George Bernard Shaw

At first reading Pygmalion, I could easily understand Shaw's connection with Henrik Ibsen. It was also only with Shaw that I first understood the nature of the transition from Victorian to Modern writing. In Victorian literature there was a tendency towards heroic characters or at least characters with above average moral tendencies. Or as Freud would say, persons dominated by their super-egoes. In Pygmalion, the characters are for lack of a better word, more complicated. In the first act the main characters of the play are introduced: Higgins and Eliza. Higgins is a bossy and somewhat boorish expert on phonetics and Eliza is a self-pitying and somewhat selfish flower-girl. Neither of these characters would be considered Victorian by any notable measure. What struck me most about Pygmalion, besides its title, is the true complexity of the characters. No character is inherently good or inherently bad. Each one has characteristics, bad habits, tendencies, whatever you wish to call them that both earn the audiences disdain and admiration. For example, in the opening act of the play Higgins says to Eliza, "A woman who utters such depressing and disgusting sounds has no right to be anywhere - no right to live" (Shaw 1013). Only a few lines later, however, Higgins (and this is merely stage direction but the narrator is, I believe, to be trusted) gives Eliza money while "hearing in it [the church bells] the voice of God, rebuking him for his pharisaic want of charity to the poor girl" (Shaw 1014). Shaw demonstrates through Higgins mankind's propensities towards cruelty and charity. Higgins is not altogether cruel and not altogether kind, he is merely human.