What Is The Story Behind George Bernard Shaw's "Pygmalion"�?

The original Pygmalion was a figure in Greek myth, who fell in love with a statue that was brought to life and became the perfect woman, Galatea. In Shaw's 1914 play, the "perfect woman" is a poor flower seller, Eliza Doolittle, who is taught to speak and act like a "real lady" by a famous professor of linguistics, Henry Higgins. Higgins has a bet with his friend Colonel Pickering that he can educate Eliza so well within six months that she will be able to go to a society function and be mistaken for a duchess.

Most of the comedy of the play comes from the two men's struggles to teach Eliza to speak "proper" and when she has mastered that, to speak about harmless subjects (at the halfway stage, she has a beautiful accent but still swears at polite tea parties.) Finally Higgins does win his bet: Eliza is in fact mistaken for a princess. The rest of the play revolves around the question of what she should do next. Should she marry Higgins, or will there be a surprise ending?