The rebirth of Pygmalion myth

George Bernard Shaw’s play Pygmalion is inspired by Ovid’s ancient Roman myth in which Pygmalion, a male misogynistic sculptor, fashions an ivory model of a perfect woman and falls in love with her when she finally becomes alive. Shaw’s re-working of the myth differs from Ovid’s poem. The poem deliberately illustrates the power of the male creator and the submission of the female since she is seen as a work of art rather than as a real human being. He enriches the play mainly through three aspects of social, political, and moral life; firstly he expresses his strong feminist views through Eliza, Higgins, and Mrs. Higgins. Secondly, he constantly mocks the frivolity of the upper-class society and its stereotypical views of other classes and he simultaneously celebrates socialism and egalitarianism. Finally, through Higgins’ speech and the unpredictability of other characters’ acting, he attacks the ’’moral absolutes’’ which, for him are ridiculous. Shaw reworks the myth by adding the social, political, and moral issues of the beginning of the 20th century into the play rather than preserving it as a simple romantic tale.

Shaw manifests his strong feminist views mainly through the characters of Eliza and Higgins. Actually Eliza, by realizing her imperfectness, takes the initiative to make a change of herself, differs from the very beginning of Galetea in the myth, who does not have a chance to chose her metamorphosis (class notes). In act two, she firmly tells Pickering the reason of her visit, “He said he could teach me. Well, here I am ready to pay him – not asking any favor – and he treats me zif I was dirt’’ (26). Shaw does not only give Eliza a refined speech, a delightful appearance, or even a gracious manners, but, most prominently, gives her the ability to express herself, the social consciousness about her own situation, the analytical sense to critically examine her transformation, and the sensibility to persuade her audience in order to appreciate her judgment. In a speech meant for Pickering, she makes a remarkably avant-gardes point of view which is contemporarily called “looking-glass self” about the insight of her transformation, ’’the difference between a lady and a flower girl is not how she behaves, but how she’s treated. I shall always be a flower girl to professor Higgins, because he always treats me as a flower girl, and always will; but I know I can be a lady to you, because you always treat me as a lady, and always will’’ (95). In other words, Eliza, through the process of transformation, finds her self-respect, self-confidence and independence, she also values her own intellectual evolution, thus, it is clear that the title A romance in five acts has an intentional ironic effect, because a conventional romantic story does not exits in the play, the only romance is what Eliza is experiencing with herself. In the other side, Higgins, as a male feminist character, constantly makes speech about gender equality through the play. His statement to Eliza “Yes: and you may walk out tomorrow if I dont do everything you want me to’’ (101) clearly expresses his belief that women have the right to make choices for themselves. Globally, the play is performed from the perspective of a self-reliant female character, Eliza.
Tow characters from the play, Doolittle, as a lower class dustman and Higgins, as an upper-class phonetic professor, with different social and political perspectives, speak out Shaw’s political point of view about his society. Shaw uses Doolittle, a poor dustman, but also an eloquent speaker and a man who has social consciousness and free-well, to deconstruct the stereotypical impression that upper-class society has about lower class people (class notes). Even the name of Doolittle mirrors the irony of that stereotype given to lower class people, which is laziness. From Doolittle’s analytical and convincing speech where he states “I dont need less than a deserving man: I need more. I dont eat less hearty than him; and I drink a lot more. I want a bit of amusement, cause I’m a thinking man’’ (46), Shaw intentionally means to shock the middle class audience by reversing the stereotype that poor people are physically indolent and mentally retired, and he meaningfully implies a socialist and classless society where people from each and every class could live together more comprehensively and pacifically. Shaw, by referring upper-class society as ’’the professional class” (52), mocks upper-class society’s standard of living; generally upper-class people do not exert a profession; they are only professional to live in the rich society (class notes). Shaw, through the character of Higgins, perpetually expresses his view that upper-class life is artificial, meaningless, wasteful and senseless where people only value the appearances but seem to neglect the interior of human being such as knowledge, intellectual growth, and self innovation. Higgins’ greatest speech where he asserts “The great secret, Eliza, is not having bad manners of good manners or any other particular sort of manners, but having the same manners for all human souls: in short, behaving as if you were in Heaven, where there are no third-class carriages, and one soul is as good as another’’ (99) truthfully and sensibly expresses an egalitarian world view that people should be treated equally and should have the same rights to live together in a just and fair world. Amusingly, Shaw manifests his egalitarian view by the fact that Higgins treats everybody the same way, which is indifferent, cold, and uninterested.

Higgins, like Shaw, rejects the notion of absolute moral rules, by implying that nothing in the world is absolutely good or absolutely bad. When Eliza first comes to Higgins’ home, motivated by the intention to create a good impression for herself, continually repeats that she is a good girl, that she is different from other flower girls even if she used to live in the street. Higgins, irritated by her cliché ’’I’m a good girl, I am’’ (33), orders her ’’Eliza: if you say again that youre a good girl, you father shall take you home” (49), explicitly suggests his dislike towards societal established moral norms, in this case, the absolute virtue and chastity of a woman. In an other hand, Clara, the uncompassionate and cruel little girl in the first act, shows another side of her personality in act three where she states her discerning thought about the “new small talk” which is previously improvised by Eliza, “I find the new small talk delightful and quite innocent” (62). Shaw represents several sides of a same character in the play for the aim to indicate that even for humans, there are no unconditional good or unconditional bad people. Finally, Doolittle’s sensitive and philosophical speech about humanity “A little bit of both, Henry, like the rest of us: a little of both” (90) summarizes the principle of human beings; our character is simultaneously composed of good and bad elements.

Overall, Shaw reworks the Pygmalion myth into a contemporary masterpiece of his time. The play deals specifically with three different social, political, and moral concerns which are first emerged in the 20th century such as the women’s movement and the suffragette, the socialist and egalitarian ideologies inspired by Karl Marx’s thought, and the new set of philosophy such as “moral absolutes”. Shaw’s Pygmalion deliberately adds a more realistic outlook to the traditional romance genre, exposes the illusory and fanciful sides of myth, and questions the oftentimes idealized and God-liked status of artist.