Pygmalion's Ending-That's it!!!

Finally, I have finished reading the play, Pygmalion, last Saturday (18th August 2007). On one hand, I was happy because I finally got to know what happened in the end but on the other hand I was quite disappointed with the ending of the play. I really didn’t expect that coming. My heart itches wanting the play to be ended in a proper way, by finishing it through the dialogues. I expected that in the end, Eliza and Prof. Higgins will finally be together but as we know, that didn’t happen in the play. It makes me feel frustrated but at the same time it also brings notice to me of Shaw’s unique style of writing. When I read back the ending of the play, I was impressed by the way Shaw had written the epilogue of the play. Instead of completing it in the customary way (that is through dialogues) he gave a narration of what happen in the end. At first I feel like the play was left hanging but actually Shaw didn’t left it hanging. He did gave us some idea of what happened later in the story, only we have to imagine ourselves how it would be looked like. I was also impressed by Shaw’s refusal to follow the audience/reader expectation in the way of how the play should be ended. Having given the impression that Eliza and Prof. Higgins might actually had some mutual attraction (seen during the arguing scenes and also the understated complimentary Eliza and Higgins gave to each other), readers starts to think that they might end up being together. I guess that’s exactly what Shaw wanted to do, to end the play in an unforeseen and unexpected way. But, in overall, I love the play. It's funny, it's sweet and its definitely got 'style'. And most importantly, I really enjoyed reading it while I'm having my 'cuppa-tay'!