—Anonymous
“Pygmalion” should be considered a great work. A great work is any form of expression (whether it be writing, art, music etc.) that has many different interpretations as well as different lessons that can be learned from the piece. This is so people can connect to the great work in many different ways and interpret it to their own life. Pygmalion is a story that teaches us many lessons. I think that the main lesson, we can learn from it is that while we may have a “checklist” in our heads about what we are looking for in a partner, sometimes, most times, it is impossible to find someone who can check all of our boxes. What Pygmalion teaches us, is that if we are unsatisfied with all of the suitable bachelors/bachelorettes then we can essentially “build” one. While of course, this is impossible in real life, I think that there is a deeper meaning to this ideology. For starters, I think just like the statue was made of hard external material, our character Pygmalion was only in love with the external beauty. He had no idea what her inner beauty would be like. I think this is a huge lesson for life. While I think it’s important to be attractive to your partner, I think that we should all look for the inner beauty within one another (even in a nonromantic relationship). Sometimes one’s inner beauty can contribute to their external beauty and other times it can hinder it. It is within us to look beyond the surface. Another lesson I believe Pygmalion is teaching us, is that we actually need to look at ourselves on a deeper level. Are we so amazing and have no flaws that no one deserves us? So much so that we need to find that one that does checks off all of our boxes on our checklist? I think it is a good reminder to do a reflection every now and then to look at our inner beauty as well as all of our flaws. How can we be our best selves? Are we constantly contributing to our societies in a positive way?
