Analysis of Major Characters

Analysis of Major Characters Henry Higgins Henry Higgins is a professor of phonetics and also the Pygmalion to Elisa. Although enthusiastic about his professions, he is a braggart of his achievements and often belittles other people‟s intellectual abilities. Such trait can be seen when his ridicule on the bearded man‟s conjectures about Elisa‟s origins and his constant negative remarks about Elisa‟s intelligence. Because of his proud nature and joking mannerism, he starts a bet with his fellow friend Pickering in the beginning of the play, saying that he is capable of passing a lowly flower girl as a duchess. This bet starts the drama of the play. Although a highly intellectual gentleman, Higgins practices poor manners , and his rudeness annoys the public. A jerk to about every woman on Earth and a bully to Elisa,Higgins justifies his demeanor by saying that he treats everybody, even a duchess, as equally badly as one would treat “flower girls by the curbside”. Nevertheless, Higgins is kind by nature, and this characteristic of his has prevented the world from turning against him. Higgins‟s character is full of contradictions, which makes his actions and true intentions ambiguous to the audience. It is hard to know if most of what he has said was out of sincerity or not and this trait builds the suspense in the play of whether Higgins has feelings toward Elisa. He is also considered to be a static character. His personal traits don‟t change (or “incorrigible” as marked by the author) throughout the play, but his intention toward teaching Eliza did. In the beginning Higgins only wanted to have fun playing the Pygmalion, but in the end, he wants to mold Eliza into a true lady.He reflects Shaw‟s belief that everybody should be treated equal no matter his or her social class.

Eliza Doolittle Before meeting Higgins, Eliza was a hard working flower girl who makes barely enough money to support her living. She is stereotyped as a “dirty” lower class, but she is virtuous and has a kind and innocent mind. When she implores Higgins to teach her phonetics, she never wanted to acquire any luxuries from his house, but only thought of improving her career with this new knowledge. As she resides in Wimpole Street, she is often out of the place and oblivious of the expect ations in the upper classes reign. For instance, she thinks it is perfectly fine to wear mismatched feathers on hat and to include the “cuss word” “bloody” in her small talk. Her cluelessness to the proper way to act in the upper class portrays the theme that when a person is taken out of their social norm, he or she often encounters conflicts and will not always fit in. Elisa values respect and appreciation; that is why she despises Higgins‟s rudeness to her and how her achievement seemed to him as merely a game. This trait reflects the idea that everybody deserves respect from society despite their social class. With Higgins‟s efforts, Elisa learns to speak perfect English and eventually passes the test at the garden ceremony. However, although Elisa may act like a duchess, her true transformation from a flower girl to a lady comes about when she finally realizes that she can make a living by her own out of teaching phonics. In the end, Elisa has become a strong and independent lady, and no longer a feeble flower girl in the gutter.

Colonel Pickering Pickering is an old chap, a professor of Indian dialect, and a foil to Higgins. While Higgins is boorish and treats everybody as garbage, Pickering is polite and treats every girl, even a flower girl, like a duchess. Nonetheless, Pickering‟s kindness to people is genial and detached: he didn‟t even bother to congratulate Eliza on her accomplishments. Despite this, it is from Pickering that Eliza learned the importance of respect and truly feels like a lady in his presences. The characteristics of Pickering add kindness to the play and serves to

develop the theme that appearance will not identify a person as an upper classman but it is the person‟s mannerism that ultimately makes the person a true duchess.

Mrs. Pearce Mrs. Pearce is the old housemaid that serves in Professor Higgins‟s house. She is very aware of the class difference and is aware of both sides of the social class problems. She sees the consequences of Higgins‟s experience with Eliza and disapproves of his bet with Pickering. The character of Mrs. Pearce serves as an unbiased view of the conflicts presented by both upper class (Higgins) and lower class (Eliza). She often mediates between Higgins and Elisa‟s arguments, and constantly reminds him whe n he has made Elisa mad.

Freddy A former member of the upper class, Freddy is humble and kind and has the manners of a gentleman. Freddy is obsessed with Eliza and is reported to have been creeping on Eliza every night under her windows. Freddy serves as the person that Elisa would marry in order to build the dramatic irony of the play. A fool, as commented by Higgins, Freddy is truly incompetent. He is constantly being bossed around by his sister and mother and can‟t readily find a job to support Eliza. He is a perfect example of how the upper classmen would have a difficult time adjusting to being a lower class when the family suffers economic hardships.

Mr. Doolittle Mr. Doolittle is a lower class scoundrel. He has at least 6 wives, spends all his earned money on alcohol, and “touches” people whenever he needed money. When Eliza is permitted to stay at Higgins‟s residence to study phonetics, Mr. Doolittle immediately thinks that his daughter has decided on a path of prostitution. Uncaring and selfish, he sells Eliza for only 5 pounds. Unembarrassed by his actions and behaviors, Mr. Doolittle is happy about his being a rogue on the street. However, when Mr. Doolittle becomes a richly endowed lecture to a moral reform society, he immediately becomes miserable with his obligation and expectations from the others. Now, he must provide for his family, marry his girlfriend, and give money to support his “newly gained” relatives. Nonetheless, even though his appearances dramatically changed through the transformation, his mannerisms don‟t. He still speaks with his usual scandalous voice, and he criticizes Higgins, who wrote his “recommendation letter” to the moral reform society founder, for taking his freedom away, and putting him in a morose state. The character of Doolittle voices a piece of satire to the middle class morality in that sometimes a “deserving poor” lives a happier live than the rich middle class would because the lower class don‟t have to care so much about their responsibilities.

Themes and Analysis Social Class Separations/Distinctions The characters within Pygmalion are split into three main classes: upper, middle, and poor. There are distinct characters from these three classes that embody the meaning of these social differences. The first one, lower class (or the poor) is shown by the main character; Eliza Doolittle (or Liza). She starts out in the story as a poor girl selling flowers on the corner of the street. The book describes her as “…not at all a romantic figure…hair needs washing rather badly…wears a shoddy black coat…boots are much the worse for wear…no doubt as clean as she can afford to be; but compared to the ladies she is very dirty.” This provides an image of just how needy and poor she is. She is shown to sell flowers on the curb of the street to rich people- the Eynsford-Hills, in fact, in the beginning of the play. Clara, the daughter, says, “do nothing of the sort, mother. The idea!” when Liza asks money for the flowers that Freddy made her drop onto the ground. This is the first encounter we see of the lower and upper class. The powers of the higher class are emphasized as Eliza goes to Wimpole Street to request lessons from Higgins (from the description of his home in the play). The middle class is mostly depicted by Mrs. Pearce throughout the play and Alfred Doolittle towards the end of the book. He isn’t rich like Higgins, but contrasted with his daughter’s status in the beginning, he is much better off with more riches and with that, more responsibilities. Feminist Ideas

This is a minor theme branching out of class distinction. There are different ideas about women in each and every social class- for example; the lower class women must work. They are unable to do anything but work. Middle class women may work, may stay at home. Upper class women, however, are so delicate that the only thing they could possibly venture to give is their bodies (ie. Prostitution). Also, their speech is different. While lower class women may speak as they please, it is “unladylike” for women of the upper class to say words such as “bloody…rotters…filthy and beastly.” “…Clara is so down on me if I am not positively reeking with the latest slang.”

Man vs. Man, Man vs. Nature- Higgins vs. Eliza The main plot of Pygmalion revolves around social classes and the bet Higgins makes with Pickering that he can “turn [Eliza] into a duchess.” That is to say, he is taking an ordinary, poor girl in the lower class and turning her into an elite member of the upper class. This means that he is changing her natural speech, behavior, and her natural lifestyle and way of life (man vs. nature). Higgins says, “But you have no idea how frightfully interesting it is to take a human being and change her into a quite different human being by creating a new speech for her…” which implies the theme of man vs. nature. He is also going against the norms of the distinction between classes on the social ladder (man vs. man).

Males vs. Female Throughout the play and the entire time Higgins and Pickering were “experimenting” with Eliza, they thought that it was a project, merely play for amusement and a way to show skill and profession. However, the two strong, independent women in the book (Mrs. Pearce and Mrs. Higgins), see things in a different view. They both ask of Eliza’s future “after [they’re] done with her,” but both times, they do not receive an answer. The males are ignorant of the consequences of their actions while the females appear to be the ones thinking of everything else- everything the men aren’t- Mrs. Higgins says, “…you two infinitely stupid male creatures: the problem of what is to be done with her afterwards.” This shows them to be more careful, critical, and well-rounded in thought than the men, their thought patterns and the way they handle situations to be different. This again shows up when Eliza confronts Higgins after winning his bet about her future, showing once more the differences between the two genders.

Summary and Analysis

Act One Prior to midnight at St. Paul‟s Church, the women of the Eynsford Hill family (a line of old money that has dried up, leaving the family with only the manners and expectations of the upper class) wait in the rain for Freddy, the bullied son and brother. He returns to the portico, having been unable to find a cab. On the way inside, he runs into a girl selling flowers. As the girl hawks her wares to a nearby gentleman, who gives her money but does not take a flower, a bystander warns her that a man is taking down everything she says. Mistaking the note taker for a police man attempting to arrest her for prostitution, the flower girl grows very upset, and a ruckus among the crowd ensues. As the commotion unfolds, the crowd begins to favor the note taker when he is able to discern where a few members of the crowd grew up, merely by hearing them speak. The crowd settles and disperses, and the note taker comments disparagingly on the flower girl‟s lower class speech. By chance, a bystander and the note taker reveal themselves to be Colonel Pickering and Professor Henry Higgins, to distinguished dialect experts. As the two leave together, Higgins gives the flower girl a handful of coins with poor grace. As Freddy finally arrives with a cab, he finds his sister and mother gone. The flower girl, newly flush with good fortune, takes the taxi back to her lodging, a dreary Drury Lane flat.

Act Two Act Two commences in Higgins‟s study as Pickering and Higgins discuss the intricacies of dialect. Mrs. Pierce enters the study and announces that an unknown woman with a thick accent is asking to see the professor. The flower girl, revealed as Eliza, has dressed and cleaned herself as best she can, complete with a gaudy, tattered hat. Eliza asks for Higgins for speech lessons, hoping to improve her circumstances. Higgins and Eliza argue about the amount of pay, when Pickering suggests a bet- he will pay for Eliza‟s lessons if Higgins can pass her off as a duchess at a society garden party. With a bout of bullying from Higgins, and a great deal of confusion for Eliza, it is settled that Eliza will live in Higgins‟s house and take lessons each day in order to train for the bet‟s execution. Mrs. Pearce takes Eliza up to her new bathroom, and Eliza is introduced to the accouterments of upper class grooming, demonstrating the class gap with her naiveté. In the meantime, Pickering interrogates Higgins, to determine if his intentions for Eliza are honorable, and Higgins confirms that he is a life-long bachelor. Mrs. Pearce returns to the study and reminds Higgins to be careful of Eliza, noting his carelessness, and insists that he be on his best behavior if he is to teach her the mannerisms of high society. Alfred Doolittle, Eliza‟s father, then enters the study, attempting to wheedle money out of Higgins for the loss of his daughter. Although Higgins and Pickering are shocked at his callousness, Doolittle declares the follies of “middle class morality” and the practicality of his own philosophies. Impressed by his speech, Pickering and Higgins agree to give him the money. Eliza, freshly scrubbed and surprisingly lovely in a new dress, enters the study, stunning the men in the room. She scorns her father for coming to get money to drink, and the two grow close to blows before Doolittle is escorted out. Eliza expresses the desire never to see her father again, and exits as new clothes arrive for her. Eliza‟s first lesson proves to be a tumultuous experience for her. Under Higgins‟s bullying, she begins to improve her diction, fighting her natural accent. Overwhelmed, Eliza begins to cry, but it gently reassured by Pickering. Shaw describes this lesson as a “glimpse” into the six months of Eliza‟s training.

Act Three The third act begins in the home of Mrs. Higgins, Henry Higgins‟s mother on her at-home day. Higgins explains that he has picked up a young woman, who, despite his mother‟s hopes, is certainly not a romantic interest. Higgins confirms the love for his mother which arguably settles his bachelorhood. After explaining his project, he requests his mother‟s help to allow Eliza to practice making conversation. Mrs. and Miss Eynsford Hill enter to visit- the mother anxious, and the daughter arrogant. Colonel Pickering enters and they exchange greetings. Higgins embarrasses Mrs. Higgins when he expresses his scorn for mannerisms and begins crashing his way through the conversation. Eliza enters, radiant enough to capture the eyes of the young Freddy Eynsford Hill, who also enters the parlor. A conversation about the weather quickly turns

into a conversation about Eliza‟s parents, as Eliza unknowingly makes several social bumbles, although her use of the word “bloody” is taken as fashionable slang by Miss Eynsford Hill, and Freddy finds her charming. Eliza and the Eynsford Hills take their leave, and Mrs. Higgins chastises Pickering and Higgins for treating Eliza like a live doll, and is alarmed that neither of them have realistic plans for her future. Pickering and Higgins leave undaunted, and Mrs. Higgins is left frustrated by their lack of foresight. Upon the next scene, the full six months have passed and Pickering, Higgins, and Eliza arrive at an Embassy in London or a party. As they enter the house, Higgins is accosted by his former pupil Nepommuck, who is now an interpreter for international parties. Higgins and Pickering discuss whether or not Nepommuck will be able to figure out the truth about Eliza, and possibly blackmail her. Eliza returns, and the trio enters the party. Eliza dazzles both her host and hostess, as well as all of the guests. The host and hostess ask Higgins to tell them about Eliza, and Nepommuck enters the conversation, and insists that Eliza, who speaks English far better than the average English woman, must be Hungarian royalty. The host and hostess agree with Nepommuck, and Higgins and Pickering agree that Higgins has won the bet. Eliza returns, distraught by how much she sticks out among the guests, not understanding that she has gone above and beyond the terms of the bet. The three leave the Embassy upon agreeing that they are tired and hungry.

Act Four The act begins with Pickering, Higgins, and Eliza returning to Higgins‟s study. Higgins and Pickering leave their clothing scattered about, and Eliza sits in brooding silence as Higgins and Pickering discuss her success and relief that the bet is over as though she were not in the room. Pickering bids Higgins good night, and Higgins prepares to retire as Eliza‟s rage and despair overcome her. She throws herself on the floor and throws Higgins slippers at him. She furiously declares that she has nowhere to go, and that Higgins doesn‟t care for her, and that she wishes she had her independence in the “gutter” she was born in. Higgins dismisses her fury as exhaustion, and notes that she could marry herself off. Eliza asks what clothing belongs to her and what belongs to Higgins, deeply offending him. When she makes him take back her jewels, he loses his temper and she says that she is glad that she has gotten “a little of my own back”. Higgins storms out, and Eliza goes to her room and takes off her finery. Outside, Freddy Eynsford Hill watches the light go out in her window. Eliza emerges from the house and asks him what he is doing by her window. Freddy declares his love for her, and Eliza turns to him for comfort. Between kisses, they are chased about London by several constables and Eliza and Freddy decide to drive in a taxi all night, and Eliza resolves to go to Mrs. Higgins for help.

Act Five

Act Five opens into Mrs. Higgins‟s drawing room. A parlor maid approaches Mrs. Higgins to tell her that Professor Higgins and Colonel Pickering are at the door, and that they are phoning the police in a state of panic. Mrs. Higgins is unsurprised by Henry‟s “state” and tells the parlor maid to bring them up, and to tell Eliza upstairs that Higgins and Pickering have arrived, and she is not to come down until she is sent for. Higgins bursts in and informs Mrs. Higgins that Eliza has left. Mrs. Higgins, acting as though she does not already know this information, states that Higgins must have frightened her. Higgins dismisses the fact and announces that she has left with her things. As Mrs. Higgins reminds Henry that she has the right to leave if she chooses, Henry explains that he has become unanchored since she‟s left. Pickering enters, and Mrs. Higgins realizes that the two have sent the police after Eliza, and rebukes them for acting as though she were their runaway pet. The parlor maid comes and explains that Mr. Doolittle has asked to see Higgins. Doolittle enters in a fine suit fit for a bridegroom, and accuses Henry of unleashing the horrors of “middle class morality” upon him when he flippantly suggested Doolittle as an expert of English morals to an American in the Moral Reform Societies, and that Doolittle has obtained wealth as a speaker for the society. Doolittle, disgruntled with his new responsibilities, explains that he now must marry Eliza‟s „step-mother”, and expects that Eliza will soon want a piece of his good fortune as well. Higgins is indignant, crying that he cannot and shall not provide for her. Mrs. Higgins reveals that Eliza is upstairs and insists that he be civil to her when she comes downstairs. She scolds them for their callous behavior towards her, and Pickering begins to feel guilty, although Higgins is still ruffled. Mr. Doolittle leaves the room for the moment and Mrs. Higgins calls down Eliza. Eliza comes downstairs perfectly composed, greets the two, and sits by Pickering. She tells Pickering that he truly began her education, for he always treated her as a lady, even when she was a flower girl, and asks him to call her Eliza, rather than Miss Doolittle. After she requests that Higgins continue to call her Miss Doolittle, Higgins pompously asserts that she will soon go back to her old ways. Mr. Doolittle enters the room, and Eliza emits one of her old yelps to see her father in his suit, and Higgins jumps on her mistake. Mr. Doolittle explains that he is about to go to his own wedding. Although Eliza is upset, at Colonel Pickering‟s urging, she agrees to go, and leaves to dress. Doolittle admits that he is concerned about the ceremony, and explains that he‟s never been married before, and asks Pickering not to mention that he never married Eliza‟s mother. Pickering and Mrs. Higgins agree to come to the ceremony. Pickering tries to persuade Eliza to return with them to Higgins‟s home, but Eliza finally admits to Higgins that as neither of them with to be married, or pursue any sort of romantic relationship, she cannot stay. Higgins explains that he does not mean to treat her poorly; that he treats everyone in the same fashion. Eliza in turn expresses that she does not wish to stay with anyone who does not care for her. Eliza is still afraid for her future, and Higgins offers to adopt her, and notes that she could marry Pickering if she wanted to. She says that she has plenty of suitors, including Freddy Eynsford Hill, whom she intends to marry once she is able to support him. Higgins is stunned, and Eliza declares that she does not want anything to be made of her through marriage- she wants one of affectionate partnership. She loses her temper and tells Higgins that she will become a phonetics teacher

herself, even becoming an assistant to Nepommuck. Higgins is enraged, but finally gains respect for Eliza, and asks her to stay with him and Pickering as equals. Eliza declines, and wonders aloud how he will do without her. Eliza and Mrs. Higgins leave, and Higgins laughs at the thought of her marrying Freddy as the play concludes.

Epilogue In the epilogue, Shaw summarizes the details that would follow the play, explaining that he would not with for anyone to get the wrong idea about the character‟s natures. Shaw firmly states that Eliza and Higgins could never married, as both are too strong for each other, and that Eliza would naturally favor a more attractive, attentive partner. Unsure after their marriage, Eliza and Freddy are able to survive for a while on a generous wedding gift from Pickering, as Mr. Doolittle refuses to support Eliza. The two eventually move in with Pickering and Higgins again for a time as they figure out their options. Eliza decides against teaching phonetics, deciding that Henry‟s techniques belong solely to him. At Pickering‟s suggestion, they begin a florist shop, although they hesitate as it would ruin Freddy‟s sister‟s chances at marriage. However, Miss Eynsford Hill has lost her lofty ideas and taken a job at a furniture shop, allowing the two to begin their business. They do dreadfully for a time, as Freddy and Eliza know nothing about running a business. But after taking classes and hiring other employees, their shop blossoms, and the two move out of Higgins‟s home to start their own family. Eliza maintains a lifelong fatherdaughter relationship with Pickering, and continues to bicker with Higgins. Shaw notes that although she may have occasionally dreamed of what might happen if she could make Higgins love her, she is content with her life with Freddy, and continues to live in reality, and her florist‟s shop with Freddy. Shaw concludes that Galatea may never have truly liked Pygmalion, as she would forever resent his godlike complex around her.

Quotes 1. “I don’t think I can bear much more. The people all stare so at me. An old lady has just told me that I speak exactly like Queen Victoria…nothing can make me the same as these people.” This quote demonstrates the key moment of Pygmalion, as it reveals Liza’s true characteristics. It shows that she doesn’t want to be queen; she only wants to be similar to everyone else. She only wants to be regarded as a duchess and a lady just like the other ladies in the upper class. This is ironic because it is before this point that Liza wanted to be regarded as the queen. However, she feels as if she stands out for the wrong reason and does not fit in. She states: “I’ll never be like these people”, but doesn’t realize how successful she actually is.

2. “…I tell you, Pickering, never gain for me. No more artificial duchesses. The whole thing has been simple purgatory.” Higgins talks to Eliza as if she is a doll, as if she is not there and has no feelings. This shows the distinction she may feel exists between the two classes. She may stereotype the upper class as those who disregard the poor and feel as if they have no feelings and are lifeless. Because of this, Higgins’ statement may have strengthened Eliza’s stereotypes and angered her further.

3. “I sold flowers. I didn’t sell myself. Now you’ve made a lady of me I’m not fit to sell anything else. I wish you’d left me where you found me.” Here the key difference between upper and lower women is emphasized; many believe that women in the upper class have nothing to offer while women in the lower class must work. They simply hold many more responsibilities than those of the upper class. It is Eliza’s turn to honor her statement, “I’m a good girl”, something she has always said in the beginning of the book. However, with her change in status, all she can do is marry and remain in the upper class with nothing to offer. She realizes the decrease in responsibilities and usefulness she will have, and regrets her having Higgins help her change her social status.

4. “I’m sorry. I’m only a common ignorant girl; and in my station I have to be careful. There can’t be any feelings between the like of you and the like of me. Please will you tell me what belongs to you and what doesn’t?" This statement angered Higgins and actually provoked a response from him. He had ceased to ignore Eliza after she says this, and his responses indirectly demonstrate his affection towards her. When she said “the like of you and the like of me”, it emphasized once again the distinction between the two classes. Eliza believes herself to be “common” and “ignorant” and not worthy of Higgins. The fact that she provoked a response out of him by pointing this out showed that Higgins truly did care about her.

5. “Who asked him to make a gentleman of me? I was happy. I was free. I touched pretty nigh everybody for money when I wanted it, same as I touched you, Engry Iggings. Now I am worried; tied neck and heels; and everybody touches me for money.” Doolittle is angry because of his newfound riches. He doesn’t want to be rich because he doesn’t want the responsibilities that come with his riches, once again emphasizing the distinction between higher class and lower class. In this sense, when he was poor, he only had to ask for money. Apart from doing that, there was nothing else he had to do. Now his money comes with responsibilities. However, he is now reluctant to bear these responsibilities and prefers his former life. Doolittle was quite content with asking for money, as he was less burdened. This shows the attitude of those in different classes; many may be content with their current status.

6. “Your calling me Miss Doolittle that day when I first came to Wimpole Street. That was the beginning of self-respect for me. And there were a hundred little things you never noticed, because they came naturally to you. Things about standing up and taking off your hat and opening doors-” This shows the impact that society’s perspective can have on one individual. They can significantly help or heal one; that is why many people are proud in society. For example, the fact that Miss Doolittle was regarded with respect and was addressed with this polite name added to Liza’s self-respect. This shows the importance of society's view and opinions can have on an individual.

7. “The great secret, Eliza, is not having bad manners or good manners or any other particular sort of manners, but having the same manner for all human souls: in short, behaving as if you were in Heaven, where there are no third-class carriages, and one soul is as good as another.” This is ultimately the main theme of the story where the author criticizes the class distinctions. He believes that there are all types of people in each class, both the good and the bad. Likewise, they should all be treated similarly which is why he says "one soul is as good as another." He believes that everyone can contribute to the wholeness of the world (ie: how he changed Eliza) and similarly, everyone has equal potential. This also reveals the good-heartedness of Higgins.

8. “You were a fool: I think a woman fetching a man’s slippers is a disgusting sight: did I ever fetch your slippers?...No use slaving for me and then saying you want to be cared for: who cares for a slave? If you come back, come back for the sake of good fellowship; for you’ll get nothing else. You’ve had a thousand times as much out of me as I have had out of you; and if you dare to set up your little dog’s tricks of fetching and carrying slippers against my creation of a Duchess Eliza, I’ll slam the door in your silly face.”

Higgins is emphasizing to Eliza her independence. The fact that he tells her to not find him his slippers is underlining the fact that she is free. He is telling Liza that she doesn’t need him or her father or anyone; she can do it by herself. By thinking or stating otherwise, she is disrespecting herself for affection. He is emphasizing to her the potential that she has.

Study Questions 1 1 1. What are some assumptions that the upper, middle, and lower class make of each other? The upper class has a mentality where they believe themselves superior to the poor class. The poor are assumed to be dirty and crude common. To the rich, a poor woman‟s purpose is prostitution. Even so, the poor are deemed incapable of understanding the culture of the rich, especially small talk. Some assumptions coincide with the ones the poor class makes about the rich. If a rich pers on is interested in a poor woman, it is probably for prostitution. The poor appear to think they are inferior as shown through them thinking certain possessions and acts too good for them. The rich do not need to walk, they can ride in taxicabs. Overall, e ach believes that they would not fit in to each others' culture and environment.

2. How do Higgins and Pickering contrast and complement each other? Higgins is characterized to be self-important and condescending towards others yet intelligent. His rude behavior makes it difficult for others to tolerate him. He is a static character, never -changing throughout the entirety of the story. Pickering, however, is the ying to his yang. He is described as a perfect gentleman. His gentle and nurturing nature makes it easy for others to feel affection towards him. Essentially, Higgins and Pickering‟s personalities balance each other out, especially during Eliza's education. Higgins would be very strict towards her while Pickering would comfort her. As Liza herself points out, Higgins taught her how to speak, but Pickering taught her how to behave.

3. What does Mrs. Higgins convey when she says to Higgins and Pickering, “You certainly are a pretty pair of babies, playing with your live doll"? Although Higgins and Pickering plan for Eliza to become a lady, there is no real thought regarding her future after the bet. Higgins even goes as far as to say that she‟ll probably go back to the gutter. There is no planning for Eliza‟s dream of becoming a lady in a flower shop. Mrs. Higgins is basically saying that Higgins and Pickering treat Eliza like a doll rather than a human. They don‟t take into account her feelings. They dress her up, teach her manners and control all aspects of her life.

4. What is ironic about Eliza saying, “I don‟t think I can bear much more. The people are stare so at me. An old lady has just told me that I speak exactly like Queen Victoria. I am sorry if I have lost you bet. I have done my best; but nothing can make me the same as these people”? To Eliza, she is not fitting in because people are staring at her and giving her comments on her speech. However, she is completely wrong. People stare at her because of her beauty and behavior. This quote alludes to the belief that the classes cannot fit in each other‟s environment. Eliza believes she will never be able to be the “same as these people.” Yet, she has done the impossible and convinced the upper class that she is one of them.

Pygmalion - A Short Analysis Of The George Bernard Shaw Play Pygmalion - A Short Analysis Of The George Bernard Shaw Play George Bernard Shaw's Pygmalion is an artistic employment whose depiction of drama invites study. This article broadly examines some of the themes with the play.

An author of the play is obliged to impart concerning to his target market concerning his play's characters and settings. Crucial to make sure vital that his own protagonists are portrayed in ways that is both intriguing, notable and informative, yet does not appear contrived. Performance is an external structure, dependent on visual scene. Consequently a considerable fat is put on the playwright to supply revealing yet persuading dialogue. Professor Higgins in addition to Eliza Doolittle are protagonists whose status are important to the plot trajectory of Pygmalion. Because they're invested with such another personalities, Shaw has to present these differences from a careful mixture of discourse and gesture, yet still maintain an overall proportion to his have fun. Eliza's position in culture is overtly indicated throughout her distinct accessorize and conversation therefore the audience immediately collects that she is a lowly flower-girl. Electrical systems, Higgins's profession is primarily unknown, and only steadily disclosed through a combination of inventive encounters with characters, such as Colonel Pickering, in fact it is through him and even Eliza - as well as a lot of bystanders - that we gain knowledge of Higgins's vocation. The exposure that he is a brilliant tutor in phonetics has a large involvement throughout the other play. The play's additionally act sees all of the transformation of a fable into a contemporary part realist fiction. Off phase, Higgins and Pickering have had been able train Eliza to appear to be a lady. It is from this scene where the clients witnesses Shaw subtly alluding to the fable described in Ovid's Metamorphoses. Higgins's grand mother thoroughly disapproves of the woman son's achievement, making reference to him and Pickering for a "pretty pair of babies, messing around with your live doll" (Pygmalion, p.81). This set can be effectively juxtaposed by way of "Make this fair statue mine... Give me all of the likeness of our Iv'ry Maid", an extract through Ovid's Pygmalion and the Statue, the place that the protagonist prays to the goddess Venus to produce his creation alive. It would appear that Higgins has considered the role associated with Pygmalion and Eliza is an individual's statue. The styles of gender and sophistication are also evident on Act 3. Higgins's disposition to the opposite sex can be a issue. When their mother laments her son's apathy towards any partner, "under the age of forty-five" (Pygmalion, p.Sixty eight) the professor ripostes by simply stating that he is quite simply incompatible with women. He then provides that they are "all idiots" (Pygmalion, p.'68). During Eliza's debut as the lady, it becomes recognizable that her meant empowerment seems somewhat dubious. Her bring together has much 'improved' eventhough her conversation visibly indicates that she is simply masquerading as a guy of high cultural standing. However it is sole Mrs Higgins who anticipates the difficulties which will plague Eliza once your lady leaves the tutelage regarding her son. At the end of Act 4, the play usually have arrived at a fabulous conclusion. However the turning-point is introduced while in the following act. Eliza has perceived the dreads that dawned on Mrs Higgins, as well as a whole new avenue from narrative presents itself as she finally retaliates with the bullying professor. The action is certainly dramatic, having Eliza's accent sounding a reduced amount of forced and more extreme. Higgins's character is also intensified through dialogue, and as the act closes, there's a need for some sort of quality. Conventions have to be within the creation of any artsy work. The practice of dividing the narrative associated with a play into functions was an ancient custom, originating in antiquity. Five operates for a play happen to be considered an acceptable amount of money at the beginning of the twentieth-century. As a result Shaw was fortunate simply because figure was satisfactory for his story. However he was first more daring throughout areas such as setting and duration, by using a variety of locations plus spanning his plot over several months. Yet it was in dialogue wherever he was the vast majority of audacious, striving for realistic theatre through using famous everyday speech rather than verse.

Shaw drew using a popular myth designed for Pygmalion. He also had intensive aspirations, believing any play to be previously mentioned mere entertainment. Shaw believed the play worked best as an inherently didactic medium, capable of gaining society - your dog was an die hard socialist and feminist. He also has a subtle kinship with his character, being a champion for phonetics. Pygmalion raises interesting basic questions that are still conflicting, such as whether a given work could produce changes in society.

00246-- Eliza Doolittle/Character Sketch/Pygmalion/Bernard Shaw [English literature free notes]

Eliza Doolittle In the beginning Eliza Doolittle is a flower girl from the slums of London. She is ignorant, dirty and full of terrible Cockney dialect which even the taxi driver can't understand. After six months this same girl becomes a young beautiful Duchess who charms everyone at the Ambassador's garden party.

Even in the first scene on the portico of St.Paul's church, on that rainy night we get the impression that Eliza is not just an ordinary flower girl. She is bold, confident and even a little impudent. There she confronts Freddy, the people standing there. She calls Higgins a man stuffed with nails. When Pickering and Higgins sing a song with various rhyming names she asks them not to be silly. Prof.Higgins develops her this self confidence and transforms her into a lady. But even then she can lose her temper and even throw his slippers at Higgins' face. The girl who walked into the Wimpole Street was a poor nervous girl, but at the same time one who had determined to become a lady or at least an assistant in a flower shop. The fact that she was prepared to pay Higgins the fee for this work shows her individuality. In a short time Eliza becomes so indispensable that when she threatens to leave, Higgins complains that he can't find anything and can't remember his appointments. She becomes an efficient personal assistant to Higgins and Pickering.

Higgins training turns out to be a bitter battle for Eliza. Higgins was a severe master he bullied and hectored her. He threatened to drag her around the room three times by her hair if she made a mistake twice. Eliza was a keen intelligent student. She absorbed everything and was very sharp. She learned easily and made rapid progress. In fact for both Higgins and Eliza the process of teaching and learning was a hard task. Later on she confesses that while Higgins taught her how to speak it was Pickering who unknowingly taught her good manners. At Mrs.Higgins' house both the gentlemen are lavish in their praise of Eliza. Happiness is an elusive thing for Eliza. as soon as she is big enough to earn her own living she is sent out of her home. As a flower girl she struggles to make a living. She lives in a dingy room in a dirty locality. Even after she becomes a lady she is far from being happy. She expected Higgins to like her and propose to her. But for Higgins she was only an object of an experiment. Higgins' bullying reaches a point where Eliza in desperation hits back. This happens only after she suffers enough. Only Pickering's gentle attitude helps her to carry on. Even after she marries Freddy she depends on Pickering's financial support. Eliza's relationship with Higgins seems unnatural. But Shaw made it intentionally so. After she becomes Higgin's pupil she comes to know that her master is too strong to be involved emotionally with her as a woman,as he told Pickering a pupil was only a block of wood for him. When she discovers that Higgins can never be a husband she is much chagrined. But she becomes strong enough to find love in Freddy who needed her more than she needed him. In the end Eliza earns the appreciation or even the admiration of Higgins himself. He had made a flower girl a duchess and then changed a duchess into a real woman.

Eliza Doolittle In the beginning Eliza Doolittle is a flower girl from the slums of London. She is ignorant, dirty and full of terrible Cockney dialect which even the taxi driver can't understand. After six months this same girl becomes a young beautiful Duchess who charms everyone at the Ambassador's garden party.

Even in the first scene on the portico of St.Paul's church, on that rainy night we get the impression that Eliza is not just an ordinary flower girl. She is bold, confident and even a little impudent. There she confronts Freddy, the people standing there. She calls Higgins a man stuffed with nails. When Pickering and Higgins sing a song with various rhyming names she asks them not to be silly. Prof.Higgins develops her this self confidence and transforms her into a lady. But even then she can lose her temper and even throw his slippers at Higgins' face. The girl who walked into the Wimpole Street was a poor nervous girl, but at the same time one who had determined to become a lady or at least an assistant in a flower shop. The fact that she was prepared to pay Higgins the fee for this work shows her individuality. In a short time Eliza becomes so indispensable that when she threatens to leave, Higgins complains that he can't find anything and can't remember his appointments. She becomes an efficient personal assistant to Higgins and Pickering.

Higgins training turns out to be a bitter battle for Eliza. Higgins was a severe master he bullied and hectored her. He threatened to drag her around the room three times by her hair if she made a mistake twice. Eliza was a keen intelligent student. She absorbed everything and was very sharp. She learned easily and made rapid progress. In fact for both Higgins and Eliza the process of teaching and learning was a hard task. Later on she confesses that while Higgins taught her how to speak it was Pickering who unknowingly taught her good manners. At Mrs.Higgins' house both the gentlemen are lavish in their praise of Eliza. Happiness is an elusive thing for Eliza. as soon as she is big enough to earn her own living she is sent out of her home. As a flower girl she struggles to make a living. She lives in a dingy room in a dirty locality. Even after she becomes a lady she is far from being happy. She expected Higgins to like her and propose to her. But for Higgins she was only an object of an experiment. Higgins' bullying reaches a point where Eliza in desperation hits back. This happens only after she suffers enough. Only Pickering's gentle attitude helps her to carry on. Even after she marries Freddy she depends on Pickering's financial support. Eliza's relationship with Higgins seems unnatural. But Shaw made it intentionally so. After she becomes Higgin's pupil she comes to know that her master is too strong to be involved emotionally with her as a woman,as he told Pickering a pupil was only a block of wood for him. When she discovers that Higgins can never be a husband she is much chagrined. But she becomes strong enough to find love in Freddy who needed her more than she needed him. In the end Eliza earns the appreciation or even the admiration of Higgins himself. He had made a flower girl a duchess and then changed a duchess into a real woman.

The structure of Pygmalion/Play/George Bernard Shaw Shaw‟s „Pygmalion‟ is a very well-constructed play. It has: exposition, complication, and, conclusion. Act-1 works as exposition. Main characters are introduced. Prof.Higgins, the hero of the play claims that he can train ignorant and ill-educated flower girl, Eliza Doolitle in such a way that after six months people will accept her as a Duchess.

In Act-II and Act-III, the complication takes place. Eliza‟s training has started. She begins to change in her speaking, dressing and manners after the training. Now she is presented at the Ambassador‟s party. This event works as the climax. It comes between Act-III and Act-IV, the complication sets in Higgins behaves in callous manners and Eliza did not have soft feelings of love for him. She resents her treatment as an experiment. Act-IV and Act-V function with spirited discussion of the consequences of Eliza‟s education. Higgins becomes totally dependent upon Eliza. There takes place a verbal sword play between them. Finally, Eliza accepts Freddy as husband and leaves Higgins, and Prof.Higgins laughs out the whole affairs.

Thus the play progresses from ignorance to knowledge, the myth fades into the reality the didacticism turns from Phonetics to life and Eliza‟s spirit evolves from darkness to light. Thus the construction of the play is logical, artistic and elegant. George Bernard Shaw and His Play : Pygmalion

George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950)

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He was England's most important dramatist since the Renaissance  In 1882, Shaw's life changed with hearing a lecture by the American political theorist Henry George. It made Shaw read Karl Marx's "Das Kapital."  This set Shaw to work on the problems of capitalist society.  Shaw and his friends found the Fabian Society and then he worked on changing the British society for the rest of his life. FABIAN SOCIETY : It was founded in 1883-1884 in London, having as its goal the establishment ot a democratic socialist state in Great Britain. The Fabians put their faith in evolutionary socialism rather than in revolution.The name of the society derived from the Roman general Fabius cunctator,whose patient and elusive tactics in avoiding pitched battles secured his ultimate over stronger forces.It aims to promote greater equality of power, wealth, and opportunity, the value of collective action and public service, liberty,human rights.  Bernard Shaw thought that he could use the theater as a vehicle for serve his own idea. He was only person to have been awarded both a Nobel Prize in Literature and on Oscar, for his contributions to literature and for his work on the film of his play Pygmalion. PYGMALION // The source of the title The myth of Pygmalion and Galatea

Pygmalion's title came from ancient Greek myth with the same name Pygmalion. Pygmalion was a talented and famous sculptor who could find nothing good in women and never fell in love with a women. He spent most of his days at home sculpting beautiful things. He resolved to live out his life unmarried until he create his beautiful statue with an image of "perfect women" His statue was so perfect that no living being could possibly its equal and he fell in love with his own creation. He put clothes on it, gave it jewelry and named it Galatea.Consequently at festival, he prayed to goddess of beauty and love Aphrodite, that he might have the statue come to life. When he reached home, he found that his wish had been fullfilled then he wanted to marry his statue.  Shaw's Pygmalion Professor Henry Higgings is the most renowned man of phonetics of his time. Higgings is also like Pygmalion view of woman-cynical and derogotary Higgins says : " I find that the moment that I let a women make friends with me, she becomes jealous,exacting, suspicious and a damned nuisance." In the myth, Pygmalion carved sth beautiful and raw stone and gave it lafe. Shaw's Higgins takes a "gutternipe", "squashed cabbage leaf" up out of the slums and makes her into exquisite work of art. Pygmalion is a play which includes crucial values such as social-criticism, selfimprovement, humanitarian grounds. It reflects the social system of its era. HERE IS MY ANALYSİS OF PYGMALION PLAY

If Pygmalion is thought as a social criticism, Bernard Shaw, tries to demonstrate us the segregation between the upper class and the lower class people. That's kind of hiearachy. Both Shaw's stage direction and expressions about lower class apparently reveal the social discrimination. Additionally, there is a character who reach his ideal state thanks to will of power, it emphasizes the power of self improvement. Bernard Shaw as a socialist,criticizes the British Society' circumstances. We witness Eliza Doolitle's self developmen in process .By this respect we understand the frustration of human regarding of their social class. Shaw prove us that the people havent got inferiorty because of their inheritance, they are responsible for themselves throughout their life and they have the capability of develeoping themselves properly. At the beginning of the play Shaw displays us Liza is manipulated to grow up as a lady just because of simple bet which come true due to Pickering and Higginns' quarrel. Also we are over against the behaviour which scorn human's feeling and just exploit them as an object for the sake of their personal satistaction. Bernard Shaw , beginning of the play named the character according to their jobs. Especially Lize is given " flower girl" and her speech and peculiar language display that she belongs to lower class . The nickname of flower girl lay stress on the proper aim of the play in a sense. Moreover , Shaw harshly criticize the commercial system in those times. When Alfred Doolitle , Liza's father, comes to stage , he consent to sell his daughter to Mr. Higgins for the sake of gaining even 5 pounds. It is a bitter truthness regardings of not to caring about their own family member for the aim of gaining money. The social dignity is one of the stressed matters in this play. In the quarrel between Mrs. Higgins and Liza , she says social marriage is nothing better than the exchange of sex for the money like what one sees among prostitutes. Liza indicates that an upper-class marriage market as more degraded than her previous profession of selling flowers. Here Shaws expresses the deepest condemnation of society. It can be understood that Shaw frames Liza's words intentionally to draw attention about the pathetic conditions of those times and the working class can and often do have more dignity than the hypocritical segments of upper class. Furthermore, Eliza's final declaration of independence might have a political connotation . We can deduce as a socialist, Bernard Shaw, founded Fabian Society to defend human's right and protect people from oppression as a defender of human rights. Since the beginning of the play, Shaw often bring up style of language an location have been mentioned. The fact that English

forced their language on the Gaelic-speaking Irish, after invading Ireland , where we witness a male forcibly teaching a female to speak. As a conclusion, Shaw tries to reveal the barrier's between classes arent natural and can be broken down and if one want something by heart , ıt can come true ( Liza ). Shaw , in this play, comments on the capacity for the individual to overcome the boundaries established by system of class and gender. The dominant assumptions and expectations, may essentially prevent on individual from beginning socially mobile withing a seemingly rigid hieararchical socail structure.

Pygmalion - A Short Analysis Of The George Bernard Shaw Play George Bernard Shaw's Pygmalion is an artistic work whose depiction of drama invites analysis. This article broadly explores some of the themes within the play. An author of a play is obliged to impart some information to his audience concerning his play's characters and settings. It is therefore vital that his protagonists are portrayed in a manner that is both interesting and informative, yet doesn't appear contrived. Drama is an external medium, dependent on visual spectacle. Consequently a considerable weight is put on the playwright to produce revealing yet convincing dialogue. Professor Higgins and Eliza Doolittle are protagonists whose backgrounds are important to the narrative trajectory of Pygmalion. As they are invested with such contrasting personalities, Shaw has to convey these differences through a careful mixture of dialogue and gesture, yet still maintain an overall symmetry to his play. Eliza's position in society is overtly indicated through her distinct accent and conversation so the audience immediately gathers that she is a lowly flower-girl. By comparison, Higgins's profession is initially unknown, and only gradually disclosed through a series of inventive encounters with other characters, such as Colonel Pickering, and it is through him and Eliza - as well as several bystanders -

that we learn Higgins's vocation. The revelation that he is a brilliant professor in phonetics has a considerable involvement throughout the rest of the play. The play's third act sees the transformation of a myth into a contemporary piece of realist fiction. Off stage, Higgins and Pickering have managed to train Eliza to sound like a lady. It is in this scene where the audience witnesses Shaw subtly alluding to the myth described in Ovid's Metamorphoses. Higgins's mother thoroughly disapproves of her son's achievement, referring to him and Pickering as a "pretty pair of babies, playing with your live doll" (Pygmalion, p.81). This line can be effectively juxtaposed with "Make this fair statue mine... Give me the likeness of my Iv'ry Maid", an extract from Ovid's Pygmalion and the Statue, where the protagonist prays to the goddess Venus to bring his creation to life. It would appear that Higgins has assumed the role of Pygmalion and Eliza is his statue. The themes of gender and class are also evident in Act 3. Higgins's attitude to the opposite sex is an important issue. When his mother laments her son's apathy towards any woman, "under the age of fortyfive" (Pygmalion, p.68) the professor ripostes by stating that he is essentially incompatible with women. He then adds that they are "all idiots" (Pygmalion, p.68). During Eliza's debut as a lady, it becomes apparent that her supposed empowerment seems a little dubious. Her accent has much 'improved' although her conversation clearly indicates that she is merely masquerading as a person of high social standing. However it is only Mrs Higgins who anticipates the difficulties that may plague Eliza once she leaves the tutelage of her son. By the end of Act 3, the play appears to have arrived at a conclusion. However a turning-point is introduced during the following act. Eliza has now perceived the fears that dawned on Mrs Higgins, and a whole new avenue of narrative presents itself as she finally retaliates against the bullying professor. The action is certainly dramatic, with Eliza's accent sounding less forced and more aggressive. Higgins's character is also intensified through dialogue, and as the act closes, there is certainly a need for some sort of resolution. Conventions have to be observed in the creation of any artistic work. The practice of dividing the narrative of a play into acts was an ancient tradition, originating in antiquity. Five acts for a play were considered an acceptable amount at the beginning of the twentieth-century. Therefore Shaw was fortunate as this figure was sufficient for his story. However he was more daring in areas such as setting and duration, utilizing a variety of locations and spanning his narrative over several months. But it was in dialogue where he was most audacious, striving for realistic drama through using recognizable everyday speech as opposed to verse. Shaw drew on a popular myth for Pygmalion. He also had extensive aspirations, believing the play to be above mere entertainment. Shaw thought the play functioned best as an innately didactic medium, capable of benefiting society - he was an ardent socialist and feminist. He also had a subtle kinship with his protagonist, being a champion of phonetics. Pygmalion raises interesting questions that are still unresolved, such as whether a particular work could bring about changes in society.

Shaw's Pigmalion : analysis against a social background boris.petrovic     

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George Bernard Shaw was born in 1856, in Dublin, into a middle class family. After finishing school he started working as a clerk, a post he soon abandoned in order to join his mother and stepfather in London and pursuit his literary carrier. Given that his first novels were rejected he would not live on his writing and was not fully independent until he began working as an art critic. Parallel with his struggling to succeed in the literary world Shaw was, from early age, interested in politics, precisely Socialism, and was politically active. He became a member of the „Fabian Society‟, a left wing oriented group established to promote fight for social justice by peaceful means. Trough this activity he met his wife, moved with her to Ayot St Lawrence, Hertfordshire where he continued his writing and passed the remainder of his days. Shaw‟s life, his literary work and political activities are tightly interwoven, cross-referenced and inseparable one from another. Many of ideas that he tried to present to the English society are current and soundly explicated in his work. Shaw himself insisted that his writings are, before all, didactic and socially engaged. His first novel (at the time rejected), Cashel Byron’s Profession, was about his disdain and contempt for English educational system. In many a detail it was an autobiographical novel of hardship and suffering in England‟s public educational institutions of the time, where strictness and austerity did not compensate for poor and inadequate education. He was especially against corporal punishment, at the time still present and widely used in England‟s schools. This particular attitude is visible in many of his works, notably Pygmalion, where the educational system had managed to produce exactly nothing out of Freddy Eynsfor-Hill and his sister Clara. The very opening of the play gives us playwright‟s attitude towards academic prejudice and (what he saw as) hard shelled, impenetrable discrimination of the „Oxbridge‟ circle. As we have already mentioned, Shaw‟s criticism and social engagement was conducted in a much larger scope than England‟s educational system. In his writings, we are able to distinguish a vast number of different subjects placed under a piercing analysis: class struggle, social injustice, battle for women rights. He also stayed just to his attitude that art should be educative (when schools are apparently not) and impregnated his works with remarks on behavior, snobbery, even practical advices on how one should conduct himself in the society. We will take a closer inspection upon the social order he probed in his works and try to explicate on major points of his critic in one of his most well known plays,Pygmalion. This play was published in 1913, one year prior to First World War. This is the pinnacle of the „Edwardian era‟ of the English society, although some consider it to be finished with the death of King Edward, which occurred in 1910, and others with the Titanic shipwreck that took place in 1912. Some, on the other hand, go as far to 1918 in order to proclaim an end to this particular époque while others claim that it was all in fact a part of Victorian period. If we take into consideration

Europe in its entirety, of which United Kingdom is a significant part, this is the period of „Belle époque‟ which ended with the First World War. Significant traits of these three periods are present and visible in Pygmalion. As much as they were chronologically overlapped or even existing in the same time, these periods have separate characters that vary in numerous aspects. The Victorian era refers to a rule of Queen Victoria, which spanned from 1837 to 1901. It was the longest reign in history of the state. At the beginning of the period, England was rather undeveloped, agrarian country (although it was, even then, the most industrialized nation in the world). First years of the reign were marked by a series of epidemics (notably cholera and typhus) and some economic collapses and crop failures. During the reforms the Queen had performed, numerous improvements were made: the economy was vastly industrialized and the distant regions of the Kingdom were made accessible by a well developed system of railways. The economic emphasis placed on the industry rather than the agriculture made a considerable change in balance of wealth in the society. It gave rise to bourgeoisie or the middle class, while taking a certain part of influence out of nobility, whose incomes where mostly based in agriculture. Industrialization led to further development of the cities and middle classes were further more associated with the city way of life. With economic progress also came the advance in science and culture, and with those came the class awareness and first serious attempts of fight for women‟s rights, most notably the Married Women‟s Property Act. The „Victorian moral‟ is still well known and today it stands as a symbol of seriousness, Puritanism, even austerity. It was closely connected to bourgeois‟ strict, sometimes minimalist way of life. The second part of the reign is marked by emphasis on the imperial, colonial politics and conflicts it had led to, notably Anglo-Zanzibar War and the Boer War. The country‟s politics became more and more liberal and the classes got more distant, which would mark the beginning of the Edwardian era. While Victorian period sported rigid morals and modest lifestyle, King Edward, who himself was „a man of the world‟, introduced a model of behavior influenced by European fashionable elite and „Belle époque‟. This change in socially acceptable behavior had increased the spread between the classes further more. On one side there where middle class (that in richness often surpassed high class) and aristocracy and on the other there where lower classes, the proletariat. However, due to Victorian era investments in education and rise of general political awareness, further class segregation was followed by the fight for social justice. Socialism was gaining on popularity, politicians were paying more attention to problems of underprivileged and civil rights were developing, most notably issue of women‟s suffrage and women‟s right in general. This is the exact moment in which Pygmalion took place, in the midst of the great social turmoil and the continued affirmation of the middle class in English society. It would be difficult to separate this

work from its middle class background. It is written by a member of middle class, for the middle class audience. It is impregnated with problems and issues inherent to middle class. Even though Pygmalionis a play, not a novel, the plot corresponds in great detail to a bourgeois (middle class) genre par excellence, the bildungsroman. The „formation novel‟ or the „novel of self-cultivation‟ (possible translations of bildungsroman) is a genre presented to the world by Goethe in 1795, by his novel Wilhelm Meisters Lehrjahre, which is the paragon of the genre. It was a part of Goethe‟s widespread effort to establish and uphold middle class values and lifestyle in Germany. The main prejudice of aristocratic society is that a man, with certain qualities that are bestowed upon him by his birth (and by his birth only, therefore any change is quasi impossible), is born into a world of steady constants: bildungsroman, on the other hand, emphasizes the fact that a man can cultivate and change himself. In another words, the man can adapt himself to the world, which is, contrary to the previous belief, an ever changing place of constant motion. The hero needs to learn how to compromise, to overcome certain illusions nourished by his youth and naiveté and most important of all to accept guidance. Many a novelist of the nineteen century gave at least one example of the genre: Stendhal, Le rouge et noire, Balzac, Les illusions perdues, Flaubert, L’éducation sentimentale, and the one to present the genre to the British audience, Charles Dickens with pretty much every novel he ever wrote (we will take Great expectations for example). The genre lived well into the twentieth century with works of Joyce, James, even Proust and Mann, however more than often as a parody and tweak of the genre. It might strike us as a certain oddity that the theme developed in late eighteenth century Germany and popular throughout the middle nineteen century Europe found its way into early twentieth century English society. However, we must bear in mind that the English culture has its own specifics. While being one of the most liberal and openly capitalistic societies in the world, it is one also of rare cultures that never had a revolution. England, even of today, is an extremely conservative society, where class issues are present in everyday life in a greater measure than arguably anywhere else in the world (except perhaps India). The differences between high, middle and low class are seemingly abysmal. That perspective is necessary to justly appreciate the subversive character of this play and what it may have represented a hundred years ago. As we have mentioned, even though it is a play, Pygmalion bares many traces of the bildungsromangenre. The principal character, a former flower girl, is a persona of great wits, talent and charm: yet she is of the modest of origins, not having anything in the world but herself. Still, thanks to her abilities and natural predispositions, as well as a careful tutorship, she manages to transform herself into a genuine lady, presenting a social grace (and beauty) to best one given by a born lady, Clara. Like Goethe‟s Meister, Dickens‟ Pip of Balzac‟s Lucien, Eliza has tutors which

guide her on her way to becoming a lady, in changing herself to better fit the world and changing, as much as she can, the world to be more suitable for her. Didactic dimension is ever present in this particular genre, so it is in Pygmalion: Shaw dedicates a good portion of dialogue and no less of prologue and epilogue to present us with his attitudes towards snobbery, behavior and class prejudice. One of principal traits of the genre is the irony[1], certain distance between the author and the principal character, where by no means he is presented as ideal: Shaw maintains this irony in regard to every character in the play. Even the wisest of man (Professor Higgins and Colonel Pickering) are sometimes presented as stubborn and confused as children are, even though they are the seemingly almighty tutors. Just like every hero (or heroine) of the genre Eliza must also lose her illusions and support moments of great distress: she must have periods of moral downfall and problems with determination, which she will, of course, overcome. The key moment is every formation novel is certainly the one where principal character realizes a great truth about him and/or life in general: these epiphanies, so to say, naturally have their place in Pygmalion. The final dialogue between Eliza and Professor Higgins is such a moment, where both reveal their true feelings and thoughts, even to themselves: but we could say the same for the moment following successful dinner party, where Eliza throws slippers on Professor Higgins. Even though the genre includes irony as one of his major characteristics, Shaw tries to be ironic even with the genre itself. In the standard set up of a formation novel characters romantic illusions and unreal expectations would be surmised to irony, as those are the features a character must change in order to succeed in life. Class issues, however, are not to be touched or placed under question, and they rarely are. For Goethe, who spent his entire life reaffirming middle class trough various works as the absolute and nearly ideal one, it would have been a blasphemy. One could debate whether Flaubert had intended to criticize society in France of the era, but his insight and criticism were more towards the emptiness of life and prevailing stupidity in people than towards a certain social solution. It was Dickens who first included the question of classes and critics of industrialized society in his interpretation of formation novel. Shaw tried to overcome this middle class boundary imposed to the genre and place the class problem and social adhesion as a principal question. In other words, Shaw very much politicized the principal features of a formation novel and used them as engaged art. This leads us to the next principal attribute of Pygmalion, its subversivness. Although for today‟s standards this play could hardly qualify as subversive, we must bring before our eyes the circumstances of that particular era and the very moment when this play appeared. As we have already mentioned, England is a class organized society with a strong right as political position. It is

a monarchy based upon the economy of liberal capitalism. So, any socialist idea at the time of the zenith of English imperial power might have not been welcomed so gladly and open mindedly. Aristocracy, (no matter how great the ascent of the upper class may have been), was, and still is quite respected. Yet in this play we have attitudes openly denouncing the true nature (as it appeared to Shaw) of their class. At a certain point, Eliza says that while she was a simple flower girl, she was self sufficient and depended on no one. She was of insufficient incomes for a decent existence and living rather uncomfortably, but was honest and made up her own income. After becoming an elegant woman, she is rendered incapable of taking care of herself. Only thing she can do is get married, that is sell herself: as she puts it rather bluntly „Before I sold flowers, now I have to sell myself‟. It is not only the case with her person, rather with the entire class: ladies (and even gentlemen) of name and stature found it disgraceful to work, so, the only thing they could do, if they fall into financial trouble was to find a rich husband or wife. This was an economic problem as well as it was moral, for England had, in fact, an entire class of society effectively unable to take care of itself, always depending on the work of others, that is lower class.

Those were the calamities of financially challenged nobility or middle class. On the other hand, even when means of existence appear to fall from the sky, (like they did for Eliza‟s father) even that particular chain of events cannot bring anything but trouble. Mr. Doolittle[2], a former dustman, explains in a long monologue how great money brought him no happiness, on the contrary. Now he finds himself enchained by the various rules of etiquette inherent to higher classes: also, he is surrounded by an army of frauds who are trying to take some of his money away, while before he was one of those people who would „touch‟ someone richer then he is. His wife to be, a former free spirited, independent woman finds herself crushed by the newly imposed regulations and even accepts to marry Mr. Doolittle in order to respect and uphold now obliging bourgeois moral. But the worst of all is that Eliza‟s father finds himself completely incapable of departing from his new situation, now meter how unpleasant it may be: his spirits are also crushed by the weight of money, social stature and prestige. This particular attitude, that money and possession do not bring happiness but trouble, is highly disregarded in a capitalist, materialistic society which was founded on the excess of property. We see Shaw‟s socialist ideas shining through these lines of dialogue: one needs not more than one can handle or even more than one can make. What Shaw is telling his audience in a quite obvious way is that the man is fully free only when he is capable to take care of himself. Furthermore, excess possession-wise oriented moral leads to a certain social model that does no good to personality. One becomes enchained and formed by

various rules quite different from his own personality. We see another example for this attitude. Clara Eynsford-Hill, presented in the beginning of the play as a rather shallow snob, gladly accepts Eliza‟s vulgarity thinking that those are the „new ways‟. Her mother is more reluctant: but Clara takes anything she thinks comes from a certain social model, even if those are plain and simple bad manners and impolite talk. This scene is another subversive point of a play and a slap in the face of an upper class society. It demystifies their most sacred values: decency, distance, politeness and social grace. It goes to show how easy it is to bring down rules that have been around for a long time. Further than that, in a conclusion we see that not only the upper classes are easily changeable in values presented to them (and by them) as monolith and forever, they are completely incapable of surviving on themselves. Freddy has a hard time trying to make a living. His education proved to be pointless: in this aspect Shaw combined critics of educational system and class society: so he must reenter school, which proves to be completely useless, because school itself is good-for-nothing. It is thanks to Eliza‟s abilities and a turn of good luck they are able to make a living. On the other hand, Clara, Freddy‟s sister, founds herself rejected by society until she is able to leave her snobbishness behind and start being open minded. Mr. Doolittle, now a respectable gentleman, is more than welcome into the highest spheres of English society and he never stops accentuating the fact that he was born a commoner. This, as romantic as it may occur us, is actually quite subversive and difficult to imagine in reality, especially in the zenith of Edwardian era. These are, however, not the only aspects of play that we might find subversive and morally challenging. Shaw‟s attitude towards women is, for the time, quite advanced. Although throughout Edwardian period it was not uncommon to speak of women‟s rights, Shaw did decide to go one step further. Women characters in Pygmalion are, with few exceptions, actually superior to man. Mr. Higgins‟ mother must always apologize for the rudeness oh her son, further more she must act as a voice of reason and explain certain things in great detail so that he could understand them. Eliza is by far the strongest personality of them all, also the most sensible and gifted one: in numerous occasions it is stated that she is potentially better in phonetics than the Professor Higgins himself. Female characters are independent, stable and intelligent: even the little snob Clara becomes open minded and gains her intellectual autonomy at the end of the play. On the other hand, male characters are often lost, confused and not capable to fully understand what exactly is going on. The most interesting male character is by far Eliza‟s father, Mr. Doolittle, but no matter how charming he may be he is still presented as irresponsible, moral-free nihilist who is ready to sell his daughter for five pounds (or fifty if it was for dishonest intentions). Colonel Pickering is a polite, genteel man, but rather bland, indecisive and inclined to easily support opinions of others. Freddy is a sympathetic young man but with no ability or faculty whatsoever. In their couple, it is up to Eliza to take all the decision and to keep them afloat. This particular attitude differs in more than one aspect from

traditional role of women and man: it is also a little more than play engaged in obtaining women‟s rights. It sports a certain attitude towards men as well. This particular aspect of the play can be attributed to Shaw‟s left wing convictions. It is a wide spread fact that, in most communist countries, while having suffered from various forms of dictatorship women where equal to men – also up to the point where they were equally often executed and sent to concentration camps. The point is that the treatment of man and women did not differ. In Soviet Russia, during the Second World War both sexes could equally participate in the army, before and after the war they could have been the members of the Party etc. It is a left oriented attitude that upholds the equality of sexes. Perhaps making women more stable and intelligent then man was Shaw‟s way to „put the scale into balance‟, as social and racial injustice and prejudice were much visible and present all around. In the Edwardian period this attitude towards sexes must have provoked more surprise than it does today. In a certain fashion, Shaw‟s social and political ideas that are so densely interwoven into his works became more and more present in England‟s modern history. After the world wars one came to talk more often about a society of meritocracy, where it is possible (still very hard, but possible) by a personal effort to change class and gain access to quality education, better lifestyle and all other attributes of higher class. Women are socially and politically much better off than they were during his time and entirety of discrimination comes from individual cases rather than social structures. But Shaw‟s work did not focus just on women‟s position in society or on social, political problems. It was also preoccupied with human relations, which made it rich in fine humor, genuine situations and even authentic pathos.

G. B. Shaw’s Pygmalion: Study Guide August 17, 2012 Dr. Vishwanath Bite Drama, Study Notes drama 3 Comments

About Pygmalion Pygmalion has become by far Shaw‟s most famous play, mostly through its film adaptation in 1938. Shaw was intimately involved with the making of the film. He wrote the screenplay and was the first man to win both a Nobel Prize and an Academy Award.

Shaw wrote the part of Eliza Doolittle for a beautiful actress named Mrs. Patrick Campbell, with whom it was rumored that he was having an affair. This rumor later turned out not to be true, and some critics

read the disappointed love affair between Higgins and Eliza as reflecting Shaw‟s own romantic frustrations including a long, celibate marriage. Shaw once proclaimed: “The English have no respect for their language, and will not teach their children to speak it. They spell it so abominably that no man can teach himself what it sounds like.” Much ofPygmalion is wrapped up with the class identification that comes with having an accent in British society. As a socialist with strong convictions, Shaw used the stage to expose hypocrisies surrounding marriage, language, and convention. Shaw‟s preoccupation with language in this play may also have had something to do with the fact that the most frequent criticism of his earlier plays was that his characters engaged in witty banter that lacked depth. By making language the center of this play, Shaw highlights the significance of something that his critics, despite their criticisms, were tending to downplay.

Pygmalion Summary In Covent Garden, the Eynsford Hills wait for a cab in the rain. When Freddy goes to hail one, he knocks Liza‟s flowers out of her basket. She accepts money from Freddy‟s mother, then Colonel Pickering. A bystander warns her that a man is writing down what she is saying, and she confronts him, saying that she has done nothing wrong. Higgins amazes the crowd by imitating her accent and guessing where they all come from. Pickering and Higgins meet and agree to have dinner, and Higgins fills Liza‟s basket with money before he leaves. Liza leaves in a cab. The next day, Liza intrudes upon Pickering and Higgins in Higgins‟s home. She wants English lessons, and Pickering bets that Higgins could not pass her off as a lady at the ambassador‟s ball in a month‟s time.Mrs. Pearce takes Liza away to bathe her and dress her more appropriately, and Liza‟s father arrives and demands some payment. Higgins likes him and gives him five pounds. A few months later, Mrs. Higgins is writing letters at home when she is interrupted by her son, who shocks her by telling her that he is bringing a flower-girl to his house. The Eynsford Hills arrive for a visit, as does Eliza–with her newly elegant accent and manner. Freddy is infatuated right away. Eliza makes the mistake of swearing and describing her aunt‟s alcoholism, and she is hustled away by Higgins. Clara thinks that swearing is the new fashion and shocks her mother by saying “bloody” on the way out. Mrs. Higgins scolds Pickering and her son for not considering what is to be done with Eliza after the experiment. At midnight at Higgins‟s house, Eliza enters looking exhausted. Higgins ignores her, looking for his slippers and crowing over her success at fooling everyone as his own. Eliza begins to look furious. When Higgins asks where his slippers are, Eliza throws them at his face. She explains that she does not know what to do with herself now that Higgins has transformed her. He suggests that she marry, to which she responds that she used to be something better than a prostitute when she sold flowers. She throws the ring that he gave her into the fireplace, and he loses his temper at her and leaves the room. She looks for the ring in the ashes. Mrs. Higgins is in her drawing room when her son comes and tells her that Eliza has run away. Doolittle arrives and announces that after he spoke with Higgins, Higgins recommended him as a speaker to an American millionaire who died and left him everything. Doolittle is now middle-class and hating every minute of it; his mistress is forcing him to marry her that afternoon. Eliza comes downstairs (she ran away

to Mrs. Higgins‟s house), and Higgins looks flabbergasted. Doolittle invites Pickering and Mrs. Higgins to the wedding, and they leave Eliza and Higgins alone to talk. Eliza says that she does not want to be treated like a pair of slippers–and Freddy writes her love letters every day. When she threatens to become a phonetics teacher herself and use Higgins‟s methods, he says that he likes the new, stronger version of Eliza. He wants to live with her and Pickering as “three bachelors.” Mrs. Higgins returns dressed for the wedding, and she takes Eliza with her. Higgins asks her to run his errands for him, including that of buying some cheese and ham. She says a final goodbye to him, and he seems confident that she will follow his command. The onstage drama ends, and Shaw narrates, in an epilogue, that Eliza recognizes Higgins as predestined to be a bachelor; she marries Freddy instead. With a gift from Colonel Pickering, Eliza opens a flower shop. The only person truly bothered by this state of affairs is Clara, who decides that the marriage will not help her own marriage prospects. But then she begins to read H.G. Wells and travel in the circles of his fans, and she is convinced to begin working in a furniture shop herself in the hopes that she might meet Wells (because the woman who owns the shop is also a fan of his). Freddy is not very practical, and he and Eliza must take classes in bookkeeping to make their business a success. They do reach success, and they live a fairly comfortable life.

Character List Liza a poor girl who was thrown out by her parents as soon as she was old enough to make a living selling flowers on the street Eliza Doolittle the same person as Liza; what she begins to be called when she acquires a genteel accent and set of manners under Higgins‟s tutelage Henry Higgins a professor of phonetics who takes on Liza as a pupil as a dare, or as an experiment Colonial Pickering an Englishman who has served in India and written in the field of liguistics there; a perfect gentleman who always treats Liza with utmost kindness Mrs. Higgins Henry‟s mother, who disapproves of her son‟s wild ways and who takes Liza under her wing Mrs. Pearce Higgins‟s housekeeper; an extremely proper and class-aware lady, she heartily disapproves of the experiment Freddy a poor, genteel young man who falls in love with Eliza

Clara Freddy‟s sister, who regards Higgins as marriageable Mrs. Eynsford Hill Freddy‟s and Clara‟s mother Mr. Doolittle Liza‟s father, who amuses Higgins very much; he comes into a fortune after the death of an American millionaire to whom Higgins had recommended him

Major Themes Class The social hierarchy is an unavoidable reality in Britain, and it is interesting to watch it play out in the work of a socialist playwright. Shaw includes members of all social classes from the lowest (Liza) to the servant class (Mrs. Pearce) to the middle class (Doolittle after his inheritance) to the genteel poor (the Eynsford Hills) to the upper class (Pickering and the Higginses). The general sense is that class structures are rigid and should not be tampered with, so the example of Liza‟s class mobility is most shocking. The issue of language is tied up in class quite closely; the fact that Higgins is able to identify where people were born by their accents is telling. British class and identity are very much tied up in their land and their birthplace, so it becomes hard to be socially mobile if your accent marks you as coming from a certain location. Gentility and Manners Good manners (or any manners at all) were mostly associated with the upper class at this time. Shaw‟s position on manners is somewhat unclear; as a socialist, one would think that he would have no time for them because they are a marker of class divisions. Yet, Higgins‟s pattern of treating everyone like dirt– while just as democratic as Pickering‟s of treating everyone like a duke or duchess–is less satisfactory than Pickering‟s. It is a poignant moment at the end of Pygmalion when Liza thanks Pickering for teaching her manners and pointedly comments that otherwise she would have had no way of learning them. Marriage and Prostitution These institutions are very much related in Shaw‟s plays, especially in Mrs. Warren‟s profession. From his unusual standpoint of being committed to a celibate marriage, Shaw apparently feels free to denounce marriage as an exchange of sexuality for money similar to prostitution (even though this was not happening in his own marriage). Ironically, while her father expresses no regrets when he is led to believe that Liza will take up this profession, it is she who denounces it. She declares that she was less degraded as a flower-seller than as a “genteel” lady trying to make an appropriate marriage–because as a flowerseller, at least, she wasn‟t selling her body. Myths of Creation Of all Shaw‟s plays, Pygmalion has the most references to Greek and Roman mythology. Higgins represents Pygmalion, a Greek sculptor who lived alone because he hated women. Pygmalion created a sculpture of a perfect woman and fell in love with it; after he prayed, Aphrodite brought it to life for him. This statue is named Galatea, and it is represented in Shaw‟s play by Liza. Unlike the myth, Shaw‟s play does not end in a marriage between the pair, and Liza is infuriated with Higgins‟s suggestion that her

success is his success and that he has made her what she is. She has worked to recreate her identity as well. Language In this play and in British society at large, language is closely tied with class. From a person‟s accent, one can determine where the person comes from and usually what the person‟s socioeconomic background is. Because accents are not very malleable, poor people are marked as poor for life. Higgins‟s teachings are somewhat radical in that they disrupt this social marker, allowing for greater social mobility. Professionalism At the time that this play was written, the idea of female professionals was somewhat new. Aside from the profession of prostitution, women were generally housewives before this period, and there is some residual resistance to the idea of normally male professions being entered by females in the play. Moreover, Pickering is initially horrified by the idea of Eliza opening a flower shop, since being involved in a trade was a mark of belonging to the lower class. Pickering is shaken similarly after his experience of watching Eliza fool everyone at a garden and dinner party, saying that she played her part almost too well. The idea of a professional female socialite is somehow threatening to him. Gender Solidarity or Antagonism Although British society is supposed to break down along class lines, Shaw makes a point of highlighting gender loyalties in this play. Although Mrs. Higgins initially is horrified by the idea that her son might bring a flower-girl into her home, she quickly grows sympathetic to Liza. As a woman, she is the first to express a concern for what will be done with the girl after the experiment–the idea that her training makes her highly unmarriageable by anyone anywhere on the social scale. When Liza runs away from Wimpole St., she instinctively knows that Mrs. Higgins will take good care of her. Higgins‟s mother sides with Liza before even her son, not revealing that Liza is in the house while Higgins is dialing the police. In contrast, relations between people of opposite genders are generally portrayed by Shaw as antagonistic. Higgins and his mother have a troubled relationship, as do the professor and Mrs. Pearce. Freddy and Liza get along better perhaps only due to his more passive, feminine demeanor.

Precursors to Pygmalion Shaw‟s play, as its title indicates, owes much to previous sources, mostly mythology. Pygmalion was a character in the tenth book of Ovid‟s Metamorphoses. A sculptor from Cyprus who did not enjoy the company of women, the man Pygmalion created an idealized female form out of ivory and then fell in love with the statue. He began to bring it presents as he would a lover, and he prayed to Aphrodite-the goddess of love-to meet a woman like his statue. Instead, Aphrodite brought his statue to life. Pygmalion named her Galatea, married her, and had a son named Paphos. This myth differs from Shaw‟s interpretation in several regards. Most importantly, Eliza (as Galatea) was already a living person before Higgins (as Pygmalion) “created” her. Higgins certainly shapes Eliza‟s demeanor, her voice, and the way she looks, but he does not fashion her out of marble. Higgins gives Eliza a new human life in the the way that Aphrodite did, while it was Eliza‟s father who “created” Eliza‟s material reality. Moreover (and quite rightly), Eliza is indignant when Higgins claims that her success at winning his bet is his own. When she realizes that she no longer fits into any stratum of society, Eliza

curses Higgins for “creating” her at all. The largest difference between the play and the myth is the ending. In Shaw‟s play, the stand-in for Galatea does not choose to marry the stand-in for Pygmalion. In the prologue, Shaw explains that “Galatea never does quite like Pygmalion: His relation to her is too godlike to be altogether agreeable.” In ancient myth, it was not so bad to have a relationship with a god, but this is not the kind of thing Eliza wants. Shaw‟s Pygmalion has one other major source, the tale of King Cophetua. King Cophetua was an apocryphal monarch who was not interested in women until he met a beggar-woman. He fell in love with her and elevated her to be his queen. The Cophetua complex names an attraction to lower-class women, a tendency which Higgins exhibits in his interactions with Eliza. (The broader rags-to-riches theme is common in Western literature; compare the film Pretty Woman.) Higgins assures Pickering that his students are “sacred,” because he has always found them so before. But he finds himself attracted to Eliza, who is quite different from the millionaires he taught before. Part of this difference is in the power dynamic which is so central to Higgins‟ relationship to Eliza. Like Pygmalion and King Cophetua, if he were to choose Eliza as his consort, he would be in a position of great power in the relationship.

Suggested Essay Questions 1. How does the play deal with the issue of social class? Does Shaw ultimately uphold it or not–is there enough evidence in the play to demonstrate Shaw‟s point of view? Consider Pickering, for example, who is very much a product of the British hierarchy, and who is one of the most sympathetic characters. 2. Does the play suggest that true love is possible and good? On the basis of evidence in the text, what are the feelings that Liza has for Higgins and Freddy, and why does Liza marry Freddy? 3. Does language itself have transformative power, or does its power come entirely through the people who use it? In what sense is Eliza a new person after she learns to speak differently? 4. The subtitle of the play is “A Romance in Five Acts.” Discuss the ways that the play is a romance– or might it more properly be called a tragedy or a comedy? 1. Is Freddy the perfect match for Eliza? If the story is a romance, is Freddy or Higgins a romantic hero? 2. How does the knowledge that Shaw was a socialist color one‟s reading of this play? Consider, for instance, Doolittle‟s speech on the undeserving poor. Does Shaw sympathize with this “class” of people, or should we view his presentation of each character uniquely? 3. How does the movement from the public space of Covent Garden to the private spaces of Wimpole Street and Mrs. Higgins‟s home affect the behavior of the characters? What is the safest space for Eliza? 4. How does the audience appreciate dramatic irony in the play? For instance, What does it mean when Clara swears using the term “bloody”? 5. Shaw gives one of the reasons that a marriage between Eliza and Higgins would never work out as that Eliza would have been unable to come between Higgins and his mother, suggesting that such a dynamic is necessary in marriage. Given the events of the last act, does this reason seem accurate?

6. How does the quotation from Nietzsche that Shaw quotes at the end of the play, “when you go to women, take your whip with you,” relate to Eliza‟s relationship with Higgins? With Pickering? With Freddy?

Pygmalion is a play by George Bernard Shaw, named after a Greek mythological character. It was first presented on stage to the public in 1912. Professor of phonetics Henry Higgins makes a bet that he can train a bedraggled Cockney flower girl, Eliza Doolittle, to pass for a duchess at an ambassador's garden party by teaching her to assume a veneer of gentility, the most important element of which, he believes, is impeccable speech. The play is a sharp lampoon of the rigid British class system of the day and a commentary on women's independence. In ancient Greek mythology, Pygmalion fell in love with one of his sculptures, which then came to life. The general idea of that myth was a popular subject for Victorian era English playwrights, including one of Shaw's influences, W. S. Gilbert, who wrote a successful play based on the story called Pygmalion and Galatea first presented in 1871. Shaw also would have been familiar with the burlesqueversion, Galatea, or Pygmalion Reversed. Shaw's play has been adapted numerous times, most notably as the musical My Fair Ladyand the film of that name. Shaw mentioned that the character of Professor Henry Higgins was inspired by several British professors of phonetics: Alexander Melville Bell, Alexander J. Ellis, Tito Pagliardini, but above all, the cantankerous Henry Sweet.[1] Contents [hide]  

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1 First productions 2 Plot o 2.1 Act One o 2.2 Act Two o 2.3 Act Three o 2.4 Act Four 3 Ending 4 Differing versions 5 Influence 6 Notable productions 7 Adaptations 8 In popular culture 9 References 10 External links

First productions[edit] Shaw wrote the play in the spring of 1912 and read it to famed actress Mrs. Patrick Campbell in June. She came on board almost immediately, but her mild nervous breakdown contributed to the

delay of a London production. Pygmalion premiered at the Hofburg Theatre in Vienna on October 16, 1913, in a German translation by Shaw's Viennese literary agent and acolyte, Siegfried Trebitsch.[2][3] Its first New York production opened March 24, 1914 at the German-language Irving Place Theatre.[4] It opened in London April 11, 1914, at Sir Herbert Beerbohm Tree's His Majesty's Theatre and starred Mrs. Campbell as Eliza and Tree as Higgins, running for 118 performances.[5] Shaw directed the actors through tempestuous rehearsals often punctuated by at least one of the two storming out of the theater in a rage.[6]

Plot[edit]

First American (serialized) publication, Everybody's Magazine, November 1914

Shaw was conscious of the difficulties involved in staging a complete representation of the play. Acknowledging in a "note for technicians" that such a thing would only be possible "on the cinema screen or on stages furnished with exceptionally elaborate machinery", he marked some scenes as candidates for omission if necessary. Of these, a short scene at the end of Act One in which Eliza goes home, and a scene in Act Two in which Eliza is unwilling to undress for her bath, are not described here. The others are the scene at the Embassy Ball in Act Three and the scene with Eliza and Freddy in Act Four. Neither the Gutenberg edition referenced throughout this page nor the Wikisource text linked below contain these sequences.

Act One[edit] 'Portico of Saint Paul's Church (not Wren's Cathedral but Inigo Jones Church in Covent Garden vegetable market)' – 11.15p.m. A group of people is sheltering from the rain. Among them are the Eynsford-Hills, superficial social climbers eking out a living in "genteel poverty", consisting

initially of Mrs. Eynsford-Hill and her daughter Clara. Clara's brother Freddy enters having earlier been dispatched to secure them a cab (which they can ill-afford), but being rather timid and fainthearted he has failed to do so. As he goes off once again to find a cab, he bumps into a flower girl, Eliza. Her flowers drop into the mud of Covent Garden, the flowers she needs to survive in her poverty-stricken world. Shortly they are joined by a gentleman, Colonel Pickering. While Eliza tries to sell flowers to the Colonel, a bystander informs her that a man is writing down everything she says. The man is Henry Higgins, a professor of phonetics. Eliza worries that Higgins is a police officer and will not calm down until Higgins introduces himself. It soon becomes apparent that he and Colonel Pickering have a shared interest in phonetics; indeed, Pickering has come from India to meet Higgins, and Higgins was planning to go to India to meet Pickering. Higgins tells Pickering that he could pass off the flower girl as a duchess merely by teaching her to speak properly. These words of bravado spark an interest in Eliza, who would love to make changes in her life and become more mannerly, even though, to her, it only means working in a flower shop. At the end of the act, Freddy returns after finding a taxi, only to find that his mother and sister have gone and left him with the cab. The streetwise Eliza takes the cab from him, using the money that Higgins tossed to her, leaving him on his own.

Act Two[edit] Higgins' – Next Day. As Higgins demonstrates his phonetics to Pickering, the housekeeper, Mrs. Pearce, tells him that a young girl wants to see him. Eliza has shown up, because she wishes to talk like a lady in a flower shop. She then tells Higgins that she will pay for lessons. He shows no interest in her, but she reminds him of his boast the previous day. Higgins claimed that he could pass her for a duchess. Pickering makes a bet with him on his claim, and says that he will pay for her lessons if Higgins succeeds. She is sent off to have a bath. Mrs. Pearce tells Higgins that he must behave himself in the young girl's presence. He must stop swearing, and improve his table manners. He is at a loss to understand why she should find fault with him. Then Alfred Doolittle, Eliza's father, appears with the sole purpose of getting money out of Higgins. He has no interest in his daughter in a paternal way. He sees himself as a member of the undeserving poor, and means to go on being undeserving. He has an eccentric view of life, brought about by a lack of education and an intelligent brain. He is also aggressive, and when Eliza, on her return, sticks her tongue out at him, he goes to hit her, but is prevented by Pickering. The scene ends with Higgins telling Pickering that they really have got a difficult job on their hands.

Act Three[edit] Higgins' home – The time is midnight, and Higgins, Pickering, and Eliza have returned from the ball. A tired Eliza sits unnoticed, brooding and silent, while Pickering congratulates Higgins on winning the bet. Higgins scoffs and declares the evening a "silly tomfoolery", thanking God it's over and

saying that he had been sick of the whole thing for the last two months. Still barely acknowledging Eliza beyond asking her to leave a note for Mrs. Pearce regarding coffee, the two retire to bed. Higgins returns to the room, looking for his slippers, and Eliza throws them at him. Higgins is taken aback, and is at first completely unable to understand Eliza's preoccupation, which aside from being ignored after her triumph is the question of what she is to do now. When Higgins does understand he makes light of it, saying she could get married, but Eliza interprets this as selling herself like a prostitute. "We were above that at the corner of Tottenham Court Road." Finally she returns her jewellery to Higgins, including the ring he had given her, which he throws into the fireplace with a violence that scares Eliza. Furious with himself for losing his temper, he damns Mrs. Pearce, the coffee and then Eliza, and finally himself, for "lavishing" his knowledge and his "regard and intimacy" on a "heartless guttersnipe", and retires in great dudgeon. Eliza roots around in the fireplace and retrieves the ring.

Act Four[edit] Mrs. Higgins' drawing room, the next morning. Higgins and Pickering, perturbed by the discovery that Eliza has walked out on them, call on Mrs. Higgins to phone the police. Higgins is particularly distracted, since Eliza had assumed the responsibility of maintaining his diary and keeping track of his possessions, which causes Mrs. Higgins to decry their calling the police as though Eliza were "a lost umbrella". Doolittle is announced; he emerges dressed in splendid wedding attire and is furious with Higgins, who after their previous encounter had been so taken with Doolittle's unorthodox ethics that he had recommended him as the "most original moralist in England" to a rich American founding Moral Reform Societies; the American had subsequently left Doolittle a pension worth three thousand pounds a year, as a consequence of which Doolittle feels intimidated into joining the middle class and marrying his missus. Mrs. Higgins observes that this at least settles the problem of who shall provide for Eliza, to which Higgins objects – after all, he paid Doolittle five pounds for her. Mrs. Higgins informs her son that Eliza is upstairs, and explains the circumstances of her arrival, alluding to how marginalised and overlooked Eliza felt the previous night. Higgins is unable to appreciate this, and sulks when told that he must behave if Eliza is to join them. Doolittle is asked to wait outside. Eliza enters, at ease and self-possessed. Higgins blusters but Eliza isn't shaken and speaks exclusively to Pickering. Throwing Higgins' previous insults back at him ("Oh, I'm only a squashed cabbage leaf"), Eliza remarks that it was only by Pickering's example that she learned to be a lady, which renders Higgins speechless. Eliza goes on to say that she has completely left behind the flower girl she was, and that she couldn't utter any of her old sounds if she tried – at which point Doolittle emerges from the balcony, causing Eliza to relapse totally into her gutter speech. Higgins is jubilant, jumping up and crowing over her. Doolittle explains his situation and asks if Eliza will come to his wedding. Pickering and Mrs. Higgins also agree to go to the wedding. They depart, leaving Higgins and Eliza alone.

Left alone, Higgins and Eliza spar, she accusing him of having "taken her independence" and he dismissing her feelings but trying to cajole her into returning. Eliza muses that she could marry Freddy, who is at least kind to her; this upsets Higgins, but he loses his temper entirely when Eliza proposes that she will support herself by teaching phonetics, perhaps as an assistant to Higgins' great rival. In a rage, he threatens her, and she dares him to hit her. Impressed by her sudden strength and determination, Higgins declares, "By George, Eliza, I said I'd make a woman of you; and I have. I like you like this." Mrs. Higgins returns to accompany Eliza to the wedding. A cool and elegant Eliza bids Higgins goodbye: "I shall not see you again, Professor." Higgins bids the women goodbye, but suddenly recollects a number of items he wants, and tells Eliza to pick them up for him afterwards. "Buy them yourself," she replies, and sweeps out. Alone, Higgins chuckles to himself, confident she will come around.

Ending[edit] Pygmalion was the most broadly appealing of all Shaw's plays. But popular audiences, looking for pleasant entertainment with big stars in a West End venue, wanted a "Happy ending" for the characters they liked so well, as did some critics.[7] During the 1914 run, to Shaw's exasperation but not to his surprise, Tree sought to sweeten Shaw's ending to please himself and his record houses.[8] Shaw returned for the 100th performance and watched Higgins, standing at the window, toss a bouquet down to Eliza. "My ending makes money; you ought to be grateful," protested Tree. "Your ending is damnable; you ought to be shot."[9][10] Shaw remained sufficiently irritated to add a postscript essay, "'What Happened Afterwards,"[11] to the 1916 print edition for inclusion with subsequent editions, in which he explained precisely why it was impossible for the story to end with Higgins and Eliza getting married. He continued to protect the play's and Eliza's integrity by protecting the last scene. For at least some performances during the 1920 revival, Shaw adjusted the ending in a way that underscored the Shavian message. In an undated note to Mrs. Campbell he wrote, When Eliza emancipates herself – when Galatea comes to life – she must not relapse. She must retain her pride and triumph to the end. When Higgins takes your arm on 'consort battleship' you must instantly throw him off with implacable pride; and this is the note until the final 'Buy them yourself.' He will go out on the balcony to watch your departure; come back triumphantly into the room; exclaim 'Galatea!' (meaning that the statue has come to life at last); and – curtain. Thus he gets the last word; and you get it too.[12] (This ending is not included in any print version of the play.) Shaw fought uphill against such a reversal of fortune for Eliza all the way to 1938. He sent the film's harried producer, Gabriel Pascal, a concluding sequence which he felt offered a fair compromise: a romantically-set farewell scene between Higgins and Eliza, then Freddy and Eliza happy in their greengrocery/flower shop. Only at the sneak preview did he learn that Pascal had shot the "I washed

my face and hands" conclusion, to reassure audiences that Shaw's Galatea wouldn't really come to life, after all.[citation needed]

Differing versions[edit] Different printed versions of the play omit or add certain lines. The Project Gutenberg version published online, for instance, omits Higgins' famous declaration to Eliza, "Yes, you squashed cabbage-leaf, you disgrace to the noble architecture of these columns, you incarnate insult to the English language! I could pass you off as the Queen of Sheba!" – a line so famous that it is now retained in nearly all productions of the play, including the 1938 film version of Pygmalion as well as in the stage and film versions of My Fair Lady.[13] The director of the 1938 film, Anthony Asquith, had seen Mrs. Campbell in the 1920 revival of Pygmalion and noticed that she spoke the line, "It's my belief as how they done the old woman in." He knew "as how" was not in Shaw's text, but he felt it added color and rhythm to Eliza's speech, and liked to think that Mrs. Campbell had ad libbed it herself. Eighteen years later he added it to Wendy Hiller's line in the film.[6] In the original play Eliza's test is met at an ambassador's garden party, offstage. For the 1938 film Shaw and co-writers replaced that exposition with a scene at an embassy ball; Nepommuck, the dangerous translator spoken about in the play, is finally seen, but his name is updated to Arstid Karpathy – named so by Gabriel Pascal, the film's Hungarian producer, who also made sure that Karpathy mistakes Eliza for a Hungarian princess. In My Fair Lady he became Zoltan Karpathy. Shaw's screen version of the play as well as a new print version incorporating the new sequences he had added for the film script were published in 1941. The scenes he had noted in "Note for Technicians" are added.

Influence[edit] Pygmalion remains Shaw's most popular play. The play's widest audiences know it as the inspiration for the highly romanticized 1956 musical and 1964 film My Fair Lady. Ironically, Pygmalion has transcended cultural and language barriers since its first production. The British Museum contains "images of the Polish production...; a series of shots of a wonderfully Gallicised Higgins and Eliza in the first French production in Paris in 1923; a fascinating set for a Russian production of the 1930s. There was no country which didn't have its own 'take' on the subjects of class division and social mobility, and it's as enjoyable to view these subtle differences in settings and costumes as it is to imagine translators wracking their brains for their own equivalent of 'Not bloody likely'."[14] Joseph Weizenbaum named his artificial intelligence computer program ELIZA after the character Eliza Doolittle.[15]

Pygmalion by George Bernard Shaw Most people will know the story of Pygmalion, from My Fair Ladyif nowhere else, where Eliza Doolittle is taught to speak 'like a duchess' by Professor Henry Higgins. Shaw describes this as a didactic play in his preface, revelling in its success when popular opinion says that art should not be didactic. Yet it is also a charming play with likeable characters, which allows you to painlessly engage with the serious message underlying it. It begins with a scene on a rainy London street. A flower girl begins causing a nuisance of herself, trying to sell her flowers to anyone standing still; gradually the people milling around realise that a man is noting down everything they say. After accusations that he is a copper's nark, the note-taker astounds everyone by being able to pinpoint exactly where they come from by how they speak.

'THE SARCASTIC BYSTANDER: Yes: tell him where he come from if you want to go fortune-telling. THE NOTE-TAKER: Cheltenham, Harrow, Cambridge, and India. THE GENTLEMAN: Quite right. Great laughter. Reaction in the note-taker's favour. Exclamations of He knows all about it. Told him proper. Hear him tell the toff where he come from? etc THE GENTLEMAN:May I ask, sir, do you do this for your living at a music hall? THE NOTE-TAKER: I've thought of that. Perhaps I shall some day.'

The note-taker is, as you will have gathered, Professor Higgins. The play concerns his attempt to take this cockney flower girl and teach her to speak properly, and how this affects both their lives. 'You see this creature with her kerb-stone English: the English that will keep her in the gutter to the end of her days. Well, sir, in three months I could pass that girl off as a duchess at an ambassador's garden party.' Reading this has reminded me that Shaw's plays are both eminently readable and, I've always found, eminently watchable. It is light and engaging, with witty dialogue. The play is dated in the sense that it is firmly set in the Edwardian era and I feel it would be hard to set it in the present without significantly changing the text (for instance, the swear word 'bloody' does not have the same capacity to shock in the twenty-first century), but the dialogue is clear and natural, and you can believe in the characters, no matter how bizarre the situation they are in. However, there is a social commentary underlying the romantic veneer - Shaw's didacticism; this is a play very firmly about class. As Higgins says: 'This is an age of upstarts. Men begin in Kentish Town with £80 a year, and end up in Park Lane with a

hundred thousand. They want to drop Kentish Town; but they give themselves away every time they open their mouths.' Class is something that still obsesses us in England ninety years later, and for this reason the play stands the test of time. There are constantly new books written, television programmes being made about it; we have just recently had a furore in the press about 'middle-class drinking'. We all define ourselves and others as belonging to one class or another, and the way we use language is a large part of that. This obsession is satirised by Shaw in this play, this need to classify ourselves and others and present ourselves according to the station we believe we belong, or want to belong, to by the way we speak. As time passes, Eliza comes to realise that there is more to becoming a lady than her accent. Her character develops throughout the play as she becomes a strong, dignified woman who is able at last to stand up to Higgins. She also finally recognises in Higgins and her father the meaning of true classlessness, in the way that, with no thought for ceremony or situation, both treat everyone the same whether they be a duke or a dustman: Mr Doolittle with easy-going familiarity and Higgins with bored contempt. Raymond Williams (in Drama from Ibsen to Brecht) describes how Shaw did not consider plays where there was little more than the dialogue to be a true art form, they need the directions of the playwright for the entire vision. For example, Shaw believed that we do not have the full genius of Shakespeare available to us because we lack his character notes and directions. Shaw will not allow this to happen to his plays, and with a preface, an epilogue and detailed directions throughout Pygmalion has more the air of a playnovella hybrid than a piece of drama. For reading purposes this is fine, but I wonder how restricting directors find this interference from Bernard Shaw. An example of Shaw's control over his vision is the ending of the play, which does not make clear what will happen to Eliza. In case you should be tempted to romantically decide for yourself, however, in the epilogue Shaw provides a realistic and pleasing, if not romantic, future for Eliza, Henry and the other characters. It is pleasing because I had grown very fond of the defiant yet vulnerable Eliza, and the infuriating but essentially innocent and child-like Higgins, as well as the other characters. So even if there is a slight irritation at Shaw's need to control even after the end of the play, there is also a certain satisfaction in ending with everything sorted, rather than having Eliza and Higgins teetering on the edge of either perfect happiness or abject misery.