The title of the play Pygmalionis based on a classical myth about a story of a sculptor, Pygmalion, who crafts a beautiful statue of a woman and names the statue Galatea. He falls in love with the statue which is far more beautiful than any real woman and prays to Aphrodite, the goddess of love, to make the statue come alive. Aphrodite grants his wish and Pygmalion marries Galatea and they live happily ever...
The title of the play Pygmalion is based on a classical myth about a story of a sculptor, Pygmalion, who crafts a beautiful statue of a woman and names the statue Galatea. He falls in love with the statue which is far more beautiful than any real woman and prays to Aphrodite, the goddess of love, to make the statue come alive. Aphrodite grants his wish and Pygmalion marries Galatea and they live happily ever after, serving and honoring Aphrodite. The version of the story on which Shaw bases his play is the one found in Ovid's Metamorphoses.
In the play, Higgins thinks of Eliza as if he were Pygmalion and Eliza an inert object he crafts by teaching her how to speak in aristocratic accents. Realistically, though, Eliza is not a lump of marble but an intelligent and strong willed woman who learns as much from Pickering (who treats her as a lady) and her own innate "street smarts" as from Higgins and thus the title is somewhat ironic.
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