The Controversial Ending of Pygmalion

The Controversial Ending of Shaw’s Pygmalion George Bernard Shaw’s Pygmalion is a play that has become a classic in today’s world. It is a retelling of an ancient story, of the same name, by the Roman poet, Ovid, in which a sculptor falls in love with a statue he carved. In Shaw’s story, Henry Higgins, an expert in phonetics, happens upon a poor flower girl with awful English and street manners named Eliza Doolittle. Throughout the course of the play Higgins transforms her into an elegant independent woman. The play tracks Eliza and Higgins’s journey and the transformation of their relationship from teacher and pupil to one where both are equally accustomed to the other and have become integral parts of the others lives. Shaw does not end the play as most would expect though. The general public expects and practically demands a happy ending of a play that seems so highly romantic, but Shaw provides the audience with a strictly logical ending instead. In the end, Eliza becomes tired of Higgins’s pompous attitude as she grows independent, and leaves him to marry a typical romantic character of the middle-class. The play then ends with Henry mocking her idea of marrying this man (Shaw). The audience had conceived the idea of Henry and Eliza getting married, and could not accept this abrupt ending (Solomon 59). Over time, Shaw’s purpose behind this ending has been debated endlessly. Many have even gone as far as to simply call Shaw “wrong” in having created this ending, and have gone on to adjust the ending to what they would consider a “correct” ending (Solomon 60). This revised ending has spread into most productions and adaptations. It will be recreated yet again in the upcoming 2012 film remake of My Fair Lady, the musical adaptation of Pygmalion, and most will never know that another ending—the original ending—exists. In this paper, I will show that what is considered a “correct” ending by the revisers of Shaw’s play is actually nothing more than a