G. B. Shaw – Pygmalion (1913)

G. B. Shaw – Pygmalion (1913)
The title
 Which piece of literature is the play inspired by? Who was the author of it?
Characters
 Eliza Doolittle

Professor Higgins

Colonel Pickering

Mrs. Pearce

Alfred Doolittle

Mrs. Higgins

Freddie
Act I, Covent Gardens
 How does Eliza’s appearance and behaviour reflect her social background and her personality?

How would you describe the gentleman (Pickering)? How does he compare and contrast with the note-taker (Higgins)? Pay
attention to their different treatments of the flower girl.
 How do the divisions of social classes become an issue in this act? How is language related to class divisions?
Act II, Higgins’ House
 How do the clothes worn by Higgins and the flowergirl reflect them? Does Eliza's change of costume suggest something
about her change of life?

This is a play about education, and more specifically, learning English and learning to be a lady. What are Eliza's lessons
like? In their first lesson what is Higgins like as a teacher? Is Eliza as a student?
 Compare the way Eliza is treated by Higgins, Pickering and Mrs. Pearce. What concerns do Pickering and Mrs. Pearce raise
about Higgins' scheme to educate Eliza? How does he respond to their concerns?
Act III, “At home”, “The party at an Embassy”
 Describe the relationship between Mrs. Higgins and her son. Do you agree with her assessment of her son's social skills?
(Higgins is described by his mother as being "cynical" and as „having no manners“)

How would you describe and characterize Eliza's behavior and "performance" during the "at-home"? Higgins says that she
is limited to talking only about health and weather. Does she follow the limitations? What aspects of her speech reveal
that she is not yet a lady? The use of slang or the violation of social conventions?

At the end of this act, Liza's saying that "nothing can make [her] the same as these people". She’s also described as a
"fraud". What do these two “surprises” say about the relationship between language (manners) and class? Who are the
target of irony here? In other words, what does it mean to be a lady? Having good pronunciation, good manners, or a lot of
money? What has Eliza learned so far about being a lady? What kind of lady does she fail to be?
Act IV, Higgins’ home
 What do the two men do when they get home? What do they talk about? Are they responsive to Eliza and her feelings?
 Higgins says to Eliza: "Now you are free and can do what you like". Is that true? In what ways is Eliza NOT free?
Act V
 What is revealed about the nature of the relationship between Eliza and Higgins?

What does this play suggest as possible results of education? Do teachers and students alike need to be concerned about
those results?

What does the play suggest about the differences between social classes? What does it suggest about marriage and
family?
ACT I
A group of strangers shelter from the rain one evening,
beside a church in London, 1912. As the conversation
goes on we are introduced to Eliza Doolittle, a poor girl
selling flowers, who meets Freddie, a handsome young
upper class man. We meet Professor Higgins, who is
listening to and noting down the variation in peoples'
London accents. By chance he meets a fellow expert in
phonetics, a Colonel Pickering who he invites to his
house in Wimpole Street. Eliza meets Higgins and is
interested in his claim that he can teach anyone to
speak
English how it should be spoken.
ACT II
Higgins is at home, sharing his knowledge of accents
with his new friend Pickering. Eliza enters wanting
lessons in English because she wants to get a job in a
flower shop, rather than selling flowers in the street,
and
she knows she can only do this if she loses her working
class accent. Higgins claims that he is such a good
teacher that in six months, he could turn Eliza into a
refined lady with the ability to speak English so
perfectly
that she could pass herself off as a princess. Pickering
bets him he can't and Higgins takes on the challenge.
Eliza is taken away and washed and prepared for her
first
lesson. Eliza's father, a poor working class dustman
called Alfred Doolittle, arrives at the house. Having
discovered that these two rich and educated men are
interested in keeping Eliza for six months in order to
transform her into a respectable lady, Alfred decides
that
as Eliza's father, he should be paid something in return.
Higgins is at first amazed by the man's outrageous
demands but then gives in to the Alfred Doolittle's
charm. Doolittle leaves with five pounds and the lessons
with Eliza begin.
ACT III
Time has passed and Higgins decides to test Eliza out on
his mother. He takes Eliza to his mother's house to see
if
his mother can still detect in Eliza's speech and
behaviour, traces of her poor, uneducated, working class
background. Eliza tries hard to speak properly and
behave as a sophisticated and well-educated upper class
lady, but fails.
After many more months of gruelling teaching, Eliza is
finally taken to the Summer Ball to be tested. If none
of
the guests suspect she is anything other than a refined
and cultured upper class lady, Higgins will win his bet.
By chance, an ex-student of Higgins, a Hungarian
interpreter called Neppomuck who is now also an expert
on accents, is also at the ball. Pickering is worried that
such an expert would be able to tell that Eliza was a
fraud. But Eliza puts on a brilliant performance and
convinces everyone at the ball, including Neppomuck,
that she is so well-spoken and so sophisticated that she
must be nothing less than a royal princess.
ACT IV
Back in Wimpole Street, Pickering congratulates Higgins
on winning the bet. But Higgins is dismissive. Eliza
happens to overhear as Higgins reveals that he was bored
with the whole idea and that far from being a fantastic
achievement by Eliza, he considers it to have been a silly
and pointless exercise. Eliza is deeply hurt and furious.
She accuses Higgins of treating her heartlessly. They
argue and fight. She had been made to feel like a toy that
Higgins has played with and now discards. She has lost
all self-respect. She can't go back to her old, poor
working class friends and now feels rejected by Higgins
and the high society he represents. Finally she decides to
leave his house. Once outside, she bumps into Freddie,
who has been in love with her from the first moment he
saw her. She accepts his kisses and kindness.
ACT V
Eliza goes to back to Mrs Higgins house, hoping that she
will be able to offer advice. But Henry Higgins and
Pickering turn up, looking for Eliza. Eliza hides from
them at first, whilst Mrs Higgins tells her son off for
being so thoughtless and uncaring with regard to Eliza.
Eliza's father Alfred Doolittle turns up, also looking for
Eliza. He has come into a fortune and now feels obliged
to do the middle class thing and marry the woman he has
been living with. He wants Eliza to be there at the
wedding that afternoon. Eliza finally reveals herself and
after agreeing to go to the church with her father, has to
decide what she should do after. Should she return to
Wimpole Street and remain with Higgins or stick to her
plan of leaving him?. Henry Higgins and Eliza are left
alone to sort it out. In a long emotional arguement, we
discover that Eliza is very fond of Higgins but has hated
his coldness and his lack of affection for her. Higgins
admits that he has grown used to her company, but still
they argue. Then the penny drops. Eliza realises that her
new education has given her the power, the confidence
and the skills to be free from the dependence on men.
Eliza knows that if she goes back to live with Higgins, he
will continue to bully her and treat her like a mere flower
seller in the street, and she will throw away the rights
and opportunities she has gained from her education.
Higgins lets her go, but it is obvious that underneath it
all, he is as in love with Eliza as she is with him.
ACT I
PICK: Higgins: I'm interested. What about the
Ambassador's summer ball? I'll say you're the greatest
teacher alive if you make that good. I'll bet all the
expenses of the experiment you can't do it. And I'll pay for
the lessons.
ELIZA: Oh, you are real good. Thank you, Captain.
HIGGINS: (TEMPTED, LOOKING AT HER) It's almost
irresistible. She's so deliciously low - so horribly dirty. ..
HIGGINS: Simply phonetics. The science of speech.
That's my profession. It is also my hobby. You can spot a
German by his trousers, a Frenchman by his tie..
ELIZA: (STILL WIMPERING) Ought to be ashamed of
himself..
HIGGINS: I can place a man within six miles. I can place
him within two miles in London. Sometimes within two
streets.
ELIZA: Unmanly coward..
PICK: But is there a living in that?
HIGGINS: Oh yes. This is an age of upstarts. Men begin
in Kentish Town with eighty pounds a year, and end in
Park Lane with a hundred thousand. They want to drop
Kentish Town but give themselves away every time they
open their mouths. Now I can teach them..
ELIZA: Let him mind his own business and leave a poor
girl..
HIGGINS: (EXPLOSIVELY) Woman: cease this
detestable boo-hooing instantly, or seek the shelter of
some other place!
ELIZA: I've a right to be here if I like - same as you.
HIGGINS: A woman who utters such disgusting sounds
has no right to be anywhere - no right to live. Remember
that you are a human being, with a soul and the divine
gift of articulate speech: that your native language is the
language of Shakespeare, Milton and the Bible. Don't sit
there crooning like a bilious pidgeon!
ELIZA: (QUITE OVERHWELMED) Aaaah-ooooow!
HIGGINS: (WHIPPING OUT HIS BOOK) Heavens!
What a sound! (HE WRITES, THEN HOLDS OUT THE
BOOK AND READS) 'Aaaah-ooooow!'
ELIZA: (TICKLED BY THE PERFORMANCE, AND
LAUGHING IN SPITE OF HERSELF) Garn!
HIGGINS: You see this creature with her kerbstone
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 dutchess at an ambassador's garden party.
ELIZA: What did you say?
HIGGINS: Yes, you squashed cabbage leaf. I could pass
you off as the Queen of Sheba. (TO PICK) Can you
believe that?
ACT II
HIGGINS: (DISAPPOINTED) Why this is the girl I jotted
down last night. She's no use. I've got all the records I
want of the Lisson Grove lingo, and I'm not going to waste
another cylinder on it. (TO ELIZA) Be off with you I don't
want you.
…
HIGGINS: (CARRIED AWAY) Yes, in six months - in
three if she has a good ear and a quick tongue - I'll take her
anywhere and pass her off as anything. We'll start this
moment! Take her away and clean her, Mrs Pearce. Use
sandpaper, if it won't come off any other way. Take all her
clothes off and burn them. Ring up Whiteley or someone
for some new ones. Wrap her up in brown paper till they
come. If she gives you any trouble, Mrs Pearce, wallop
her.
ELIZA: (SPRINGING UP AND RUNNING BETWEEN
PICKERING AND MRS PEARCE FOR
PROTECTION.) No! I'll call the Police, I will.
PEARCE: But I've no place to put her.
HIGGINS: Put her in the dustbin.
ELIZA: AAaaaaah-ooooo-uuuuw!
PICK: Oh come, Higgins! Be reasonable.
PEARCE: You must be reasonable, Mr Higgins. You can't
walk over everybody like this. You can't take a girl up like
that as if you were picking up a pebble on a beach.
HIGGINS: Why not?
PEARCE: Why not! But you don't know anything about
her. What about her parents? She may be married.
ELIZA: Garn!
HIGGINS: There! As the girl very properly says, Garn!
Married indeed! Don't you know that a woman of that
class looks a worn out drudge of fifty a year after she's
married?
ELIZA: Whood marry me?
HIGGINS: By George, Eliza, the streets will be strewn
with the bodies of men shooting themselves for your sake
before I've done with you.
ELIZA: (RISING) I'm going away. He's off his chump, he
is. I don't want no balmies teaching me.
HIGGINS: Oh indeed! Mad, am I? Very well, Mrs Pearce:
you needn't order the new clothes for her. Throw her out.
ELIZA: (WIMPERING) Nah-ow! You've got no right to
touch me.
PEARCE: You see now what comes from being saucy.
(INDICATING DOOR) This way, please.
ELIZA: (ALMOST IN TEARS) I didn't want no clothes. I
wouldn't have taken them. (SHE THROWS AWAY THE
HANDKERCHIEF) I can buy my own clothes.
HIGGINS: (DEFTLY RETRIEVING THE
HANDKERCHIEF) You're an ungrateful, wicked girl.
This is my return for offering to make a lady of you.
PEARCE: Stop, Mr Higgins. I won't allow it. It's you who
are wicked. Go home to your parents, girl, and tell them to
take better care of you.
ELIZA: My father is living with my eigth stepmother – an
'orrible woman wiv no teeth called 'Hilda.' They told me I
was big enough to earn my own living and threw me out.
HIGGINS: There! The girl doesn't belong to anybody - is
no use to anybody but me.
ELIZA STARTS TO CRY.
PICK: Does it occur to you, Higgins, that this girl has
some feelings?
HIGGINS: (LOOKING CRITICALLY AT HER) Oh no. I
don't think so.
ELIZA: I got my feelings, same as everybody else.
ACT IV
ELIZA: What's to become of me?
HIGGINS: How the devil do I know?
ELIZA: You don't care. You wouldn't care if I was dead.
I'm nothing to you - not so much as them slippers.
HIGGINS: (THUNDERING) THOSE slippers.
ELIZA: (WITH BITTER SUBMISSION) Those slippers.
I didn't think it made any difference now. Oh God, I wish I
was dead.
HIGGINS: Why? In heaven's name why? Perhaps you're
tired after the strain of the day. You go bed like a
good girl and sleep it off. Have a little cry and say your
prayers: that will make you comfortable.
ELIZA: I heard your prayers. 'Thank God it's all over.'
HIGGINS: (IMPATIENTLY) Well don't you thank God
it's all over? Now you are free to do what you like.
ELIZA: What am I fit for? Where am I to go? What am I
to do? What's to become of me?
ELIZA CONTINUES TO SOB. HIGGINS THRUSTS
HIS HANDS INTO HIS POCKETS, AND WALKS
ABOUT IN HIS USUAL MANNER, RATTLING THE
CONTENTS OF HIS POCKETS, AS IF
CONDESCENDING TO A TRIVIAL SUBJECT OUT
OF PURE KINDNESS.
HIGGINS: I shouldn't bother about that if I were you. I
should imagine you won't have much difficulty in settling
yourself somewhere or other, though I hadn't quite realised
that you were going away.
HIGGINS BEGINS TO PICK UP THE FLOWERS.
You might marry, you know. You see Eliza, all men are
not confirmed old batchelors like me and the Colonel.
Most men are the marrying sort - poor devils, and you're
not bad looking. It's quite a pleasure to look at you
sometimes.. - not now of course because you're crying and
looking as ugly as the very devil. You go to bed and have
a nice rest; and then get up and look at yourself in the
glass; and you won't feel so cheap.
ELIZA STILL SOBS SILENTLY, UNIMPRESSED
WITH HIGGINS' ADVICE.
HIGGINS: I daresay my mother could find some chap or
other who could do very well.
ELIZA: We were above that at the corner of Tottenham
Court Road.
HIGGINS: What do you mean?
ELIZA: I sold flowers. I didn't sell myself. Now you've
made a lady of me I'm not fit to sell anything else.
HIGGINS: Tosh, Eliza. Don't insult human relations by
dragging all this cant about buying and selling into it. You
needn't marry the fellow if you don't like him.
ELIZA: What else am I to do?
HIGGINS: Oh lots of things. What about your old idea of
a florist's shop? Pickering could set you up in one. He has
lots of money. Come, you'll be all right. I must clear off to
bed. I'm devillish sleepy. By the way. I came down for
something: I forget what it was.
ELIZA: Your slippers.
HIGGINS: Oh yes. Of course. You shied them at me.
HIGGINS FINDS THEM AND MAKES TO LEAVE.
ELIZA: Do my clothes belong to me or to Colonel
Pickering?
HIGGINS: What the devil use would they be to Pickering?
ELIZA: He might want them for the next girl you pick up
to experiment on.
HIGGINS: (SHOCKED AND HURT) Is that the way you
feel towards us?
ELIZA: All I want to know is whether anything belongs to
me. My own clothes were burnt.
HIGGINS: But what does it matter? Why do you need to
start bothering about that in the middle of the night?
ELIZA: I want to know what I may take away with me. I
don't want to be accused of stealing.
HIGGINS: (NOW DEEPLY WOUNDED) Stealing! You
shouldn't have said that, Eliza. That shows a want of
feeling.
ELIZA: I'm sorry. I'm only a common ignorant girl. There
can't be any feelings between the like of you and the like
of me. Please will you tell me what belongs to me and
what doesn't.
HIGGINS: (VERY SULKY) You may take the whole
damned houseful if you like. Except the jewels. They're
hired. Will that satisfy you?
(HE STARTS TO GO)
ELIZA: Stop! Please.
HIGGINS TURNS. ELIZA TAKES OFF HER JEWELS.
Will you take these to your room and keep them safe? I
don't want to run the risk of their being missing.
HIGGINS: (FURIOUS) Hand them over. (SHE PUTS
THEM INTO HIS HANDS) If these belonged to me
instead of the jeweller, I'd ram them down your
ungrateful throat. (HE THRUSTS THE JEWELS INTO
HIS POCKET)
ELIZA: (TAKING OFF HER RING) This ring isn't the
jeweller's: it's the one you bought me in Brighton. I don't
want it now.
HIGGINS TAKES THE RING AND THROWS IT
ONTO THE FLOOR. HE TURNS ON ELIZA AND SHE
COWERS BACK IN FEAR.
Don't you hit me!
HIGGINS: Hit you! It is you who have hit me. You have
wounded me to the heart.
ELIZA: (THRILLING WITH HIDDEN JOY) I'm glad!
I've got a little of my own back, anyhow.
HIGGINS: (FINALLY REGAINING CONTROL) You
have caused me to lose my temper: a thing that has hardly
ever happened to me before. I prefer to say nothing more
tonight. I am going to bed.
HE TURNS AND LEAVES. ELIZA CALLS AFTER
HIM.
ELIZA: (PERTLY) You better leave a note for Mrs Pearce
about the coffee, for she won't be told by me.
HIGGINS: (RETURNING) Damn Mrs Pearce; and damn
the coffee; and damn you and -(WILDLY) damn my own
folly in having lavished my hard earned knowledge and
the treasure of my regard and intimacy on a heartless
guttersnipe.
ACT V
ELIZA: (MUCH TROUBLED) I want a little kindness. I
know I'm just a common ignorant flower girl, and you're a
book-learned gentleman; but I'm not dirt under your feet.
What I done....(CORRECTING HERSELF) what I did
was not for the dresses and the taxis: I did it because we
were pleasant together, and I come.. I came to care for
you; not to want you to make love to me, and not
forgetting the difference between us, but more friendly
like.
HIGGINS: Well, of course. That's just how I feel. And
how Pickering feels. Eliza, you're a fool.
ELIZA: That's not the proper answer to give me.
SHE SINKS BACK DOWN ON THE GARDEN CHAIR
IN TEARS.
HIGGINS: It's all you'll get until you stop being a
common idiot. If you can't stand the coldness of my sort of
life, go back to the gutter. Work til you're more a brute
than a human being; then cuddle and squabble and drink
till you fell asleep. Oh, it's a fine life, the life of the gutter.
It's real, it's warm: it's violent. You can feel it through the
thickest of skin: you can taste it and smell it without any
training or any work. Not like science and literature and
Art. You find me cold, unfeeling, selfish, don't you? Very
well: be off with you to the sort of people you like. Marry
some sentimental hog or other, with lots of money, and a
thick pair of lips to kiss you with, and a thick pair of boots
to kick you with. If you can't appreciate what you've got,
you'd better get what you can appreciate.
ELIZA: (DESPERATE) Oh you are a cruel tyrant. You
know I can't go back into the gutter, as you call it, and that
I have no real friends in the world except you and the
Colonel. You know well I couldn't bear to live with a low
common man after you two, and it's wicked and cruel of
you to insult me by pretending I could. You think I must
go back to Wimpole Street because I have nowhere else to
go. But don't you be too sure you have me under your feet
to be trampled on and talked down. I'll marry Freddy, I
will, as soon as I'm able to support him.
HIGGINS: (THUNDERSTRUCK) Freddy! That young
fool! That poor devil who couldn't get a job as a postman!
Woman - do you not understand that I have made you a
consort for a king?
ELIZA: Freddy loves me: that makes him king enough for
me. I don't want him to work. He wasn't brought up to it as
I was.