George Bernard Shaw was born on the 26th of July 1856 in Dublin. He is considered "the most significant British dramatist since Shakespeare. In addition to being a prolific playwright (he wrote 50 stage plays), he was also the most trenchant pamphleteer since the Irish-born satirist Jonathan Swift and the most readable music critic and best theater critic of his generation" (Encarta.com). He wrote Pygmalion in 1913, one of his best plays. In Pygmalion, Shaw presents the complexity of human relations and mocks all social classes by manipulating the language and poking fun out of their morals and views. He uses energetic characters such as Professor Higgins and Eliza Doolittle in order to entertain the reader and capture his/her attention throughout the entire play. . Higgins is a well-educated and cultured professor of phonetics. The idea of whether he or Eliza is the principal character is left upon the reader to decide. Higgins appears to be totally obsessed with his profession. The art of phonetics is professor Higgins" greatest treasure and certainly his most beloved possession. The play has several major concerns, such as the metamorphosis from a common flower girl to an educated duchess and the development of Higgins" character. Higgins's is successful in transforming Eliza from a "draggletailed guttersnipe" into a duchess. The play may have evidence supporting the possibility of a romantic involvement between Eliza and Higgins, but Shaw's real intentions are to portray the importance of the pupil's independence from the master. In the end, Eliza decides to leave Higgins and marry Freddy, a jobless, and sensitive, good-looking young man, and annul the chance of giving a "happy" ending to the story. Shaw gives the play a real-life ending backed up by the facts in the Story instead of creating a lazy and predictable happy ending.
