Pygmalion Archetype
• Concise definition
Transformation story in which an external force
seeks to change someone else.
• Archetypal characters
1. Creative person (creator)
2. Object of creative person’s attention (created)
3. Being who grants creative person’s wish
Aspects to look for/recognize
• 3 archetypal characters
• Relationship between creative person &
creation
• The transformation process
Ovid & Shaw side-by-side
Original Pygmalion myth by
Ovid (~AD 0)
• Creative person:
Pygmalion
• Object of creative person’s
attention: Ivory Woman
• Being who grants creative
person’s wish:
Venus
• Transformation: Ivory
Woman becomes a real
woman
1900’s adaptation by George
Bernard Shaw
• Creative person:
Higgins
• Object of creative
person’s attention: Liza
• Being who grants creative
person’s wish: Colonel
Pickering
• Transformation: Liza going
from poor street flower
seller to a lady with
proper English
Recreations of Pygmalion
• Books:
– Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein
– Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray
– Pinocchio
• Movies:
– Pretty Woman
– My Fair Lady