THE STRUCTURE OF SHAW'S PYGMALION

...Tha story of the experiment ia ever...

...TllIS book is a successful attempt to sift the monumental evidence that was collected in the anti-trust proceedings against the Aluminum Company of America...

...The government argument was that "dissolution is-not a penally but a remedy___," but Mrs...

...rebel...

...Even when the Supreme: Court ruled that Alcoa was a trust and decreed dissolution, the economic problem of Alcoa's monopolistic power was not solved...

...That toadying ignoramus...

...Independence...

...In the original romance.so lyrically revived by Shaw's friend William Morris, Pygmalion marries Galatea...

...But there are two more acts...

...They might—if Shaw went to work so abstractly, so allegorically, ;o idealktically...

...a flower girl who cannot afford the luxury of being human—another kind of doll—a duchess to whom manners are an adequate substitute for morals...

...Otherwise her fata Is aa unsettled as yours or mine...

...The action really starts in Act II when Higgins decides to make the experiment...

...At present, Bentley ia tsnffctag lagiasi at kern Paneoralty at Mlaaoaota...

...Ha la too far gone for that .He is th« same rich as he was poor, the asm* ot worse] for riches carry awful re»pon»l« hilities, and Doolittle is irresponsible...

...Cleopatra) whom he is educating, disillusioning, or converting...

...In her memoirs Mrs...

...MunVr acutely points put that technical dissolution merely pnts a new face on the old problem of monopolistic control over American light inefals production...

...What can happen, new that the flower girl is a duchess, too statue a flesh-and-blood Galatea...

...The Pygmalion of Romance turns a status into a human being...

...Including a climax that was no climax only blurred the outline ot the work...

...DoOLITTLE'S part in the central actio* is considerable...

...It is Shavian, not in being made up of politleal or philosophic discussions, but in beiag based on Shaw's standard conflict ef vitality and artificial system, con•cienet and convention, in working out 'nis conflict through inversion of rows***, In bringing matters to a head In a battle of Wills and words, in Iwving an inner psychological action in counterPel** to the other romantic action, in existing on two contrasted levels of men...

...Henry Higgins also thinks he has made a person when he has "assembled" a duchess...

...Eliza's feelings are wounded because Higgins, after the reception, does not treat her kindly, but talks ef her as a guinea pis, m Eliza has acquired feelings^ While soma * have felt that the play should end with the reception, others have felt that it could end with the suggestion that Eliza has begun to...

...But the "education of Eliza* ia Acts I and HI is a caricature of t)i» true Shavian process...

...I have any own soul...

...He remains constant like a catalyst while producing chines in others, especially in the antagonist (e.g...

...tion the leaving out of the climax ef the outer action—the ambassador's reception —will seem particularly discreet, economical, and dramatic...

...But she won't marry Higgins...

...Eliza in Pygmalion proceeds in dramatically marked stages —one, two, three, four...

...After this it does not Matter whether Eliza does the shopping or not...

...Pygmalion is essentially theatrical in construction...

...Eliza is talking to free herself...

...Act by Act...

...E finita la commedia...

...The film is nearer to the novel than to this kind of drama...

...You could mors plausibly call it schematic and artificial than loos* and arbitrary...

...rising in fury) Whatl That impostor...

...a creature even more mysterious than a monster: namely, a human being...

...Act I is a sort of prologue in which the two main characters encounter each other...

...HIGGINS...

...It ia a serious parody, a translation it te tse language of what Shaw calls "natural history...

...It seems, Indeed, that the first interpreter of the role of Eliza thought thia...

...It is a good play\ I thiak, by perfectly orthodox standards •id needs no theory to defend it...

...When the curtain goes up on Act IV all is over...

...My discoveries...

...LIZA...

...Eliza has triumphed...

...If the first stage of Higgins* experiment was reached when Eliza made her faux pat before Mrs...

...Actually Pygmalion: a Romance stands related to Romance precisely as Th* Devil'* Disciple to Melodrama or Candida to Domestic Drama...

...The fluidity of the film is quite wrong for it...

...In Act III the experiment reaches its first stage when Eliza appears in upper-class company behaving like an imperfectly functioning mechanical doll...

...Perhaps we never realized before the Shxw movies how utterly "of the theatre" the Shaw plays are...

...malion myths...

...The climax is sharp: LIZA...

...3.00...

...And now Eliza can "say j "Now...

...To ho sure, Eliza is even more palpably his pupil than Judith Anderson was D'c* Dudgeon's or Captain Brassbound Lady Cicely's...

...As we have seen, he is not really a life-giver at all...

...Yes, the big event occurs between Acts, and the last two Acts are a "discussion" of the consequences...

...Eltaa'a fate Is settled as far as Higgins la concerned...

...kilty, both o£ which are related to t|i* ¦Uki theme and, above nil, In delighting *n* surprising us with n constant flow •f Verbal music and more than verbal METALS AND MONOPOLY LIGHT METALS MONOPOLY...

...Although her presentation of the i\idence, oh this point i* very full and accurate, the paradox of increased government regulation to make for mora competition remains unirsolved in tbi* book aa it doe* In the economy at large...

...Or rather he tries to make from one kind ef doll— ERIC BENTLEY is the well-known drama and literary critic...

...There is no pretense of objectivity...

...Readers of Bergson will understand why this scene gets more laughs than all the others put together with the result that te the groundlings the rest of the play aeems a prolonged anti-climax...

...The author concludes that some form of price control, by tbe government, should lie instituted to injure full utilization of aluminum supplies...

...Winston Churchill once remarked that while Ibsen .destroyed the well-mad* play by making his plays much better, Shaw destroyed the well-made play by not nuking his plsys at all...

...Campbell says, "declared I might be able to play a tune with one finger, but a full orchestral score was Greek to me...

...The arousing of Eliza's resentment in the fourth Act was the birth of a soul...

...With thia cry of victory (it rings in my ears In the Intonation of Miss Gertrude Lawrence who succeeded where Mrs...

...But to be born is not enough...

...If I caa't have kindness, 111 havf independence...

...The sympathetic analyst of tho play will, however, agree with Shaw himself who, Mrs...

...Doolittle'* story Is placed la ironic parallelism with his daughter's...

...He simply wants to remain in the relation of God the Creator as far as Eliza is concerned...

...Might not something of the kind be possible fpr Shaw, since Pygmalion is a life-giver, a symbol of vitality (the great Shavian virtue), since in Eliza the crime sf poverty (the great Shavian sin) has been overcome, the sin of ignorance cancelled...

...One should recall that there is a character actually named Pygmalion in Back to Methuselah...

...It is one of Shaw's jokes which appear to be against himself but are really against the vulgar opinion of himself...

...What happens to Eliza...

...The kernel of her book is that monopoly, in our economy, has its own inertia...

...LIZA...

...Cohimhia I'niversity Pirns...

...Would not Sarcey have called this the scene t faire...

...Pygmalion diverges from the type in that the lifegiver, for all his credentials, and his title of Pygmalion, is suspect...

...Natasha in IVnr and Peace passes imperceptibly from girlhood to womanhood...

...Ibsen's Nora slams the door, his Eliza decides to stay at heme...

...You take one step in his direction and I'll wring your neck...

...Krutch recently took to mean that the pair are a Benedict and Beatrice who will marry In the end...

...This Is a true naturalistic ending—not an arbitrary break, but a conclusion which is also a beginning, Pygmalion is a singularly elegant structure...

...The two acts that follow (in Too True To Be Good) are not a discussion of what happens in Act I. Nor are the last two acts of I'ygwalion as purely disquisitory as at first they seem...

...Has Sheer blundered ? What looks like the climax has been left out: it is between Acts III and IV that Eliza is finally passed off as a noblewoman at an ambassador's reception...

...Growing up is the fourth and last stage of Eliza's evolution...

...Muller, however, considers it beyond her scop* to elaborate these proposals concretely...

...R. Richard W».M...

...HIGGINS...

...Stage 3 Is the rebellion...

...Such is the curtain line of Act I in a later Shaw play...

...Higgins* friends, and the second when she appeared in triumph at the ball, Shaw, who does not believe in endings, sees her through two more stages in the final acts of his play, leaving her still very much in flux at the end...

...Midler's hook points up dramatically the critical problem with which the American economy is faced when confronted by a monopolistic combination of the size and scope of Alcoa...

...Eliza will marry...

...Patrick Campbell wrote: The latt act of tha play did not travel ecrott the footlights with et alter dramatte sequence as the preceding acts— tunny entirely to the fault of the author...

...Ia short, the merit of Pygmalion cannot be accounted for by Shaw's own •fakements about modern drama, much less by popular opinion concerning Problem Plays, Discussion Drama, Drama of Id*«s, and the like...

...But the discussion is highly personal and dramatic...

...If again we call Act 1 the prologue, the play falls into two parts *t two acts apiece...

...Tiiis consummation is reached in the final "discussion" with Higgins— a piece of dialogue that is superb comedy not only because of its wit and content but also because we have a dramatic situation, perhaps the most dramatic of all dramatic situations: two completely articulate characters engaged in a battle of words on which both their fates depend...

...The play is now virtually over but the characters will discuss it at length for two acts more...

...Churchill's jibe does not apply to Pygmalion...

...Higgins had said: "I can do without anybody...

...He is a sort of Frankestst": ¦ or Pavlov...

...The play ends with Higgins' knowingly declaring that Eliza is about to do his shopping for him despite her proteststious te the contrary: a statement which Mr...

...And Shaw's Pygmalion has helped into being...

...In the second a woman is made out of duchess...

...But the monster turns against Frankenstein...

...In the first a duchess ii made out of a flower girl...

...Forces have been brought into play of which the man-maker knows nothing...

...HIGGINS...

...In the end Eliza turns the tables on Higgins, for...

...Those who think of Pygmalion as Shaw's comedy of class society are thinking of Dolittle's comedy rather than Eliza's...

...His recent book, The Playwright me Thinker, provoked a groat leal of Interest...

...I'll teach phonetics...

...That humbug...

...I knew you'd strike me some day (He lets her gs, stsmping with rage...

...The conclusion of conversations of this kind is not the statement of a principle (as in Plato's symposia or even Shaw's Getting Married) but the making of a decision...

...Higgins is satisfied, bored, and wondering what to do next...

...And it is true that in a weak play like The Devih Disciple Shaw haa not integrated character with character, incident with incident But Mr...

...The situation hi cleat...

...He lays hands on her...

...Or might not Higgins and Eliza be tho Artist Man and Mother Woman mentioned in Man and Superman...

...What de I care...

...He thinks that yon can put together a man by assembling mechanical parts...

...It is built in chunks, two by two...

...Higgins is tslking to keep his domination over her...

...If you can preach, I can teach...

...I'm not afraid of yon and can ds withoat yon...

...The primary inversion (for Shsw'a plays consist of inversions and double inversions) is that of Pygmalion's character...

...We are all dependent en one another, every soul of us on earth...

...That's middle class blasphemy...

...One must also grow up...

...Do you hear...

...The fifth Act of Pygtnalien is far from superfluous...

...Uniik* Ms daughter, however, he is not reborn...

...LIZA, (defiantly non-resistant) Wring away...

...Higgins will never marry...

...Teach him my methods...

...But not of sex...

...In it development can be gradual and fluid...

...Since these two parts are the main, inner sc...

...But the two are carefully related by parallelism and contrast You might work out an interpretation of the play by comparing their relation to th* chief "artificial system" depicted in the play—middle-class morality...

...Consider for instance, the comic dustman, Doolittle, whom many people regard as just enother of those Shavian jokes, introduced for its own sake or foe socialistic satire...

...HIGGINS...

...I'll go and be "a teacher...

...The Pygmallon of "natural history" tries to turn a human being Into a statue, tries to make of Eliza Doolittle a mechanical doll in the role of a duchess...

...One seed not quote Shaw's own sequel (in the Afterword) to prove the contrary...

...Patrick Campbell seems to have failed) Eliza wins her freedom...

...It is climactic...

...nnafjy is the vital one, and he is the prisoner of his profession...

...Tho whole point of the great culminating scene is that Eliza has now become not only a person but an independent person...

...He tdo is suddenly lifted out ef slumdom by tha caprice of ?Yt' aaUoa-Higgui...

...LIZA (rising determinedly) I'll let you see whether I'm dependent on you...

...The movie version of Pygmalion was not the richer for its inclusion...

...It is a Strindbergian battle of wills...

...Both parts are Pyp...

...lly Charlotte Mailer...

...What'll you teach, in heaven's name...

...In the career of the undeserving poor suddenly become undeserving rich Shaw writes his uncial comedy, his Unpleasant Play, while in the career of his deserving daughter he writes his human comedy, his Pleasant Piny...

...Ho toe has to break bread with dukes and duchesses...

...Each character speaks for himself, and speaks, not as a contributor to a debate, but as one whose life is at stake...

...I'll offer myself as an assistant to Professor Nepean...

...It is not so much that the consequences are discussed as that the consequences are worked out and determined by a conflict that is expressed in verbal sword-play...

...If it is of siifflrient ill*, a great ileal of government regulaliwi appears to be necessary to inaur* competition...

...In Caetar and CU*patra and several other plays the eponymous character is often the representative of Vitality...

...Pygmalion follows the pattern oi earlier Shavian works, not duplicating them, but following up another aspect ot a similar problem...

...What you taught me...