Pygmalion

One of the most entertaining and best-loved modern British plays, Pygmalion
is intriguing for its social commentary and endearing for its love story. In this play,
Henry Higgins, an upper-middle-class gentleman of leisure, transforms Eliza
Doolittle, a member of the working poor, by training her in language and manners.
The title comes from the Greek myth of Pygmalion, a sculptor who created a statue of
surpassing beauty; at his request, the gods animated the statue as Galatea. The myth is
updated, and substantially altered, by Shaw; instead of a statue, Galatea is Eliza
Dolittle, a Covent Garden flower-girl, whose accent immediately marks her out as
from the very bottom of the English class structure. Pygmalion is represented by
Henry Higgins, who is an expert on accents and pronunciation, and who undertakes to
transform her speech so that she can be taken for a duchess at a society party.
The play concentrates on the comedy of the early lessons, and the early attempts to
pass Eliza off into society. Shaw makes some effort to avoid sentimentality - the fact
that despite the title Henry and Eliza don't end up falling in love is an example - and
his lead could with profit have been followed by those who adapted Pygmalion as the
musical My Fair Lady. However, Shaw suffers from a sort of non-romantic
sentimentality, as can be seen from the Epilogue, which tells the later stories of the
characters. This is about success through personal endeavour - Eliza ends up setting
up a flower shop with her upper class but poor husband, studying accounting and
making a good living. In the cynical 1990s, this seems almost as unbelievable as the
romance.
Of all of Shaw's plays, Pygmalion is without the doubt the most beloved and
popularly received, if not the most significant in literary terms. Several film versions
have been made of the play, and it has even been adapted into a musical. In fact,
writing the screenplay for the film version of 1938 helped Shaw to become the first
and only man ever to win the much coveted Double: the Nobel Prize for literature and
an Academy Award. Shaw wrote the part of Eliza in Pygmalion for the famous actress
Mrs. Patrick Campbell, with whom Shaw was having a prominent affair at the time
that had set all of London abuzz. The aborted romance between Professor Higgins and
Eliza Doolittle reflects Shaw's own love life, which was always peppered with
enamored and beautiful women, with whom he flirted outrageously but with whom he
almost never had any further relations. For example, he had a long marriage to
Charlotte Payne-Townsend in which it is well known that he never touched her once.
The fact that Shaw was quietly a member of the British Society for the Study of Sex
Psychology, an organization whose core members were young men agitating for
homosexual liberation, might or might not inform the way that Higgins would rather
focus his passions on literature or science than on women. That Higgins was a
representation of Pygmalion, the character from the famous story of Ovid's
Metamorphoses who is the very embodiment of male love for the female form, makes
Higgins sexual disinterest all the more compelling. Shaw is too consummate a
performer and too smooth in his self- presentation for us to neatly dissect his sexual
background; these lean biographical facts, however, do support the belief that Shaw
would have an interest in exploding the typical structures of standard fairy tales.

Pygmalion is a perceptive comedy of wit and wisdom about the unique relationship
between a spunky cockney flower-girl and her irascible speech professor. The flower
girl Eliza Doolittle teaches the egotistical phonetics professor Henry Higgins that to
 be a lady means more than just learning to speak like one. Based on classical myth,
Bernard Shaw’s Pygmalion plays on the complex business of human relationships in a
social world. Phonetics Professor Henry Higgins tutors the very Cockney Eliza
Doolittle, not only in the refinement of speech, but also in the refinement of her
manner. When the end result produces a very ladylike Miss Doolittle, the lessons
learned become much more far reaching. The successful musical My Fair Lady was
based on this Bernard Shaw classic.

George Bernard Shaw's "Pygmalion" , depicts the relationships between gender and
social status. It reveals the story of a young, lower class, flower girl, who wants
nothing more than to become a lady. The character of Professor Higgins is introduced
as a higher class, sexist individual. He agrees to teach the young girl, Eliza, to become
a sophisticated, proper speaking lady. To Eliza, this sounds like an irresistible chance
of becoming a lady. However, in Higgins eyes, he's simply teaching her enough to
pass her off as a Royal Duchess, through the perfection of her English.
This book undergoes the common theme of "the developing butterfly", with the
character starting out in the gutter and integrating her way into becoming a beautiful,
proper, mature speaking lady. Although Eliza progresses somewhat throughout the
play, she continues to remain within the walls of the lower class status. Similarly,
Henry Higgins remains consistent with his arrogant, disliked attitude.

Pygmalion centers on a woman who cannot speak to save her life. She is the most
interesting of the three main characters but also the worst to focus on. She is boring to
the point of tears. She is poor, hungry, and happy. It is a typical underdog story where
two rich and powerful men who happen to be specialists in her area of need -
language-happen upon her in a gloomy British rain. Surprised? I was not. Shaw cut
right to the point; after all, it is a short play. I do not blame Shaw for making it short,
more of Higgins and I would have put the play down.

Should we try to pinpoint why the two men, more so Higgins, decide to tutor and to
change Eliza, we come across purely selfish motives. Eliza sells flowers on the street
in order to feed herself, and later goes to Higgins to learn proper English in order to
become a shop-owner. Higgins wants to change her into a proper girl in order to prove
that he is the greatest linguistics tutor, also, to win a bet...how egocentric. Selfish acts
drive this play along.

Here, the class struggle also comes into play as Eliza must not only refrain from using
the only language she knows, but must change the way in which she holds herself in
front of society. Shaw wrote Eliza's character very precisely to have individual dignity
and determination to help her achieve her goals. The one thing I liked.

The play is about adaptation and transformation. Eliza's incredible strength moves the
play along more quickly despite Higgins' pompous attitude slowing it down. Then
again, without the diametrically opposed characters the play would not work.
Interesting class struggle and realistic language effort but overall, just a so-so read.
Shaw has a good point: it takes effort to move up to bourgeoisie. He has all the right
characters: a poor, pretty girl with a desire to learn, a snotty old Professor who is full
of himself and a rich gentleman to provide the budget.
Pygmalion derives its name from the famous story in Ovid's Metamorphoses, in
which Pygmalion, disgusted by the loose and shameful lives of the women of his era,
decides to live alone and unmarried. With wondrous art, he creates a beautiful statue
more perfect than any living woman. The more he looks upon her, the more deeply he
falls in love with her, until he wishes that she were more than a statue. This statue is
Galatea. Lovesick, Pygmalion goes to the temple of the goddess Venus and prays that
she give him a lover like his statue; Venus is touched by his love and brings Galatea
to life. When Pygmalion returns from Venus' temple and kisses his statue, he is
delighted to find that she is warm and soft to the touch--"The maiden felt the kisses,
blushed and, lifting her timid eyes up to the light, saw the sky and her lover at the
same time" (Frank Justus Miller, trans.).

Myths such as this are fine enough when studied through the lens of centuries and the
buffer of translations and editions, but what happens when one tries to translate such
an allegory into Victorian England? That is just what George Bernard Shaw does in
his version of the Pygmalion myth. In doing so, he exposes the inadequacy of myth
and of romance in several ways. For one, he deliberately twists the myth so that the
play does not conclude as euphorically or conveniently, hanging instead in
unconventional ambiguity. Next, he mires the story in the sordid and mundane
whenever he gets a chance. Wherever he can, the characters are seen to be belabored
by the trivial details of life like napkins and neckties, and of how one is going to find
a taxi on a rainy night. These noisome details keep the story grounded and decidedly
less romantic. Finally, and most significantly, Shaw challenges the possibly insidious
assumptions that come with the Pygmalion myth, forcing us to ask the following: Is
the male artist the absolute and perfect being who has the power to create woman in
the image of his desires? Is the woman necessarily the inferior subject who sees her
lover as her sky? Can there only ever be sexual/romantic relations between a man and
a woman? Does beauty reflect virtue? Does the artist love his creation, or merely the
art that brought that creation into being?
Famous for writing "talky" plays in which barely anything other than witty repartee
takes center stage (plays that the most prominent critics of his day called non-plays),
Shaw finds in Pygmalion a way to turn the talk into action, by hinging the fairy tale
outcome of the flower girl on precisely how she talks. In this way, he draws our
attention to his own art, and to his ability to create, through the medium of speech, not
only Pygmalion's Galatea, but Pygmalion himself. More powerful than Pygmalion, on
top of building up his creations, Shaw can take them down as well by showing their
faults and foibles. In this way, it is the playwright alone, and not some divine will,
who breathes life into his characters. While Ovid's Pygmalion may be said to have
idolized his Galatea, Shaw's relentless and humorous honesty humanizes these
archetypes, and in the process brings drama and art itself to a more contemporarily
relevant and human level.

In the original final act Eliza leaves Higgins and we see him alone on the stage, we
don't get to see any wedding but Eliza declares she would marry Freddy. The way
Freddy acts and the way he treats her makes her think of him as an appropriate
husband. She can compare between Higgins with his rude attitude and carelessness
and between Freddy who is a real gentleman, tender and cheerful. He loves and
respects her for who she is and pays no attention to her social class or her level of
education.

The final act brings together many of the themes that we have examined in the other
acts, such as what constitutes the determinants of social standing, the fault of taking
people too literally, or for granted, the emptiness of higher English society, etc. With
regard to the first of these themes, Eliza makes the impressively astute observation
that "the difference between a lady and a flower girl is not how she behaves, but how
she's treated." The line packs double meaning by stating clearly that what is needed is
not just one's affectation of nobility, while her delivery is proof of the statement itself
as she has grown enough to make such an intelligent claim. Quite contrary to the
dresses, the vowels, the consonants, the jewelry (significantly, only hired) that she
learned to put on, probably the greatest thing she has gained from this experience is
the self-respect that Pickering endowed her with from the first time he called her
"Miss Doolittle." In contrast to the "self-respect" that Eliza has learned is the
"respectability" that Doolittle and his woman have gained, a respectability that has
"broke all the spirit out of her." While respectability can be learned, and is what
Higgins has taught Eliza, self-respect is something far more authentic, and helps
rather than hinders the growth of an independent spirit. Alfred Doolittle makes the
unmitigated claim that acquiring the wealth to enter this society has "ruined me.
Destroyed my happiness. Tied me up and delivered me into the hands of middle class
morality." Higgins' haughty proclamation--"You will jolly soon see whether she has
an idea that I haven't put into her head or a word that I haven't put into her mouth."--
mistakes the external for the internal, and betrays too much unfounded pride, which is
the ultimate cause of his misunderstanding with Eliza.
The greatest problem that people have with Pygmalion is its highly ambivalent
conclusion, in which the audience is left frustrated if it wants to see the typical
consummation of the hero and heroine one expects in a romance--which is what the
play advertises itself to be after all. Most people like to believe that Eliza's talk about
Freddy and leaving for good is only womanly pride speaking, but that she will
ultimately return to Higgins. The first screenplay of the movie, written without Shaw's
approval, has Eliza buy Higgins a necktie. In the London premier of the play, Higgins
tosses Eliza a bouquet before she departs. A contemporary tour of the play in America
had Eliza return to ask, "What size?" Other films of the play either show Higgins
pleading with Eliza to stay with him, or Higgins following her to church. Doubtless,
everyone wanted to romanticize the play to a degree greater than that which the
playwright presented it. All this makes us question why Shaw is so insistent and
abrupt in his conclusion.
However, in an epilogue that Shaw wrote after too many directors tried to adapt the
conclusion into something more romantic, he writes, "The rest of the story need not
be shown in action, and indeed, would hardly need telling if our imaginations were
not so enfeebled by their lazy dependence on the ready-mades and reach-me-downs of
the rag shop in which Romance keeps its stock of 'happy endings to misfit all stories."
He goes on to deliver a detailed and considered argument for why Higgins would
never marry Eliza, and vice versa. For one, Higgins has too much admiration for his
mother to find any other woman even halfway comparable, and even "had Mrs.
Higgins died, there would still have been Milton and the Universal Alphabet." To
Shaw's mind, if Eliza marries anyone at all, it must be Freddy--"And that is just what
Eliza did." The epilogue goes on to give a dreary account of their married life and
faltering career as the owners of a flower and vegetable shop (an ironic treatment of
the typical "happily ever after" nonsense) in which Freddy and Eliza must take
accounting and penmanship classes to really become useful members of society. One
can see this whole play as an intentional deconstruction of the genre of Romance, and
of the myth of Pygmalion as well.
Towards the end of the play Eliza instinctually knows that Higgins did not of the
making of a married man (mainly due to his idealization of his mother), although
Shaw stands by his opinion that Eliza would not marry him even if there were no
mother-rivals, that she would still refuse the marriage.
The play ends with an uncertainty to the plot, whether or not Eliza will marry
Higgins, however this is cleared by the epilogue in which he states reasons against
such a commitment. Instead Eliza marries Freddy Eynsford Hill. Some may predict
she was driven away from Higgins, with his abrupt sense of being, using sentences
involving Eliza while in conversation with Colonel pickering, "Thank god its all over"
says Higgins without realizing the hurt he is causing her with the miserable silences.
At the end of the Shaw quotes "people in all directions have assumed for no other
reason than that she became the heroine of romance, that she must have married the
hero of it". One can only form the conclusion that the ending to the play is suitable if
only from learning of Shaw's own opinions and attitudes to feminist ideologies. This
is because if it were to end in the obvious way (whereby Eliza would marry Higgins)
Shaw would be failing his own play as someone with knowledge of women's attitudes
would know that a person like Eliza would never marry Higgins.
If Shaw were to take into consideration the audience expectation he would have ended
with Eliza marrying Higgins. The play is essentially a comedy so therefore one could
argue that as an experienced play write he should have ended it in a way that
conforms to the comedy genre, so therefore the audience can be forgiven for
expecting what is an obvious ending.
The ending of Pygmalion is serious and in some ways realistic, not at all in keeping
with the light hearted and cheerful generic conventions of a comedy. Therefore the
audience cannot help but feel somewhat let down that their need for the fairy tale
ending (the typical consummation of the hero and heroine) goes unfulfilled. This was
distinctive of Shaw (who was a lover of paradox) to have provided such an anti-
romantic conclusion to the play. His own need to write a realistic and informed
ending was more important.
It is not entirely true to someone with feminine instinct that Eliza would marry
Higgins. She is in a situation whereby there is opportunity to choose a suitable spouse
rather than being pressured into marrying somebody who clearly would not fulfill her
and meet emotional needs as a husband should. A person with a feminine instinct
would realize this is a far more acceptable conclusion to the play.
If she had married Higgins she would have lived a completely different life. It's not
just that she would be financially secure, but she would have a better chance in
glazing and approving her conducts and manners, as he would take care of her
education and help her to overcome any difficulties. This is what we see in the film
version. After she leaves the stage she comes back to him, hoping that they could
work it out.
In 1938, a film version of the stage play was released,[1] starring Leslie Howard as
Higgins, Wendy Hiller as Eliza, Wilfrid Lawson as her father Alfred Doolittle, Scott
Sunderland as Colonel George Pickering, and David Tree as Freddy Eynsford-Hill. It
was adapted to film by Shaw, W.P. Lipscomb, Cecil Lewis, Ian Dalrymple, and
Anatole de Grunwald from the Shaw play, and directed by Anthony Asquith and
Leslie Howard. The movie was nominated for the Academy Award for Best
Picture.The play was the basis for the musical play and film My Fair Lady.[2]
My Fair Lady is based on George Bernard Shaw's Pygmalion, one of the favorite
plays of all time. In this famous play, Shaw examines the influence of training and
education on success and social class. He uses Eliza to show that training and
education can help someone rise from humble beginnings to live a happier, more
successful, and more confident life.
My Fair Lady was Warner Brothers' most popular musical romantic comedy. It was
also their most expensive film up to that time, totaling in at $17 million. Part of the
reason for the expense was that Warner Brothers had to pay $5.5 million to purchase
the film rights to the already popular Broadway hit. My Fair Lady ended up being one
of the top five biggest hits of 1964. With clever lyrics and memorable tunes combined
with amazing sets, fantastic costumes, and great leads and supporting cast, the lavish
film was a sure winner from the beginning.
The play, the stage musical, and the film musical have different endings. At the end of
the play, Eliza leaves Higgins to marry the aristocrat Freddy Eynsford-Hill. Shaw,
annoyed by the tendency of audiences, actors, and even directors to seek 'romantic' re-
interpretations of his ending, later wrote an essay for inclusion with subsequent
editions in which he explained precisely why it was impossible for the story to end
with Higgins and Eliza getting together. In the stage musical, this is left unresolved,
and the final scene is of a lonely Higgins. Both the 1938 film and the filmed version
of the musical add a final scene with both of them apparently about to reconcile.
In My Fair Lady, although the final confrontation between Higgins and Eliza has been
altered and subjected to major cuts, most of the balance of Shaw’s brilliant dialogue
involving them has survived miraculously intact. Additionally, drawing largely on
references in the Shaw play, Moss Hart and Alan Jay Lerner with the support of Fritz
Loews’s magnificent music, have given their musical a smooth flow and
expansiveness which are to be treasured.
Before the first scene of My Fair Lady, viewers sit through an overture where all the
credits are shown on a background of beautiful flowers. Beautiful music allows
viewers to begin to get the feeling of the film and its characters before the movie even
begins. These beautiful, bright-colored spring flowers become the flowers that line the
entrance to the Covent Opera House.
My Fair Lady begins as members of the upper echelons of society leave the opera
house. As they come out of the building, it begins to rain and the upper class and
lower class people mingle. As young Freddy Eynsford-Hill tries to get a cab for his
mother, he bumps into Eliza, and causes her to drop her flowers. Eliza begins
screaming about how he has ruined her wares and cost her a day's wages. Colonel
Pickering comes on the scene and gives Eliza some coins without receiving any
flowers in return.
Eliza Doolittle is a low-class, uncultured flower girl. To Professor Henry Higgins and
other persons of his stature, her speech is painful and her actions uncouth. Viewers
cringe and laugh as they listen to Eliza's outrageous and unimaginable Cockney
accent that distinguishes her so hideously from the upper classes.
Eliza's emotional well-being is also not at all stable in the beginning of the movie. She
has a fear of being observed that reveals her self-consciousness. Additionally, when
she feels uncomfortable, she makes hasty outbursts at whoever happens to be around.
However, we see her grow and change throughout the course of the movie, until she is
a lady both in actions and in her mental and emotional states.
Throughout the movie, we see social classes taking two forms, either high class or
low class. In the time period in which the movie is set, middle class is not an option.
Higgins' experiment is primarily focused on the possibility that social class has less to
do with money or connections and more to do with proper education, training, and
manners.
By using low-class Eliza as his pupil, Higgins (and Pickering) can prove once and for
all that anyone can become a lady if only she has the proper information and training.
By being trained as a lady and having lived on the streets, Eliza is able to transcend
the requirements and standards of both classes, but that sadly leaves her in a "no-
man's land" from which she has little ability to escape. Love also comes in many
places and at unexpected times.
My Fair Lady was a throwback to happier times in the world of movie musicals.
Companies were trying to cash in on the former popularity of musicals with such
shows as My Fair Lady, The Sound of Music, and Mary Poppins. Needless to say, the
strategy worked. These blockbuster musicals along with others brought in the crowds
that had been missing in recent years for some of the studios. Musicals offer the
advantage of being able to play out life with added musical commentary and asides.
The music enhances the emotion behind the words and actions of the characters.
Additionally, the characters can express themselves through their unique songs and
dances.
Although this musical is based on the stage play Pygmalion, much of the movie's
power relies on the musical numbers. Expressions and emotions are portrayed through
music, lyrics, and dancing. Competition is seen in several ways throughout this
movie. Almost every character is attempting to win some type of competition, either
with themselves or with another person or force.
Higgins is trying to win the competition and wager put to him by Colonel Pickering.
He seeks to make Eliza into a lady in just a few short weeks. In order to prove that he
is truly the best in his field, he must meet this ultimate challenge. However, he is also
competing against himself to see if he really is as smart and determined as he believes
himself to be. If he fails in this task, he has failed in his profession and in his life.
Eliza is also competing against herself. She spends her time trying to prove that a
lowly flower girl from the streets can indeed become a lady and a successful, thriving
member of the community.
The phonograph represents a number of things throughout the movie. In the
beginning, the phonograph is the tool by which Higgins examines a number of
linguistic patterns. After Eliza moves in, Higgins uses the phonograph to train her in
her speech and language habits. After Eliza has learned to speak correctly, the
phonograph symbolizes her freedom and independence as well as her achievement in
changing her long-standing habits. Finally, in the last scene, the phonograph
represents Higgins' desire to have Eliza in his life, as he listens to it after he arrives
home from arguing with her.
Of necessity, the musical foreshortens the roles of several of the supporting
characters, eliminating much of their dimension and humor in the process. However,
in this production of the play, in grand ensemble style, we are presented with a gallery
of richly amusing and often moving individuals from differing social classes. Each is
amazingly well drawn by Shaw, and the performances evoke the richness in the
writing.
Will Henry Higgins and his fair Eliza get married? Or will they be fellow bachelors?
Or will Eliza hitch up with nice, but lightweight Freddy? Or will Eliza go off .... Well,
Bernard Shaw did provide some pretty strong answers in an epilogue-essay, published
about three years after Pygmalion was first produced. However, he may be wrong.
Just maybe, his essay was just a misguided reaction to public perceptions about the
play which rubbed him the wrong way. However, before checking out his epilogue,
you had best get over to the Shakespeare Theatre in Madison and, with the help of
Bonnie J. Monte and her exceptional cast, decide for yourself. For very good measure,
you will almost surely have a delightful time.
According to the Epilogue Show states that there is to be no romantic ‘happy ending’
of a conventional kind. Eliza will not be marrying Higgins because her instinct is all
against that. Higgins is too wrapped up in admiration of his mother and in his work.
He is twenty years older than her and always wants to be superior to her and dominate
her. On the other hand ,Freddy is her age , he also is a gentleman and he loves her.
Unfortunately , he has no money , no occupation and is not clever enough to earn a
living . At Colonel Pickering’s suggestion they open a flower shop (funded at first by
him) which is not a commercial success at first, but eventually flourishes .Mrs.
Eynsford Hill and Clara have no objections to the marriage.
As Shaw tells us in his epilogue, this was how the story really ended. It was a
romance only in the wider sense of the word. So much, then, for any of us who like to
hang on to Higgins' final confident air of the original text and believe there could have
been the "happy ending" which the author despised.
One forms the impression that this production by Richard Mathews - his first as
temporary director at the theatre - has been much influenced by the epilogue. There is
in the main characterizations a foretaste of what is to come and Eliza, in her final
verbal battle with Higgins, conveys more confidence and independence than I have
felt before. Ann Firbank has brought great beauty to the role and a considerable
understanding of it, but the progression of her accent is hardly in time with her
development, visually, as a lady. Her flower girl speech was common, but soft rather
than raucous, and one felt last night that Higgins's task was not to be so difficult after
all. At Mrs. Higgins's "At Home" she was superb, wringing the comedy from the
beautifully-spoken account of how her aunt was "done in", but by the end of the play
she was too natural where she should have been too perfect.
Alan Jay Lerner, probably the most successful adapter of Shaw's Pygmalion,
commented: "Shaw explains how Eliza ends not with Higgins but with Freddy and—
Shaw and Heaven forgive me!—I am not certain he is right." Many critics would
agree with this sentiment. A recent analysis of the play goes so far as to dismiss the
Epilogue as a bit of Shavian frivolity and to cite the "happy ending" Shaw himself
wrote for Pascal's film as the proper denouement of a play which is persuasively
categorized by one critic as a play which follows "the classic pattern of satirical
comedy" [Milton Crane mPMLA, vol.66, 1956].
Shaw concludes his work in his "Epilogue." He tells what happens after Doolittle's
wedding. He states that it is likely that the heroine of the romance would marry the
hero, but this would not be in keeping with the characterizations. That Liza is remade
is plausible, but that she would marry Higgins is unthinkable.
Eliza is fond of Higgins and of Pickering and them of her .She fits in well at Wimpole
Street, a household that needs a ladylike woman. In my opinion They can support and
advise her. She can’t go back to her old life(her speech and manner does not fit in
there any longer) or marry a man like her father.
Pygmalion is one of Shaw's most popular plays as well as one of his most
straightforward ones. The form has none of the complexity that we find in Heartbreak
House or Saint Joan, nor are the ideas in Pygmalion nearly as profound as the ideas in
any of Shaw's other major works. Yet the ending of Pygmalion provokes an
interesting controversy among critics. Higgins and Eliza do not marry at the end of
the written text, while the play as it is usually produced often does reconcile the two
main characters. Obviously many directors and many readers feel that the apparent
unromantic ending is an arbitrary bit of sarcasm appended to the play merely for
spite.....
As the reader may not anticipate, Shaw does not follow the typical storyline of the
woman and the man of the opposite lives, who end up falling in love with each other.
Contrarily, Eliza remains strong, refusing to fall for any sense of false hope, and the
lack of respect given by Higgins. She persists and regardless of Higgins' continuous
begging, she stays with Freddy.

The reading of this story is somewhat enjoyable and interesting, if the unpredictable,
non-traditional storyline is appealing to you, as a reader. I would recommend this
book to people who enjoy these types of storylines of the encountered struggles
between the lower class individuals and their constant strives to be recognized as
anything but lower class.This story illustrates that though there is a social hierarchy in
London at the time, those with the ambition and tenacity to jump social strata’s have
the opportunities and are able to succeed in doing so. Once in this position however,
some tend to question their place in this class and whether they fit in with the
mainstream doings that are found with that status. With confidence and support,
Eliza's role shows that there is indeed room to grow, learn, and adapt to a new culture.

I think this play is a great read today because it still relates to our society on a whole.
People find even now, the unfortunate settings up of a class system within North
America. It's easy to relate, though the reader may not be the flower seller in the
street, they may be the immigrant learning to speak English to gain a job and financial
security for example. The role of class structures made this play relevant in reading it
in the past, at the present moment, and will continue to make it worth reading in the
future.
In fact, George Bernard Shaw's 1912 play Pygmalion is a near perfect representation
of society in general. Although written nearly a full century ago, the differences in
class and gender ring true even in today's modern world. Inspired by a myth of
ancient Greece, Pygmalion focuses around the unique relationship between two very
different individuals, Eliza Doolittle and Henry Higgins. Eliza is a poor, uneducated
flower seller in the slums of England whereas Higgins is a renowned and quite well
off professor of linguistics. The relationship between the two is initiated by each
character's own desires for self betterment. Eliza wishes to become "a lady", so as to
open her own flower shop and Higgins takes Eliza as a sort of project, hoping to pass
her off as a royal duchess simply by improving her English.

In brief, A story of transformation, or at least the attempt of, Pygmalion proves to be

ultimately unsatisfying, despite its sophisticated structure. The main characters of the
play come off as hopelessly pathetic, Eliza in her primitive dialect and low social
status, and Higgins with his sexist attitude and outspoken opinions. The professor,
arguably the protagonist of the play, grows consistently harder to like as the play
progresses. He willingly showcases his arrogance and disrespect not only for the
opposite sex but for those lower than him. The ending of the play also leaves the
reader, or viewer for that matter, with a sense of incompleteness. One naturally
expects an epiphany to be had, where the players realize their faults and strive to right
them. Such is not the case. Also, the relationship between Eliza and Higgins leads the
reader to expect a romance to occur, although once again such is not the case. The
play ends arbitrarily leaving the audience to make up their own minds. Although it is
reported that Shaw ended his play like this on purpose, as a deliberate attack on the
"cookie cutter" endings that audiences so easily predicted, the purpose proves to be a
failure as far as entertainment goes. Audiences desire a certain degree of closure
where loose ends are tied up. However, the dialogue and stage business of Pygmalion
is witty and clever, and the message of the play is representative of every person's
inner quest for self improvement. And Whether we agree with Shaw or not, we can't
deny that the play is a wonderful depiction of reality and romance