Pygmalion 2

As mentioned in my first blog post about Pygmalion, there wasn’t much romance in the play, and there’s certainly not any between Mr. Higgins and the “Flower Girl”. Though many would expect, when the two adult main characters are a man and a woman, that there must be some chemistry between them—this is not the case. Henry and Eliza are only friends and I think that’s one thing that really makes the play stand out as a “classic”.

            George Bernard Shaw understood something very well about Eliza and Henry that I believe he wanted to teach his audience: to push them into love would be a hopeless-romantic’s destruction of the characters. Contrary to popular belief, men and women in novels, stories, and plays can just be friends. Actually, as Shaw helps bring us to understand, often times, it’s a better fit for the story if they remain apart.

            The author was well known to be a feminist, which I believe is why he wanted to show his audience a woman who did not need the love of Mr. Higgins. Some would argue that Eliza couldn’t have been a feminist character because she was, well, quite pathetic for much of the scenes, and constantly had emotional outbreaks (a common stereotype for a young woman). However, I think that she was ultimately fairly independent and self-dignifying. By refusing the idea of marrying Henry, Eliza was refusing to put up with the mistreatment of a rude and stone-hearted man, no matter his good intentions. And as for choosing to marry Freddy, it showed her doing the most responsible thing. She did not do it because she was weak, but rather because she set her standards to someone who would let her know she was appreciated, and because she knew he was weak and may need a person like her.

            The most significant reason that the author chose not to bring them together is that they just didn’t fit, no matter how much the audience might want them to. Had they fallen in love, it wouldn’t have worked with Higgins’s stoic behavior and careless self-absorption, or Eliza’s demand for respect and easily-offended nature. It would’ve soothed their need for balance, yes, but destroyed the carefully crafted conduct of the two characters. To make their relationship succeed, Shaw would’ve had to undermine the dysfunction that made the story so intriguing in the first place. To have them live happily ever after would’ve been too perfect, and that’s another thing the author wanted to show. I think with the ending, he wanted the audience to understand that friendships that aren’t perfect at all are sometimes the best relationships.