Pygmalions Obsession with the Statue of Cyprus Essay -- Bernard Shaw

Pygmalion's Obsession with the Statue of Cyprus Pygmalion decided to portray women as he searched for the most perfect being and he hadn't found any in Cyprus. He placed all his love and wishfulness in his statues and so the most beautiful of his creations was sculpted. Pygmalion, being a man, and having 'animal' urges, must have wanted a partner to share his emotions and get frisky with, so this was the perfect idea for him. What could be better, a woman with beautiful looks, and never talks back or argues with you? Bliss. Since no one came up to his expectations, it became an obsession that he wanted the perfect wife. Or maybe he wanted to show off to his mates that he had the perfect woman in Cyprus, even though it was ivory. Does anything in the earlier part of the story help to explain Pygmalion's behaviour? Pygmalion's behaviour gets a lot more elaborate and somewhat more perverted with each line. As the story progresses, his obsession and passionate love for the statue gets stronger and stronger, until it reaches the climax of what a man can do with a statue, sleep with it. Nonetheless it is possible to retrace the reason for his perversion. It is explained at the very beginning of the text. Ovid writes that the women around Pygmalion spent their time in wickedness, and that he (Pygmalion), was disgusted by their very many vices, which nature gave to women's minds: "quas quia Pygmalion aevum per crimen agentes viderat, offensus vitiis, quae plurima menti feminae natura dedit." It was from this fact that Pygmalion's troubles started. Ever since Aphrodite had turned the women of Cyprus into whores, Pygmalion was never able to be satisfied by the real women on his island. This is what had originally turned his thoughts into creating something female, which was perfect in every way for him. His solution to this was creating a sculpture of a woman. He made this out of white ivory, and it seemed so real that people thought that it could move, and was alive: "quam vivere credas et, si non obstet reverentia, velle moveri". This perfection made Pygmalion fall in love with it, because it was an ideal woman in every way. From this point on Pygmalion's behaviour became more strange; he did many odd things to the statue, for example he gave her presents, kissed it and felt it. Basically Pygmalion became so desperate that... ...wers of a thousand colours, lilies and painted balls of crystal or amber. He adorned her body with clothes and decorations such as jewels for her fingers, long necklaces for her neck, rings of light pearl hanging from her ears and pendants over her breasts. At this point in the story there is a turning point. He comes more normal and real, in that he decides to ask Venus to turn her into a real person. He seems to realise that he can't continue like this and that it would be in his best interests if he had a real person instead of a statue as his 'wife'. It seems at this point as though he is a real person and has completely shrugged off his former madness, by actually having a normal woman and not having anything else peculiar about him. There is however one final moment of madness. When he returns home, he doesn't at first believe that she is real and, although he realises that she is warm, he does not dare to celebrate lest he is proved wrong. Throughout the story he behaves very unlike a normal person and acts very irrationally. However, the very last few lines show that he did manage to overcome it and he did end up being a normal and conventional person.