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II INTERNATIONAL SCIENTIFIC CONFERENCE OF YOUNG RESEARCHERS 

390 

 Qafqaz University                         

          18-19 April 2014, Baku, Azerbaijan 

PARALLELS BETWEEN BERNAND SHAW’S BIOGRAPHY AND PYGMALION 

 

Shahana BABAYEVA 

Qafqaz University 

[e-mail] 

 

Bernard Shaw is one of the most well-known and controversial men in England today. He is very celebrated not only 

as a playwright but also as a philosopher, thinker and an activist. 

G.B. Shaw (He hated the “George” and never used it, either personally or professionally) was born in Dublin where he 

grew up in something close to genteel poverty in 1856.  When Shaw’s father died in 1885, he was brought mostly by 

servants. Shaw’s mother, Lucinda Elizabeth, eventually left the family home go to London to teach music. Shaw grew up in 

an atmosphere of “emotional coldness” and had to live. Despite all of the accident, Shaw loves his mother greatly. 

Nevertheless, he was capable of handling his loneliness and thoughts that he has a heart of stone. From this thinking form, 

we can see some resemblances with Higgins’ behavior. Higgins also seems as stone-hearted person. He can’t show his 

emotions and behaves with everyone in the same way.  

In 1876 Shaw moved to London where he established himself as a journalist, a leading music and theatre critic in the 

eighties and nineties. After reading Marx’s Das Kapital he became supporter of social rights and he said about himself that 

“Marx made a man of me.” There is also has similarity in this statement with at the end when Higgins says to Eliza I’d 

make a woman of you. 

However, in London he took part as a writer but he was not so successful until when the Court Theatre accepted 

Bernard Shaw as a dramatist in 1904.During those years many of Shaw’s plays were performed and, after it he became the 

most leading figure not only in London, but also in America, Germany and lastly the Scandinavian countries and 

continentals. Moreover, Shaw wanted his actors to endeavor steadily, that’s why he sent letters to them with directions and 

instructions for improvements. This teacher-like demeanor was very typical for Shaw and of course for Higgins as well. 

One of the main themes in Shaw’s plays is to educate a young woman and to support women’s rights. For example, In 

Caesar and Cleopatra, Shaw wants to prove that the relationship between Caesar and Cleopatra was not love but politics 

drew Cleopatra to Julius Caesar. We can see that Caesar wants to turn Cleopatra into a queen and of course, Pygmalion, in 

which a poor uneducated flower girl with a cockney accent is turned into a lady by phonetics professor  Higgins who 

teaches her how to speak properly. Maybe it not Shaw’s of art, it was the purpose of culture in those days was to educate 

people, to teach them how to behave with people, to elucidate them moral standards and ethical thinking.  

Bernard Shaw’s all plays, novels and essays are political statement with a clear message. His teaching form might be 

as a result of his experience. When he was being left alone, he was self-taught. From this side I come to conclusion that he 

did not want the others make the same mistake his parents did and he wanted to share his knowledge to make his student’s 

life easier. 

There are also have one of the main aspect which Lucinda later on left her music teacher, in order to gain his status 

independently. Like Shaw’s mother, Eliza also leaves Higgins’ house for the same reasons, because he was interested in 

Eliza’s career and did not appreciate her as a woman, but he just only behave impolitely with her to an end. However, the 

similarity of the Pygmalion and author’s biography goes even further and although, Shaw’s mother came to decision to 

leave her music-teacher, Vandeleur Lee she takes with her the knowledge she has acquired from him. In order to attain 

perfection in singing he was teaching her voice training. She achieved this knowledge with when she left her teacher so as 

to be economically independent and to earn money. The same is true for Eliza, as she is an assiduous student and can grasp 

all the information which Higgins teaches her. She menaces Higgins of using this knowledge consequently in order to work 

as a phonetic-teacher herself. 

Both men proud of their ability that makes them superior to their women and it makes them act of protecting. Despite 

the fact that both men are hoisted with their own petard and it is also a good thing they did, both women used it against 

them.