Pearce is warning Higgins to leave Liza alone. Higgins is serious when he says, “If the King finds out you’re not a lady, you will be taken by the police to the Tower of London, where your head will be cut off as a warning to other presumptuous flower girls.”

Henry Higgins did remain in Eliza Doolittle’s life, but Shaw was insistent on the fact that they were no match romantically, that they remained purely friends who saw each other as sparring partners in wit and cleverness.

Higgins might be a friend, a father, or even a lover to her, and in the course of the play they begin to show feelings for each other and their relationship develops beyond their professional interests. In Act 4 the conflicts between the two begin to prevail and both, especially Eliza, show their anger!

Rex Harrison

Eliza Doolittle feels insulted in the My Fair Lady ending because she does not get any credit for her success. She packs up and leaves Higgins house. She also tells Higgins that she no longer needs him. However, she comes back to his house in the final moments of the play.

Most of Audrey Hepburn’s singing was dubbed by Marni Nixon, despite Hepburn’s lengthy vocal preparation for the role.

Pygmalion remains Shaw’s most popular play. The play’s widest audiences know it as the inspiration for the highly romanticized 1956 musical and 1964 film My Fair Lady. Pygmalion has transcended cultural and language barriers since its first production.

Acis

Pygmalion derives its name from the famous story in Ovid’s Metamorphoses, in which Pygmalion, disgusted by the loose and shameful lives of the women of his era, decides to live alone and unmarried. With wondrous art, he creates a beautiful statue more perfect than any living woman.

‘Pygmalion’ is not at all a tragedy but rather a comedy of manners. However, there is an ironic twist of fate which leads to Liza’s ‘downfall’ in several ways. Liza betrays her identity by speaking English too well, thus making Higgins lose his bet.

: a king of Cyprus who makes a female figure of ivory that is brought to life for him by Aphrodite.

: a female figure sculpted by Pygmalion and given life by Aphrodite in fulfillment of his prayer.

The Pygmalion Archetype is essentially a transformation story. It includes the following elements: The Creator: sees fault in all women and tries to make a “perfect” woman. The Creation: the person being transformed or “created.”

The Roman poet Ovid, in his Metamorphoses, Book X, relates that Pygmalion, a sculptor, makes an ivory statue representing his ideal of womanhood and then falls in love with his own creation, which he names Galatea; the goddess Venus brings the statue to life in answer to his prayer.