A Feminist Perspective to Pygmalion/ Une Perspective Femeniste Sur Pygmalion (Report‪)‬

In 1912 Bernard Shaw wrote Pygmalion, the title of which refers to the myth of the sculptor Pygmalion who created and then fell in love with a beautiful statue and whose love enabled the marble to become a live woman, Galatea. Shaw's basic plot line is that of an equally creative language professor, Mr. Higgins, who turns a gutter snipe flower girl into a woman able to pose as a duchess. Pygmalion became very popular all over the European world as soon as it was brought to stage. In spite of the author's strong objection, the ending was interpreted romantically by the actors and the audience. The audience have reasons to feel very much pleased with the romantic and happy ending because the play is obviously based upon another popular myth--the story of Cinderella. In that fairy tale the poor but virtuous girl is transformed for one night at a ball, meets her Prince Charming and thus turns out to be a princess in truth. Pygmalion, however, has brought this romantic transformation into a more practical and possible one. The ending, as might be accepted by the audience, that Eliza marrying Higgins and settling down to fetch his slippers for him, makes the audience (or the male audience, more probably) feel so satisfied that they must feel they have found the order of the world again.