Pygmalion facts for kids
Pygmalion is a play by George Bernard Shaw.
Plot
A street girl selling flowers, Eliza, meets Professor Higgins. Higgins was writing down her pronunciation for his study, but Eliza misunderstood him as a policeman and caused trouble. Higgins says he can make her a duchess. It was changing her pronunciation. Later she remembers what he said and goes to learn pronunciation with a desire to be an upper class woman.
Higgins decides to do an experiment with her. He deceives all the people at a party. It was making them believe that she is a duchess. After this success, Higgins suggests two options for Eliza. One is marrying based on her beauty. The other is running a flower shop with money from Colonel Pickering who is a rich man. Eliza refuses to do both of them and she leaves his home. Higgins and Colonel Pickering look for Eliza as soon as they know that she left. They find her in Mrs. Higgins’ house but Eliza refuses to go back. She says she would marry Freddy.
Background
George Bernard Shaw is famous for giving audiences a twist by not doing what they expect. In comedy, people expect someone in a bad situation to be in a better one at the end. They expect a poor person to marry a rich man. They expect a villain to be punished. In Pygmalion, the flower girl in the bad situation gets better in the end. This girl selling flowers on the street rises to the upper class. It was through changing her language.
However, contrary to the audience's expectation, romance between flower girl and Professor Higgins doesn’t happen. She doesn’t marry a rich man. Also, George Bernard Shaw reflected his beliefs to reform the society in this play.
In the 20th century, there were many poor people on the street. Especially little girls worked all day for a tiny amount of money. The author had much interest in poor people and women’s freedom. And he believed speech was one of the things that separated rich and poor people. That is the starting point of Pygmalion. He used the change of language as a means to rise to the upper class.
See also
In Spanish: Pigmalión (desambiguación) para niños
