Gendered Violence in Pygmalion: Threatening Femininity and the Instability of Power Relations

Abstract

This article is an analysis of George Bernard Shaw„s Pygmalion (1912) within the theoretical framework of the Girardian mimetic theory. The issue of power in Pygmalion is no longer limited to knowledge and education; it extends to probe the male/female and mediator/disciple relations. Lurking underneath the illusively harmonious relationship between the mediator and the disciple, „acquisitive mimesis„ culminates into violence. Such unleashed violence tends to fortify the frailty and instability of patriarchal heteronormativity. Indeed, this article follows Higgins„s violence as it stems from his momentary lack of control and elapsing power. The concept of masculinity itself turns, thereby, to be controlled by the mainstream power. Although the reconstruction of the female gendered identity, in this play, aims at veering from the main orthodoxies, subversion is eventually contained. Eliza succumbs to the power of the male and accepts the rules of the patriarchal society that she has tried to defy.