The myth of Pygmalion began with a man who thought that women wasted away their lives living in shame and in the result of this never got married. According to Ovid’s Metamorphoses: Pygmalion, one day he decided to carve a sculpture of a beautiful woman who he eventually fell in love with. With every touch and kiss that he planted on the sculpture, Pygmalion began to see his creation come to life and he has finally created his perfect woman. Many feminists today would disagree with the thought that a man could create his own perfect woman because it is unrealistic and insulting to most women. George Bernard Shaw allows his audience to visualize this myth through Miss Eliza Doolittle, a poor girl who does not speak English well and Mr. Henry Higgins, a well-spoken, affluent man who turns Eliza’s life around by teaching her how to be a lady. The pair’s tumultuous relationship displays the strict gender roles that were put on women in the early twentieth century and how women have dealt with this oppression for years through the role of Eliza Doolittle.
George Bernard Shaw titles the play Pygmalion in reference to the myth and calls attention to the problems that are related to the unrealistic expectations that society puts on women. Shaw relates Mr. Higgins’ character to Pygmalion because they both created their own perfect women and objects of their fantasies. Eliza relates to the beautiful sculpture that is created by Pygmalion, since Higgins molds Eliza into a well-spoken lady instead of a poor girl who sold flowers in the street. Eliza was quite a dependent and naive girl who wished to own her flower shop one day but needed the help of others in order to survive. Eliza’s first interaction with Higgins was an unpleasant one and he ended up insulting Eliza and telling her that her English will “keep her in the gutter to the end of her days” (Shaw 16, Act 1). Higgins insults Eliza because of the way she talks, her social status and because of her dependent nature. Mr. Higgins decides to help mold Eliza into a lady with etiquette in order for everyone to see what a great educator he is. Eliza seeks help from Higgins because she wishes to change her life and identity in order to climb the social ladder and be more than just a poor girl selling flowers on the street. It is clear that Eliza wants to better her life so she does not need to depend on others for money. She makes this evident by explaining to Higgins that she wants “‘to be a lady in a flower shop stead of selling at the corner of Tottenham Court Road’” (Shaw 21, Act. 2). The only reason that Higgins is helping Eliza is because he wants to prove that he is an excellent professor and does not actually care if she learns how to speak properly or not. Higgins constantly insults Eliza and sees himself as being better than she is because of her inability to properly speak English. These two characters display a parallelism by being isolated into two different worlds, superior and inferior. Another parallel found in these two characters is that Eliza was never educated, while Higgins was a profound professor and very intelligent. This shows another difference between these two genders during that time. Women were not given the same opportunities as men in the aspect of an education and the chance at a career. Instead of respecting Eliza as a human being and as his student, Higgins treats Eliza with disrespect and treats her as only his test subject. Even though Higgins is a prominent educator in language, he often uses harsh and brutal language by calling Eliza a “creature” and a “bilious pigeon” (Shaw 16, Act 1). The way Higgins treats Eliza helps her grow up and become more independent throughout the whole play. She starts off depending on others, learns how to be a lady, gains respect from some and becomes independent from Higgins and learns how to stand up for herself against female oppression.
Society has depicted women as being simply an object to men rather than an equal. Women have only had the right to vote since the year 1920 in the United States and in some countries, women still are not allowed life’s simple tasks such as operating a car or having a job. This kind of oppression has been around for decades and is still prevalent to this day. In Peter Barry’s, Beginning Criticism: Feminist Criticism, he explains that the women’s movement of the sixties produced what is known today as the feminist literary criticism. Barry explains that various feminists made the argument that “…in the nineteenth-century fiction very few women work for a living…” and the “…focus of interest is on the heroine’s choice of marriage partner, which will decide her ultimate social position and exclusively determine her happiness and fulfillment in life…” (Barry, p. 122). Men associate their wives and daughters as their properties because the men are supposed to be the protectors and providers for their families. Men are always depicted to be the ones that support their families by going to work, and in exchange, the wives and daughters provide the husband with a meal, clean clothes and a tidy place to live. This is shown when Higgins orders his housekeeper, Mrs. Pearce, to give Eliza a bath and burn her clothes without asking permission to see if that is what she wants to happen. All the decisions are made only by Higgins. He is the one that agreed to help Eliza, he is the one to teach her how to speak the way he thinks a lady should speak and he is the one to take the credit for all of Eliza’s hard work. According to Luce Irigaray’s “Women on the Market,” she explains that the “production of women, signs, and commodities is always referred back to men (when a man buys a girl, he ”pays” the father or the brother, not the mother…), and they always pass from one man to another, from one group of men to another” (Irigaray p. 171). This is prevalent in Shaw’s play when Eliza was passed on from her father to Henry Higgins. When Mr. Doolittle found out who his daughter has been staying with, he convinces Higgins to pay him some money since Eliza is now living with Higgins instead of her father. Doolittle comes to Higgin’s home and explains that he has come for his daughter, but later asks Higgins, “…Will you take advantage of a man’s nature to do him out of the price of his own daughter what he’s brought up and fed and clothed by the sweat of his brow until she’s growed big enough to be interesting to you two gentlemen? Is five pounds unreasonable?” and ultimately leaves with the money (Shaw 37, Act 2). This example perfectly shows how Eliza was no more than an object to her father and also illustrates the way men used to use their children, especially their daughters, as a means for income. Luce Irigaray makes the argument that “our own culture, is based upon the exchange of women…” and women are exchanged because they are considered a scarcity and are essential in the well being of groups (Irigaray, p. 170). In this case, Eliza is the scarcity in the lives of her father and Higgins. Eliza’s father is marrying another woman and therefore does not need Eliza because he has exchanged her for his new soon to be wife. She was clearly being exchanged between Higgins and her father and they do not seem to care that she is not an object to be passed around from person to person. This is a demonstration of power between the two men and Higgins must prove his worthiness to the father by being able to afford the payment requested for his daughter. Women have always been seen solely as objects to men because of their roles in society as mothers and caretakers. Higgins believes that the outcome of his experiment will result in Eliza finding numerous men to court her, instead of understanding a woman’s hopes to better her life for herself rather than for the attention of a man.
In Laura Mulvey’s “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema,” she investigates the male interest with women entirely as an image for pleasure known otherwise as the male gaze. Mulvey explains that “In their traditional exhibitionist role women are simultaneously looked at and displayed, with their appearance coded for strong visual and erotic impact so that they can be said to connote to-be-looked-at-ness” (Mulvey p. 837.) In most movie productions and television shows, the storyline revolves around a man and his potential love interest, which is usually a female character. The female is usually the person to change the man for the better or inspires him to strive for greater aspects in his life, but in herself, the woman is not important whatsoever. In the case of Eliza and Higgins, Eliza is important for Higgins in helping him be seen as a better teacher to those who have importance in the world. Higgins thinks that the only reason Eliza will benefit from his teachings is to gain the interest of men. Higgins says to Eliza that “…you’re not bad-looking; it’s quite a pleasure to look at you sometimes…” and reassures her that she could potentially find a husband easily (Shaw 61, Act 4). Laura Mulvey’s male gaze theory is also prevalent in the myth of Pygmalion when Pygmalion becomes obsessed with his statue creation of his perfect woman. When his statue comes to life, she is seen as a flawless woman who is targeted to fulfill the desires of all heterosexual males. Even though female characters are only important in benefiting the male hero, Eliza strives to benefit her own life using the teachings and knowledge of a male. At the beginning of the story, Eliza is seen as a poor, filthy girl that no man would ever touch, but as she transformed into a lady, she has also transformed the way she is treated by some. Eliza and Pygmalion’s statue are alike in the way they have been molded by men to fit their liking. Eliza overcomes the common conception that women are only put on this earth to satisfy males and their needs by remaining true to herself throughout the play and by working hard to better herself only for her benefit. She also becomes the protagonist of the play and allows the audience, especially female viewers to sympathize with Eliza because of the situations she has been through. While most plays, shows or movies end with the male and female characters falling in love and living happily ever after, Shaw’s play ends with Eliza standing up to Higgins and telling him to go buy his own clothes and walks out. This ending is important in showing that women can make their own decisions in life and do not need a man to control them. Eliza chose not to marry Higgins because she knows that she has more choices than just marrying him because he has the ability to care for her financially.
Eliza transforms from a poor flower girl into an independent woman with the help of many characters, including Henry Higgins. Throughout all the verbal abuse that Higgins throws her way, Eliza manages to always defend herself against Higgin’s superiority complex. At the beginning of Shaw’s play, Eliza says “[still preoccupied with her wounded feelings] He’s no right to take away my character. My character is the same to me as any lady’s” after thinking Higgins was there to turn her over to the police (Shaw 14, Act 1). Throughout the play, Eliza continues to defend herself against Higgins and never allows him to get away with insulting her. This is evident towards the end of the play when Eliza angrily hurls Higgins’ slippers at him because Higgins acts as though his work in molding her into a lady is greater than Eliza’s own self-transformation. This affects Eliza greatly and is fed up with being treated as only an experiment and the lack of caring he shows towards Eliza’s feelings. While trying to project her feelings to Higgins, Eliza explains, “[breathless] Nothing wrong—with YOU. I’ve won your bet for you, haven’t I? That’s enough for you. I don’t matter, I suppose” (Shaw 59, Act 4). Higgins is angered that Eliza is defying him after everything he has done for her and can not comprehend that he is the source of her anger. The main reason Higgins does not respect Eliza is that she challenges his masculinity and superiority with her own self-wisdom. Eliza informs Higgins that the only person who has respected her ever since they met was Colonel Pickering because he always referred to her as Ms. Doolittle, while he always dehumanized her by his name calling. Eliza realizes that Higgins has no respect for humans and tells him “So you are a motor bus: all bounce and go, and no consideration for anyone. But I can do without you: don’t think I can’t” (Shaw 77, Act 4). Eliza knows that she is able to live without Higgins and all the glamour that he has given her and wishes she can go back to her old life. This is proved when Eliza says, “Oh! if I only COULD go back to my flower basket! I should be independent of both you and father and all the world! Why did you take my independence from me? Why did I give it up? I’m a slave now, for all my fine clothes” (Shaw 79, Act 5).
George Bernard Shaw explores the strict gender roles between Higgins and Eliza: the oppression of women throughout the story, and the newly gained independence of Eliza through his play, Pygmalion. Society has made women think that they are inferior to men for many years and has not allowed women to live the same lives as them. Peter Barry’s, Laura Mulvey’s and Luce Irigaray’s insights on feminist criticism aid in Shaw’s storytelling when it comes to Higgins disrespect towards Eliza.