Reviews with content warning for Bullying - Pygmalion

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Pygmalion by George Bernard Shaw

8 reviews

mariahmmm's review against another edition

emotional funny hopeful lighthearted relaxing fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

Synopsis
In this play, phonetics experts Higgins and Colonel Pickering take on the challenge of raising the spirited flowergirl Liza Doolittle from the gutter to a refined lady through teaching her the Queen's English.

Review
A clever story and good insight into how malleable human nature can be. One star deducted as the story dealt less with the "how" and more with setting the scene.

The play itself was a little dissatisfying in that there were many unanswered questions surrounding the outcome of such a huge transformation for Liza, but the epilogue provided much of the explanations needed.

There were interesting parallels with the Ovid poem, where Pygmalion (here Higgins) created his perfect woman in a statue named Galatea (Liza), with Shaw answering the question of if love is possible when one is the other's god.

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kate_has_book_thoughts's review against another edition

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funny lighthearted fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.0

✨ Reviews are for Readers ✨
Any spoilers are hidden!

I read this book as an ebook.

If you enjoy reading classics, you may be able to appreciate this play. Be prepared for some outdated views, especially in regards to class and sexism.

My issue with the play is that each act jumps quite a bit forward in time and I felt like I missed out on reading about the things that happened between acts.
For example:

The book is about two men making a bet that they can teach a lower class woman how to speak and act like a high society woman, and train her so well that she can go to an event and pass as a lady. We don’t get to read about them teaching her how to speak or act like a lady, and we don’t get to see the event they attend as the big test. We only hear about these things after they’ve happened. I was disappointed to say the least.

Though I didn’t enjoy Pygmalion very much, it’s short and easily accessible (It's free via the Project Gutenberg website), so it’s worth reading if you want to be able to say you’ve read it.

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utopiaandmelancholy's review against another edition

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funny lighthearted medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.5

Having adored My Fair Lady ever since I was a child, watched the 1938 film (non-musical) adaptation of Pygmalion countless times, and having seen both Pygmalion and My Fair Lady on stage, I thought it was probably time to finally read the source material. To be honest, already being very familiar with the themes, characters, and content, the main things I gained were context from the introduction, and finally reading Shaw's much debated epilogue.

I think the most interesting thing for me was how Shaw rendered the accents in the first scene. The way Shaw pokes fun at the upper class characters, particularly Mrs Eynsford-Hill, provides humourous moments. The older I get, the more drawn I am to the reactions and role of Mrs Pearce and Mrs Higgins in the story, when they support Eliza and when they fail to protect her against the systems that have trapped them. Higgins' character is unlikable, and I am impressed by the sympathy so many actors have managed to inspire for him, despite his treatment of Eliza.
Our protagonist's strong will carries the story, and I think it is the fact that she instigates her re-creation rather than being a passive Galatea, that sets the story apart from any other Cinderella story and from the original myth. Her outsider status helps to highlight the ridiculousness of the upper-class always chasing the fashionable way, and their total insulated ignorance of the 'real world'. Her speech bemoaning her lack of place in society now her elocution and upbringing are at odds around two-thirds of the way through is so so powerful, highlighting both the flaws in the characters around her, but also in the society of the time (and now!) at large.

Overall, I thought the play is a great base, but the delivery of Shaw's words in the hands of actors who interpret the material in a number of ways is what has elevated it in my mind.

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