George Bernard Shaw is rightfully considered as one of the most important playwrights of his generation and, as pointed out by the Columbia Encyclopedia, "has revolutionized the Victorian stage, then dominated by artificial melodramas, by presenting vigorous dramas of ideas"( The Columbia Encyclopedia, 2001-04) . One such theme is represented by the conflict which emerges from the confrontation between the antagonistic perspectives on love and the object of the characters' adulation. "Pygmalion" and "Major Barbara" are relevant for pointing out the different approaches of the matter. On the one hand, love is portrayed as the adulation of the creator for his masterpiece, as in the case of Pygmalion's Professor Higgins and Major Barbara's main character with the same name; on the other hand, the unsophisticated and mundane love of a simple human being for the embodiment of a superior and unaccustomed with world characterizes the perception of love of both Lisa and Cusins, respectively. .

             In the first instance, on a general note, both plays deal with the love of the artist for his masterpiece and his failure in trying to remain bound to an abstract and idealistic world, in considering himself invulnerable in front of the vicissitudes of real life. Higgins is the representative of the Pygmalion myth, the restless and unsatisfied genius in a perpetual struggle for achieving perfection, as he states that "I can do without anybody. I have my own soul: my own spark of divine fire"(Shaw, 1916, act V). Similarly, Barbara is destined to fulfill the desiderates of a righteous world and deemed to aspire to impalpable circles of life: "Oh, if only I could get away from you and from father and from it all! If I could have the wings of a dove and fly away to heaven!" (Shaw, 2000, act III) Therefore, their actions have as main goal the endeavors to escape through art and through their ideals from an environment thought of as limited; but, in the end, the worldly of love a regular human being prevents their attainment for the perpetual sought for perfection.