At the end of the story, Claydon confronts the narrator when he finds the portrait and explains why he changed the painting back to its original, youthful state. In his justification, he alludes to the ancient Greek myth about Pygmalion:
‘Pygmalion,’ [Claydon] began slowly, ‘turned his statue into a real woman; I turned my real woman into a picture. Small compensation, you think—but you don’t know how much of a woman belongs to you after you’ve painted her!'
In Greek mythology, Pygmalion was a king and sculptor who made a statue of his ideal woman and fell in love with the statue. While he initially scorned all women, he became obsessed with the statue. After praying to Aphrodite, she brought the statue to life, and they were married.
Here, Claydon alludes to this myth but evokes it in the opposite, saying that he “turned [his] real woman into a picture.” This allusion emphasizes the disturbing nature of Claydon’s possessive attitude toward Mrs. Grancy. He turns her into a painting to possess her and equates it to the seemingly romantic story of Pygmalion. However, Pygmalion’s story is also one of possessive misogyny. This allusion emphasizes that Claydon (and the others) only value Mrs. Grancy for her beauty, and he believes that she can “belong” to him as compensation.
Furthermore, this allusion to Pygmalion adds an element of commentary about the nature and role of art. Instead of art bringing something to life as in the original myth, Wharton makes Claydon reduce life to art in a process that harms Mrs. Grancy and benefits the men around her. Wharton’s use of this allusion makes readers consider the power of art and how it can be misused.
