the classic and the contemporary Pygmalion

what do you think of a guy who thought that he could build a statue of what he thought of a perfect woman to replace a real woman?

Hmmm... sounds rather pathetic if you ask me... but then again, nothing is impossible...

If we thought the men nowadays are rather weird and kind of eccentric, well, how ab0ut this? A few hundreds years ago, a Roman poet called Ovid, wrote about a man who fells in love with the statue that he carved from the ivory... Ironically, the man whose name was Pygmalion, actually a self-confessed bachelor who admit that he is "not interested in women" after he saw daughters of Propoetus, prostituting themselves.

So, he decides to carved a statue that he envisioned as the perfect image of a woman. The statue looks so real that he fell in love with it and treat it with love and care, as if it was a real woman. He even pray to Venus, so that he could have a woman that look like his statue to spend his life with. His wish was granted and they get married and even got two children. It makes me wonder, if the mother was stone, as beautiful as she might be, how does the children look like?

as for the comtemporary Pygmalion by Bernard Shaw, the creation that change is not from stone to a woman, instead it is a poor young woman, Eliza, created or transform into a young lady of a high class society. Instead of using carving tool to transform her, Professor Higgins uses his knowledge on linguistic to carve her speeches and the way she talks to other people and the way she dresses.

Bear in though, he does not treat her like a lady, he himself does not even act like a real gentleman. He continously, bully her to make her do things that she does not like. Professor Higgins do not care of her feelings at all, all he cares is that she was able to produce correct sound of a word or speak like a proper lady and ask her to mimic other people's dialects.

He does not love her but she does have some affection towards him. The play does not end with a happy ending. It ends with a bit of chance that Higgins might have some affection for her too... The question of what going to happen between Eliza and Higgins, is open for interpretation.