G.B Shaw's Pygmalion

George Bernard Shaw known for his contemporary satire and historical allegory, is one of the greatest dramatists of his generation and was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1925. He wrote more than sixty plays, out of which his major works include:

1) Arms and The Man
2) Pygmalion
3) Man and Superman
4) The Doctor's Dilemma

In Ovid's Metamorphoses, Pygmalion is a sculptor who falls in love with his own creation when it comes to life. Shaw's play is a modern adaptation of Ovid's work.

The play centers around the transformation of a Cockney flower girl to a lady of the upper class by a phonetician, Henry Higgins , who believes that such a transformation is possible by working on the flower girl's language for six months. The play is a good example of the dominant class conflict in English society as well as gender politics.

To read a detailed summary of the play click here

A popular adaptation of the play was the movie My Fair Lady:

   



Like a lot of Shaw's heroes, Henry Higgins is not a gentleman. And also in contrast to the mythological Pygmalion, Higgins treats his creation i.e Eliza only as a project. "He is brilliant and cultured, but he lacks manners and refuses to learn or even affect any, believing himself superior to the conventions and civilities of polite society and preferring to treat everyone with bluntness and candor." ( "Pygmalion- Critical Evaluation" Critical Survey of Literature for Students Ed. Laurence W. Mazzeno. eNotes.com, Inc. 2010 eNotes.com 29 Apr 2019. https://www.enotes.com/topics/pygmalion/critical-essays)

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