It is a poignant moment at the end of
Pygmalion when Liza thanks Pickering for teaching her manners and pointedly comments that
otherwise she would have had no way of learning them.
 Marriage and Prostitution
These institutions are very much related in Shaw's plays, especially in Mrs. Warren's profession.
From his unusual standpoint of being committed to a celibate marriage, Shaw apparently feels
free to denounce marriage as an exchange of sexuality for money similar to prostitution (even
though this was not happening in his own marriage). Ironically, while her father expresses no
regrets when he is led to believe that Liza will take up this profession, it is she who denounces it.
She declares that she was less degraded as a flower-seller than as a "genteel" lady trying to make
an appropriate marriage--because as a flower-seller, at least, she wasn't selling her body.
 Myths of Creation
Of all Shaw's plays, Pygmalion has the most references to Greek and Roman mythology. Higgins
represents Pygmalion, a Greek sculptor who lived alone because he hated women. Pygmalion
created a sculpture of a perfect woman and fell in love with it; after he prayed, Aphrodite
brought it to life for him. This statue is named Galatea, and it is represented in Shaw's play by
Liza. Unlike the myth, Shaw's play does not end in a marriage between the pair, and Liza is
infuriated with Higgins's suggestion that her success is his success and that he has made her what
she is. She has worked to recreate her identity as well.
 Language
In this play and in British society at large, language is closely tied with class. From a person's
accent, one can determine where the person comes from and usually what the person's
socioeconomic background is. Because accents are not very malleable, poor people are marked
as poor for life. Higgins's teachings are somewhat radical in that they disrupt this social marker,
allowing for greater social mobility.
 Professionalism
At the time that this play was written, the idea of female professionals was somewhat new. Aside
from the profession of prostitution, women were generally housewives before this period, and
there is some residual resistance to the idea of normally male professions being entered by
females in the play.

Moreover, Pickering is initially horrified by the idea of Eliza opening a flower shop, since being
involved in a trade was a mark of belonging to the lower class. Pickering is shaken similarly after
his experience of watching Eliza fool everyone at a garden and dinner party, saying that she
played her part almost too well. The idea of a professional female socialite is somehow
threatening to him.
 Gender Solidarity or Antagonism
Although British society is supposed to break down along class lines, Shaw makes a point of
highlighting gender loyalties in this play. Although Mrs. Higgins initially is horrified by the idea
that her son might bring a flower-girl into her home, she quickly grows sympathetic to Liza. As a
woman, she is the first to express a concern for what will be done with the girl after the
experiment--the idea that her training makes her highly unmarriageable by anyone anywhere on
the social scale. When Liza runs away from Wimpole St., she instinctively knows that Mrs.
Higgins will take good care of her. Higgins's mother sides with Liza before even her son, not
revealing that Liza is in the house while Higgins is dialing the police.
In contrast, relations between people of opposite genders are generally portrayed by Shaw as
antagonistic. Higgins and his mother have a troubled relationship, as do the professor and Mrs.
Pearce. Freddy and Liza get along better perhaps only due to his more passive, feminine
demeanor.