"Pygmalion?" A Romance?

George Bernard Shaw's "Pygmalion" is play that easily resonates with any person who has ever taken the step toward reinvention.

Despite the fact that "Pygmalion" is the ultimate makeover story, one also wonders if the story line constitutes that of a "Romance." Is the story between Higgins and Eliza actually romantic? And what actually makes a story romantic--is it all about love and relationships, or can it also include transformations toward that which is ideal? "Pygmalion" gives rise to a lot of these questions, surprising the reader in finding that Shaw has sought to draw an accurate picture of a a real-life scenario.

Throughout the play, we watch Higgins morph an uncultured flower girl into a duchess. She becomes poised with elegance and style, disguised and ready to fool the questioning eyes of the upper class. She is deemed absolutely acceptable in the eyes of her superiors and finds herself elevated among them, and pursued by the enamored Freddy.

Ovid's original myth of "Pygmalion" describes the transformation of something of little significance to the most beautiful of creations. The flower girl stands in the town market selling a perishable and non-essential item. She is really quite unimportant in the scheme of things, finding her daily wages more through pity than through business. She is the scrap of England, fully formed in a useless state. Her sculptor, Henry Higgins, enters, ready to take that which is most undesirable in her and turn it into that of a respectable English woman. Although Higgins does his best to keep a cool and distant composure about himself, he still finds himself obsessed with improving Eliza's station. He takes pains to ensure that every minuscule detail of her composure is perfected. He feels quite sure that those who will observe her will find the faults of her upbringing. Instead, she presents herself as the perfect image of lady-like qualities, impressing her suitors and shocking Higgins.

In Ovid's myth, Aphrodite feel pity for the sculptor, seeing how he has fallen deeply in love with his perfect statue. She gives the statue life. In the play, Eliza has always had "life." This difference is that Higgins does not choose to acknowledge this living quality until after she has been transformed and found approval in society. In quarreling with the perfect image of womanhood, he sees the truth behind visual perfection and the instigation of love. The play shows that Higgins cannot love her. Although he sees her as a perfectly suitable partner, he never develops a romantic interest in her. He fights and argues with her up until the last page of the play. Shaw's afterward suggests that Higgins is distracted by the idea that no woman could ever equal to the stature of his own mother. And, of course, in any time period, the husband must allow for the wife to fill certain voids that the mother can no longer seek to occupy. Higgins resists such a situation. He feels perfectly at ease in the bachelor lifestyle and finds that he needs no real female counterpart to exist successfully.

What is romantic about not embracing romance?

Shaw suggests that this is a story of romantic themes for Higgins. He seeks no physical or legal gratification in marriage. He is already perfectly satisfied by his goddess of a mother. Perhaps Higgins seeks a woman with whom he can be rude and uncivil, with the presumption that she will never really leave him. The end of the play does not portray Eliza as leaving the company of Higgins. Instead, it shows her scoffing at him, but never really "leaving" for good. She recognizes that he will never seek a wife in her, only a companion.

Maybe Shaw was trying to instigate a new kind of "romance"--that which does not include a sappy love story. Higgins created what he wanted to create and he was pleased with it. Eliza grew to understand the quality of her inner personality over her outward appearance. Higgins gave her a new life, but did not necessarily mock this fact. Perhaps it was his plan all along. That alone is a different sort of romance. Higgins could recognize the class structure and selfishly sought out to develop and experiment that transformed into a real person. Perhaps it is romantic that Higgins begins to form this new feeling of utility in elevating the flower girl. He knows that he has done right by her, and that there is nothing more he could have done to make her happier with his disposition. Romance seems to include an outpouring of some emotion or action. Higgins romantic catharsis was labor toward reinvention. Romance also can be assumed as unusual, out of the ordinary, or unexpected. For if romance were always within expectations, one would never be able to recognize it. There's a lyric in Sondheim's musical "Into the Woods" that declares, "If life were full of moments, you would never know you had one!" I think this is very applicable to this story. Higgins did what was most unexpected of him, and he was able to recognize the "romantic" characteristics of his actions.

I think Higgins is very much aware of his chance romantic inclination when he makes this speech in the third act:

HIGGINS: You see, we're all savages, more or less. We're supposed to be civilized and cultured--to know all about poetry and philosophy and art and science, and so on; but how many of us know even the meanings of these names? [To Miss Hill] What do you know of poetry? [To Mrs. Hill] What do you know of science? [Indicating Freddy] What does he know of art or science or anything else? What the devil do you imagine I know of philosophy?

Before we can receive any answers from the players, Eliza, his creation based upon an idealistic mold, enters and diverts the conversation.