[HIGGINS] Eliza you're magnificent. Five minutes ago you were a mill-stone 'round my neck and now you're a tower of strength - a consort battleship. I like you this way.
[LIZA] Goodbye Professor Higgins
The myth of Pygmalion and Galatea is a simple one. Being disenfranchised by women at a local whorehouse, talented sculptor Pygmalion set out to create the perfect women through sculpture. After time the sculpture became so perfect in its details he fell in love with it. Beginning to treat it like a woman with gifts, kisses and caresses appropriate for a lover, he longed for it to be alive. Greek God, Aphrodite took pity on him and after the sacrifice of a bull, Pygmalion returned to find that Galatea had come to life. They were soon wed and blessed with offspring. Pygmalion had created his perfect match.
Shaw's Pygmalion and Lerner/Lowe's My Fair Lady make nods to the myth in its substance, but further explore the problems that can ensue from such a relationship. Higgin's obsession with his work causes him to always see Liza as an object instead of a woman. Feeling a disdain for women in general - "Women are irrational, that's all there is to that! There heads are full of cotton, hay, and rags! They're nothing but exasperating, irritating, vacillating, calculating, agitating, Maddening and infuriating hags!" Higgins ceases to see women as objects of personal care, rather more in the function they serve in his life. Mrs. Pearce, ever patient, obliging, yet strong is able to put up with his offensive behavior. His mother he sees only due to his long-term familial loyalty.
The short exchange above perfectly depicts the transformation in perspective of Higgins. Liza goes from being an object of his work - an opus or ouvre - to being a viable life partner. Higgins begins to "press at the flesh" and realize that she is a living being. It is not however, as a wife that he sees her, but of an amiable female to live with. "You and I and Pickering will be three old bachelors together instead of only two men and a silly girl." In time, perhaps he will come to see her as a more traditional spouse, but we have yet to see that kind of full admiration from Henry Higgins.
No comments:
Post a Comment