"Pygmalion" - God's Control and Galatea's Struggle

The Broadway musical "My Fair Lady", a musical based on George Bernard Shaw's play "Pygmalion", premiered in 1956 and was adapted in 1967 by Audrey Hepburn and Rex Harry. Sen played the movie version and won numerous awards. As a commercial product, dazzling costumes, scenes, and exciting plots are naturally indispensable. But if you cut through these, you can truly understand the core of what Bernard Shaw wanted to express. In fact, the name of "Pygmalion" itself is the name of "Pygmalion" that leads the whole play.

The myth of Pygmalion comes from Book 10 of Ovid's Metamorphoses. Pygmalion was the king of Cyprus and a famous sculptor. He was disgusted with the depravity and debauchery of women and decided not to marry for the rest of his life. Once he carved a statue of a girl from ivory and couldn't help falling in love with his work, so he prayed to Aphrodite, the goddess of love, to give the statue life. The god of love granted his wish and transformed the statue into a beautiful woman named Galatea, and they eventually became husband and wife.

Let us clarify this story: Pygmalion, who was obsessed with beauty, created a work called Galatea that was infinitely close to beauty, and later the work came to life. Here, Pygmalion is the dominant figure. There was an abstract concept of beauty in his mind. Then he imagined the standard of beauty in his mind and used the carving knife in his hand as his own scale to carve out Galatea. Every part of Galatea's perfect appearance does not belong to itself, but to Pygmalion's imagination and expectation, passion and pursuit.

An object that is born out of someone else’s expectations is not a person at all. People should be independent and not exist due to the will of others. Therefore, Galatea can only be a cold marble. The question is, is this really the case? French painter Jean-Léon Gér?me created a painting based on this in 1890

The core of the whole story, as shown in this painting: came alive. After Pygmalion prayed to the goddess Aphrodite, the goddess gave life to Galatea. He hurried back to his studio - the cold marble was gradually turning into warm flesh and blood starting from his head. Even though his lower body was still marble, he leaned forward and kissed her.

The process of turning Galatea into a human in this painting uses extremely beautiful curves to tell us: she is a human being. Since Galatea is a person, according to the previous inference: Man cannot create man. Then Pygmalion can only be a god.

The original script was titled "Pygmalion" and ran through a main thread: this is a story about Pygmalion and Galatea, about gods and their creations.

If divided according to "Pygmalion", Pygmalion in "My Fair Lady" (referring to the musical adapted from Bernard Shaw's text) is mainly divided into:

1. Greek Professor Higgins and the flower girl Eliza - Pygmalion who shaped women

2. "False God" Professor Higgins - the god who bound Pygmalion

3. Pygmalion who shapes society

1. Professor Higgins and the Flower Girl Eliza

The genius of Linguistics Professor Higgins is to turn any one of them into a Women are molded into upper-class “duchess”—just needing to correct their accent and standardize their conversation. Higgins is obsessed with the art of speaking. In order to realize his wish-to prove the importance of accent and the importance of language, he spent a lot of effort to make Eliza a noble lady. However, in the end, he never attributed it to Eliza when he succeeded, but thought it was all his own credit.

Higgins is not interested in Eliza itself. In fact, what he is really interested in is his inner pursuit-the beauty of language. This pursuit is like the pursuit of female beauty to Pygmalion, like the fairy sister to Xiaoyaozi in "Dragon" - in Jin Yong's version of Pygmalion, Xiaoyaozi used jade to carve the fairy sister in the shape of his lover. , but has been obsessed with her ever since, and can even ignore the existence of Li Qiushui, the prototype of the fairy sister next to her.

These three people, no, three gods who create beauty are essentially the same: Eliza is to Higgins, Galatea is to Pygmalion, and the fairy sister is to Xiaoyaozi. They don't really love each other, they love them as marble, because when marble becomes their appearance, it just fits the standard prototype of beauty in their hearts. Simply put - the flower girl is the objectified duchess, her existence is functional rather than noble. Just like Eliza said in it: I sell flowers, not myself.

2. "False God" Professor Higgins

Since the Creator carved it for a functional need, what about the Creator himself? Higgins himself is not a true God, or at least not an Abrahamic God - holy, bright, and unsullied. He is a "pseudo-god": one who possesses human pursuits and worries. Or to put it more directly, he is a Greek god: personified, without the divinity of light. The only difference is that he has the ability to create - to create high-class people.

The professor is paranoid and unfriendly. More importantly, he who thinks he is free is actually bound by one thing, and that is the aesthetics of language. The pursuit of the beauty of language made him desperate to achieve his goal, even using flower girls. At this time, beauty is his Pygmalion, creating him, controlling him, and driving him to also control the flower girl to realize his desires.

The god who created man is actually controlled by a higher-level god.

3. The control of "gods" over the entire society

The scripts and musicals show the different states of the upper, middle and lower classes. People at the lowest level, such as Doolittle, live happily with the concept of carpe diem. But the problem is that society is also a statue shaped by "Pygmalion" - everyone can only become what is expected. The middle class can only take care of other people. People in the upper class can only chat about the weather and health, and tell seemingly "fashionable" vulgar jokes on the dance floor, at the racetrack, or at afternoon tea at a lady's house. Once a person (Doolittle) enters a class (middle class), it is impossible to escape and must always perform his functions in this class. What’s even more interesting is that whether it’s a middle-class person getting married in a church, or an upper-class lady interacting with a priest—all kinds of people who are shaped by God still need to obey God.

"People are independent first, and then men and women in society"? And the people here can only be puppets of the great god Pygmalion.

So that's why, when Eliza shows her independence at Higgins' mother's house, Higgins is happy that she has finally become a truly great woman. The principle is just like Bernini's famous sculpture "Apollo and Daphne":

In Greek mythology, the sun god Apollo fell in love with Daphne, and he pursued her crazily. Daphne asked the river god for help, and the river god turned Daphne into a laurel tree:

In order to escape Apollo's "love", Daphne ran away madly. At the last moment when she was about to be overtaken, she looked sideways at Apollo and jumped up with all her strength. At this time, the magic took effect, sublimating and circling. Her head and feet began to stiffen and turned into laurel trees, leaving Apollo behind in shock and sadness.

The flower girl struggles and says no to the god Higgins she was once attached to. Just like Daphne jumped up and resisted God in her own way. This is extremely precious, after all, in the world of Bernard Shaw's "Pygmalion", people have no free will.

What about our world?