Pygmalion Writing Style Straightforward, Witty • Though Henry Higgins claims to be a regular John . Milton, Shaw doesn't let him get too poetic. [r]
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Pygmalion Genre
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Drama, Realism ere: heavy stuff about language, society, and the soul Lucky for us, in this case he likes
to show, not tell (Well, for the most part
He usually liked writing long introductions to his plays.) We get long speeches from Higgins about how language is what makes us human, about the great significance of
his work with Eliza, and sometimes it seems like Shaw is
simply using him as a mouthpiece
But we get enough perspectives on other issues — Alfred Doolittle on the undeserving poor, Mrs Higgins on the place of women in society — and enough heated
arguments to raise doubts about the truth of Higgins's
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"Drama, Realis we get tO Ca act, the play seems like it's
headed toward the usual sort of Hollywood ending
Eliza's going to be transformed into an intelligent,
elegant, eloquent, and eligible young woman, grumpy old Higgins is going to learn a lesson or two about manners and compassion, somebody will get married,
blah, blah, blah "Not so fast," says Shaw
Instead we get two more acts full of arguing and passive- aggressive behavior with no real end in sight We do get a marriage, in the end, but it's not your neat little fairy tale kind Doolittle's not really much for sticking with a
single woman He wouldn't even be thinking about it if it weren't for that whole "middle class morality" thing
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DỊ lạ ma, F gins ca alls Monty one who's sure
how things VI turn out Eliza will come back, he tells his mother, but we have no real way of knowing if she will
As it turns out, the play's central question isn't, "Can you pass off a flower girl as a duchess?" but, "What can you do with her once you do?"
As attractive and, perhaps, truthful as Higgins's talk about the soul and language is, Shaw forces us to put it to the test "The great secret," Higgins tells Eliza, "is not having good manners or bad manners, but having the
Same manner for all human souls” (5.197)
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idact C Witty wants to get us
thinking about a lot of important stuff Luckily, he's not into lecturing
Think of him as a zany, loveable teacher: he wants you to learn something and have fun doing it (On second thought, that sounds a lot like your friends here at
Shmoop.) The play's scenario seems so simple — poor girl becomes duchess thanks to brilliant, eccentric
teacher — that, by the time Shaw starts asking the Big
Issues, we're So invested in the characters that resistance
is futile
The whole thing 1s a bit like Higgins himself Sometimes
Pygmalion can be hard to deal with, but in the end it's so
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Milton, Shaw doesn't let him get too poetic
He has too many important topics to tackle, and he can't be bothered with heavy symbolism, complicated
metaphors, and big words
Above all, Shaw wants his characters to speak, whether
with Eliza's almost incomprehensible accent, Doolittle's strange charm, or Higgins's cynical reason; he wants us to understand the variety of ways English can be spoken And so we get Higgins imitating Eliza — "Cheer ap,
Keptin; n' haw ya flahr orf a pore gel" — and what
"
Higgins calls Doolittle's "native woodnotes wild."
Each is distinct on a grammatical level, and, when
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Sryqmalion VWWI
Straightforward Witt ° Remember how at the beginning Higgins is able to
tell the people where they come from? Well, even if
we, the audience can't pick out the different accents,
it's the director's job to sort that out
Tough, huh? It's a good thing Shaw also has no
problem with telling us what characters are like right off the bat
He lets us know from the very beginning that
Higgins is a bit of a baby — it's in his character
description — and we get plenty of confirmation later
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What’s Up With the Title? ® Shaw wrote Pygnialion in 1912, but he took its
name from something way, way older: an Ancient
Greek myth The most famous of its many versions
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What’s Up With the Title?
° Inthe myth, Pygmalion, a sculptor from Cyprus, hates women, and
especially hates the idea of getting married Still, he gets tired of lying 1n bed alone at night, and decides to carve a beautiful woman out of ivory, a woman so beautiful that he can't help but fall in love with her Which 1s exactly what he does
After making the sculpture, he can't help himself, and he kisses her and starts dressing her up and doing anything he can to make her seem more human
None of that helps to turn her into a human being, but he can't let her go So, when the feast of Venus rolls around, he prays and begs and pleads with the goddess Venus to please turn this statue into a real live woman
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the myth, but it's pretty clear who's who here: Henry Higgins is the sculptor, Eliza Doolittle his creation Shaw adds a lot more to the mix — stuff about British
society, and women — and it's science, not Venus,
doing the transforming, but the basics are the same
Just remember: there's a reason it's called Pygmalion and not My Fair Lady
It's about the relationship between Henry Higgins and Eliza Doolittle, but we have to pay attention to the old sculptor as much as we have to watch the
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_Endi ng? tough: the play ends with big argument between Henry Higgins and Eliza Doolittle We're not talking about a little quarrel here, but a heck of a fight Eliza's already made Higgins plenty angry by leaving his house, and then proceeding to act all cheery and nice the next day
She's already given Pickering most of the credit for her transformation from flower girl to lady, and now, to top it all off, she's refusing to come back and live with
Higgins
You see, Eliza doesn't know what to do with herself now
Trang 14¢ Higgins do®Sn't seem too fazed by this He tells her
that, no, he doesn't mean to treat her poorly He
treats everyone poorly It's just his way of being fair *® Now, it's easy to be cynical and write Higgins off as
a jerk He does call Eliza a liar, a fool, an idiot, and
(worst of all) a "damned impudent slut" (5.263); oh, and he almost strangles her too
¢ But it’s hard not to buy into what he's saying, at least
a little bit, since he has such a beautiful way of
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_Ending2„ buy a lot of what he's saying She doesn't seem convinced by the whole "I treat everyone like garbage" excuse
She's insulted by Higgins's offer to arrange a marriage with somebody rich She's so annoyed by the whole
thing that she starts making threats of her own She tells Higgins that she'll marry Freddy if she has to (Higgins doesn't want his "masterpiece" wasted on such a lout) She even threatens to use her knowledge against him, to teach one of Higgins's competitors the methods she
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“End Ing? early ensues before Higgins has a great Bee By finally learning to treat him poorly,
Higgins believes that Eliza has finally become his equal
Again, this all seems a bit off, and Eliza herself isn't
convinced And why should she be? Hasn't Higgins been having these little realizations the whole time? (Recall his reaction to her arrival at Wimpole Street: "Oh, not this one again
Throw her out No, wait, she'll be a wonderful little
guinea pig Let's have some fun, Pickering.") She has plenty of reasons not to trust him Would you listen to
Trang 17¢ Eliza turns Around to leave, telling Higgins "I shall not see you again Good-bye" (5.270) Higgins isn't one to give up, however He calls after her and tells
her to pick up some groceries and fresh clothes
Higgins's mother, who's just come in to get Eliza, thinks he's crazy, but Higgins himself is sure "She'll buy em all right enough,” he tells his mother,
Trang 18Now, it seems like everything's up in the air at this point, right? Higgins is sure Eliza will come back but, well, he's been wrong before
© Eliza seems to doubt the sincerity of Higgins's arguments, but on the other hand, he can be pretty persuasive She, herself, has threatened to do a lot of things, like marry Freddy But, come on, Freddy's a pretty big doofus
® So, it's kind of a cliffhanger Eliza is still left in a difficult position: she can't go back to selling flowers, but she doesn't want to sell herself, to marry into money
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Ending? t accordntg to Shaw He wrote a "Sequel" to |
Pygmalion and, like most sequels, it's not nearly as good as the original It's just a really long
explanation of what happens
It "need not be shewn in action," he says Shaw just
wants us to know that everybody reading the play 1s silly and sentimental, and, no, Higgins and Eliza
aren't reunited
Instead, she marries Freddy and they open a flower
shop and they pretty much live happily ever after We here at say forget about the sequel and go with
your gut You can do better than that