Pygmalion CD

Rating:
Summary: probably the greatest work of the Nobel laureate
Review: The greatest problem in communication is the illusion that it has been accomplished. -George Bernard Shaw

Though almost universally interpreted as a critical statement on the artificiality of class and social status, Pygmalion is really just an update of Paradise Lost and the Genesis story of the Fall of Man. This is most obvious from the way that Shaw changes the ending of the classic myth from which he borrows the plot and title and by his referring several times to Henry Higgins as Miltonic. The original Pygmalion was a character in Ovid's Metamorphoses, a woman-hating sculptor who chiseled a perfect female out of stone. He became so enamored with his creation that he asked the gods to grant her life. Venus answered his prayers, turning the statue into a living woman, Galatea, whom Pygmalion then married.

In his version of the Pygmalion tale, Shaw eschews this happy ending and, whether wittingly or no, turns the story into a Biblical allegory. Henry Higgins takes the role of God :

You see this creature with her kerbstone English: the English that will keep her in the gutter to the end of her days. Well, sir, in three months I could pass that girl off as a duchess at an ambassador's garden party. I could even get her a place as lady's maid or shop assistant, which requires better English. Thats the sort of thing I do for commercial millionaires. And on the profits of it I do genuine scientific work in phonetics, and a little as a poet on Miltonic lines.

Lifting Liza--who it must be noted is a flower girl, deriving her living from the products of the garden, get it?--up from the gutter (note the implication that she is dirt), Higgins turns her into a cultured woman, remakes her in his own image, only to find himself taken with his creation. He finds that he has not merely given her form, but has revealed a worthwhile soul too :

HIGGINS [arrogant] I can do without anybody. I have my own soul: my own spark of divine fire. But [with sudden humility] I shall miss you, Eliza. [He sits down near her on the ottoman]. I have learnt something from your idiotic notions: I confess that humbly and gratefully. And I have grown accustomed to your voice and appearance. I like them, rather.

LIZA. Well, you have both of them on your gramophone and in your book of photographs. When you feel lonely without me, you can turn the machine on. It's got no feelings to hurt.

HIGGINS. I cant turn your soul on. Leave me those feelings; and you can take away the voice and the face. They are not you.

But this is not the same thing as love, and Liza wishes to be loved, resulting in an impasse between the two :

LIZA. What did you do it for if you didnt care for me?

HIGGINS [heartily] Why, because it was my job.

LIZA. You never thought of the trouble it would make for me.

HIGGINS. Would the world ever have been made if its maker had been afraid of making trouble? Making life means making trouble. Theres only one way of escaping trouble; and thats killing things. Cowards, you notice, are always shrieking to have troublesome people killed.

LIZA. I'm no preacher: I dont notice things like that. I notice that you dont notice me.

HIGGINS [jumping up and walking about intolerantly] Eliza: youre an idiot. I waste the treasures of my Miltonic mind by spreading them before you. Once for all, understand that I go my way and do my work without caring twopence what happens to either of us. I am not intimidated, like your father and your stepmother. So you can come back or go to the devil: which you please.

Liza ultimately chooses independence from her creator and marries the dull but earnest Freddy. As Shaw said in a postscript which was added to later editions :

Galatea never does quite like Pygmalion: his relation to her is too godlike to be altogether agreeable.

And so you have it : God creates a creature in his own image, and is pleased with it, but wishes it to remain wholly His. The creature, created too well, wants its independence, more than it wants to bask in the reflected glow of the Creator, and so rebels. Odd as it may seem, coming from a Socialist and an Atheist, Shaw's Pygmalion is a devoutly Biblical work, derived entirely from the most classic themes in Western thought.

In addition, though we try to avoid psychology as much as possible here, there are inevitable comparisons to Shaw's own life. Read Higgins as a stand-in for Shaw, bringing culture to the unwashed masses (his Adams and Eves, Galateas, and Lizas) through his advocacy of Socialism. However, this process will not create any love between him and the objects of his endeavor. Instead, he will wish them to remain true to his vision of what they should be, and they will resent their creator and seek their independence from the life he envisions for them. Looked at from this perspective, the play reflects the uneasy relationship between intellectuals and the intended beneficiaries of their theories.

At any rate, you can interpret the play on a number of levels, it has several memorable characters and it's quite funny, probably the greatest work of a Nobel laureate. One recommendation : because of the reliance on language and dialects, you really need to hear it, rather than just read it. The CD version--featuring Michael Redgrave, Lynn Redgrave, Michael Hordern, and Donald Pleasence--is especially good.

Rating:
Summary: probably the greatest work of the Nobel laureate
Review: The greatest problem in communication is the illusion that it has been accomplished. -George Bernard Shaw

Though almost universally interpreted as a critical statement on the artificiality of class and social status, Pygmalion is really just an update of Paradise Lost and the Genesis story of the Fall of Man. This is most obvious from the way that Shaw changes the ending of the classic myth from which he borrows the plot and title and by his referring several times to Henry Higgins as Miltonic. The original Pygmalion was a character in Ovid's Metamorphoses, a woman-hating sculptor who chiseled a perfect female out of stone. He became so enamored with his creation that he asked the gods to grant her life. Venus answered his prayers, turning the statue into a living woman, Galatea, whom Pygmalion then married.

In his version of the Pygmalion tale, Shaw eschews this happy ending and, whether wittingly or no, turns the story into a Biblical allegory. Henry Higgins takes the role of God :

You see this creature with her kerbstone English: the English that will keep her in the gutter to the end of her days. Well, sir, in three months I could pass that girl off as a duchess at an ambassador's garden party. I could even get her a place as lady's maid or shop assistant, which requires better English. Thats the sort of thing I do for commercial millionaires. And on the profits of it I do genuine scientific work in phonetics, and a little as a poet on Miltonic lines.

Lifting Liza--who it must be noted is a flower girl, deriving her living from the products of the garden, get it?--up from the gutter (note the implication that she is dirt), Higgins turns her into a cultured woman, remakes her in his own image, only to find himself taken with his creation. He finds that he has not merely given her form, but has revealed a worthwhile soul too :

HIGGINS [arrogant] I can do without anybody. I have my own soul: my own spark of divine fire. But [with sudden humility] I shall miss you, Eliza. [He sits down near her on the ottoman]. I have learnt something from your idiotic notions: I confess that humbly and gratefully. And I have grown accustomed to your voice and appearance. I like them, rather.

LIZA. Well, you have both of them on your gramophone and in your book of photographs. When you feel lonely without me, you can turn the machine on. It's got no feelings to hurt.

HIGGINS. I cant turn your soul on. Leave me those feelings; and you can take away the voice and the face. They are not you.

But this is not the same thing as love, and Liza wishes to be loved, resulting in an impasse between the two :

LIZA. What did you do it for if you didnt care for me?

HIGGINS [heartily] Why, because it was my job.

LIZA. You never thought of the trouble it would make for me.

HIGGINS. Would the world ever have been made if its maker had been afraid of making trouble? Making life means making trouble. Theres only one way of escaping trouble; and thats killing things. Cowards, you notice, are always shrieking to have troublesome people killed.

LIZA. I'm no preacher: I dont notice things like that. I notice that you dont notice me.

HIGGINS [jumping up and walking about intolerantly] Eliza: youre an idiot. I waste the treasures of my Miltonic mind by spreading them before you. Once for all, understand that I go my way and do my work without caring twopence what happens to either of us. I am not intimidated, like your father and your stepmother. So you can come back or go to the devil: which you please.

Liza ultimately chooses independence from her creator and marries the dull but earnest Freddy. As Shaw said in a postscript which was added to later editions :

Galatea never does quite like Pygmalion: his relation to her is too godlike to be altogether agreeable.

And so you have it : God creates a creature in his own image, and is pleased with it, but wishes it to remain wholly His. The creature, created too well, wants its independence, more than it wants to bask in the reflected glow of the Creator, and so rebels. Odd as it may seem, coming from a Socialist and an Atheist, Shaw's Pygmalion is a devoutly Biblical work, derived entirely from the most classic themes in Western thought.

In addition, though we try to avoid psychology as much as possible here, there are inevitable comparisons to Shaw's own life. Read Higgins as a stand-in for Shaw, bringing culture to the unwashed masses (his Adams and Eves, Galateas, and Lizas) through his advocacy of Socialism. However, this process will not create any love between him and the objects of his endeavor. Instead, he will wish them to remain true to his vision of what they should be, and they will resent their creator and seek their independence from the life he envisions for them. Looked at from this perspective, the play reflects the uneasy relationship between intellectuals and the intended beneficiaries of their theories.

At any rate, you can interpret the play on a number of levels, it has several memorable characters and it's quite funny, probably the greatest work of a Nobel laureate. One recommendation : because of the reliance on language and dialects, you really need to hear it, rather than just read it. The CD version--featuring Michael Redgrave, Lynn Redgrave, Michael Hordern, and Donald Pleasence--is especially good.