Somewhat of a Greek mythology buff, I had heard of the story of Pygmalion before and how his love and adoration for his statue caused him to ask the goddess Venus to bring him a woman like her. He had detested women before hand, but longed for the touch of someone just like his statue. Impressed and touched by his show of live, Venus granted the wish.
So I wasn't surprised that in this play, Bernard Shaw wanted to remake this myth in a 1900 England setting. Although not nearly as fantastic as the original story, the Pygmalion here is Professor Higgins who takes it upon himself, with the help of Pickering, to improve the flower girl also known as Eliza. In Act 2, we see a snippet of her lessons with them as they teach her the "correct" way of reciting the alphabet. Taking away her personal dialect, they improve her speech and, although doing it in tears, she eventually starts to get it right (1032).
One of the best parts of the play is in Act 4 when Eliza expresses to Higgins that she is not able to do anything else, now that she has been turned into a lady. Higgins tells her, "I daresay my mother could find some chap or other who would do very well," in an attempt to tell her that she can get married and be a good wife for someone to take care of, she responds saying that her family is above that kind of thinking (1048). She doesn't want her purpose in life to be based on a man, she sold flowers before and was able to do for herself, and now in hindsight, realizes that that's exactly what she wanted.
The take home message I got from this rendition, as well as the actual myth for that matter, is that what makes any man think that he can mold a woman in his own fashion? Should it have been Higgins' and Pickering's responsibility to transform this woman into a lady? No, women are completely capable of deciding their own fate, whether they are statues or flower girls. Perhaps Shaw was attempting to say that it isn't right for women to be so subjected to what men want as they were in those times.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Jalisa,
ReplyDeleteGood opening in this post, by connecting Shaw's play to the Greek myth of Pygmalion. Shaw seems to have a peculiar spin on the myth, though: Higgins doesn't love his creation, and she doesn't fall in love with him or become happy in her new form. Your post raises some interesting points; I wish you had had more time to pursue them in more depth.