Pygmalion

My Fair Lady has been a favorite movie for generations. The story of Eliza and Henry Higgins was first told in Shaw’s book Pygmalion. George Bernard was born in Dublin in 1856. Before becoming a playwright he wrote music and literary criticism. Shaw used his writing to attack social problems such as education, marriage, religion, government, health care, and class privilege. Shaw was particularly conscious of the exploitation of the working class. Shaw was the only person to win a Nobel Prize in Literature and an Oscar for the play Pygmalion. The word Pygmalion refers to in ancient Greek myth where a sculptor fell in love with his statue. In Pygmalion Professor Henry Higgins, a speech teacher, transforms a Cockney flower girl into an elegant woman with regal baring. As in all good stories Eliza and Henry eventually work through their differences and fall in love