from his love. He caressed her, gave her presentsand decorated her body with fine clothing and jewels. Heeven laid her on his royal bed at night to sleep, callingher his wife. Finally, the festival of Venus came andPygmalion stood before the altar and timidly said, Give me,I pray to you for my wife - he dared not say my ivorywife, but said instead - One like my ivory virgin(Metamorphoses by Ovid, p.10). The golden goddess of Venusknew that he meant he wanted his statue to be his wife, soshe granted his wish. When Pygmalion returned home he placedhis hands upon his statue, and to his surprise she felt warmand alive! Her lips became soft, and her skin molded to histouch. Nine months later a baby girl was born to them.In this Greek myth Pygmalion creates an ideal woman,made out of ivory. Although he never expected her to becomereal he still treated her like his wife and took great careof her. Eventually his wish was granted and she was broughtto life. The perfect woman, in his eyes, was now his wife.Pygmalion created and formed this woman, showing that if you want something bad enough and love it as much as he lovedhis statue, you can make it happen. In My Fair Lady, written during the era of the 1950sin England, there was a high aristocratic society whichdemarcates itself from the rest of English society,consisting of the elegantly dressed bourgeois class sharplycontrasting the poor peasant class. Eliza Doolittle, adisheveled cockney flower vender who was lucky enough tocatch the eye of a Professor Henry Higgins who gives her anoffer she cant refuse. Higgins is a well known phoneticexpert who studies ...the science of speech...speechpatterns and their corresponding locations... (Pygamalion,p.19). He brutally criticizes Elizas detestableboo-hooing and crude pronunciations of words. To thesnobby, intolerant Higgins inarticulateness and ignoranceconcerning proper dialect and language produces a verbalclass distinction that functions as an ...
