Themes in Pygmalion

Comment on the following statements

  1. Eliza Dolittle is a young, indigent woman who is living in Britain during the late 1800's trying to meet her material needs and wants.  These two seemingly opposite characters do in fact have something in common: they, like every other person, are in a constant pursuit of happiness. 
  2. These themes teach that being middle or upper class does not guarantee happiness, treating others with good manners and equality are important, and pronunciation and terminology can "put you in your place" in terms of class.
  3. Throughout the world's history, pronunciation and the way a language is spoken indicates one's place in society.   Eliza is a classic victim of being "put into her place" based on the way she speaks.  She goes to Professor Higgins in hope that he will give her lessons on how to speak in a more refined.  She says she wants "to be a lady in a flower shop stead of sellin at the corner of Tottenham Court Road.  But they won't take me unless I can talk more genteel" (23).  This is precisely why she comes to Henry Higgins.  He knows quite a bit about the study of speech.  In fact, he is a professor of phonetics.  He can "pronounce one hundred thirty vowel sounds" and "place any man within six miles" of their homes (15).  Sometimes he can even place them within two streets of their homes.  When Eliza hears this, she decides to take advantage of Higgins' ability and take lessons from him.  She learns a new form of speech and this newfound way of speaking helps to pass her off as a duchess at an opera.
  4. In the beginning of Pygmalion, Eliza is a young low-class woman selling flowers on the street corner so that she can make enough money to survive.  Even though this is the only way of living she knows, Eliza sees that there is more out there and she does not have to be a low-class woman forever.  She wants more out of life and will not allow herself to be stomped on by others.  She is a very proud person and when Henry Higgins orders his maid, Mrs. Pearce, to "take all of her clothes off and burn them," Eliza replies angrily, "you're no gentleman, you're not, to talk of such things.  I'm a good girl, I am" (27).  The burning of her old clothes marks the beginning of a series of changes for Eliza. In the hopes of achieving a "better" life in high-class society, she must say good-bye to everything she knows and this she does with mixed emotions.  After her transformation, though, she discovers that life is not as wonderful as she thought it would be.  Eliza realizes that so-called "proper" people have problems as well.
  5. As these stories show, being middle or upper class does not guarantee happiness, being well mannered and treating people equally is important, and people should not always be judged based on the way they speak

"The Metamorphosis of Eliza Doolittle in Pygmalion             The benefits of acquiring an education are not limited to the academic aspects often associated with it. Part of the edification it bestows includes being enabled to reach new insight, being empowered to cultivate a new awareness, and being endowed with a new understanding of life and of self. In Bernard Shaw's Pygmalion, Eliza Doolittle experiences this type of enlightenment as the result of undergoing a drastic change in social status. With the sponsorship and guidance of Colonel Pickering, Eliza, a common street flower vendor, receives phonetic instruction from Professor Henry Higgins and is transformed into an elegant and refined "duchess" (817). Eliza Doolittle is highly emotional and has dauntless pride; however, her level of confidence increases as she gains a new perception of herself and a new outlook on life through the instruction she receives.   Although in the beginning of the play Eliza Doolittle possesses a dignity of self that has per..."

"Equality and Social Class in Pygmalion   Ten Works Cited            The idea of ranking individuals based upon their wealth and behaviors has endured through all cultures, countries, and times.  George Benard Shaw's Pygmalion addresses an individual's capability to advance through society, an idea as old as social distinction.  Shaw does so through the social parable of a young English flower girl named Eliza Dolittle, who after receiving linguistic training assumes the role of a duchess.  She receives instruction, as a bet, by a self-absorbed language professor named Henry Higgens.  However, Eliza does not take her social ascension alone, as she is joined by her drunken father Alfred P. Dolittle.  The manner in which they rise from poverty demonstrates their equality as humans.  As illustrated through Shaw's Pygmalion, the innate equality of  individuals necessitates their ability to rise from their social class.   An individual's humanity necessitates social equality.  The s..."

"Evolution in Pygmalion   Four Works Cited      In the play, Pygmalion, by George Bernard Shaw, Professor Higgins, an expert in the art of speech, bets Colonel Pickering, another master of phonetics, that he can take a common flower girl, Eliza Doolittle, and pass her off as a duchess at an ambassador's Garden Party. During this story, Shaw uses the characters to demonstrate the necessity of human evolution. As Eliza's verbal ability increases, so does her personality and self-esteem; and Higgins's failure to recognize her changes leads to a severe strain on their relationship.   Eliza begins the story as an unstable, insecure character who acknowledges her membership in the less privileged class but still tries desperately to prevent those above her from thinking poorly of her. She feels she must emphasize the fact that she's "a respectable girl,"1 even though she is somewhat timid. When Higgins is seen taking down notes of her speech, and is suspected of being a policeman, she becomes defensive and is willing to "take [a] bible oath [she] ne..."

"Pygmalion: Contradictions of Character         “Manners are the happy way of doing things” according to Ralph Waldo Emerson.  According to Emerson people use manners as a front to make themselves look better.  Inherently, this will lead to a contradiction of the front and the reality.  One such man who is most concerned with manners is the protagonist of Shaw’s Pygmalion, Professor Henry Higgins.  Higgins is a man who displays contradictions within his character.  He is in the business of teaching proper manners, although lacks them himself.  In addition, Higgins is an intelligent man, and yet he is ignorant of the feelings of those around him.  Another apparent contradiction is that Higgins’ outer charm serves to hide his bullying nature. He manipulates Eliza and others around him to serve his own purposes, without any regard for her feelings.             Higgins, a teacher of proprietary manners, lacks those very manners which others pay to learn f..."

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Pygmalion and Educating Rita:  Language and Identity        

This essay is based on the reading of two literary plays, George Bernard Shaw’s Pygmalion and Willy Russell’s Educating Rita. Language and identity are two expressions that need to be explained. English is the official language in several countries; Chinese is the language spoken by Chinese people and Danish is how Danes speak. But languages could also be described as different ways of talking due to social background, education, profession, age and sex. A person’s language is connected to his social situation. Eliza, the cockney flower girl from the gutter does not speak the same language as professor Higgins, even if English is their common mother tongue. They speak differently because they belong to different social worlds. Identity can signify the very special characteristic of a person, something that makes him differ from others.

EDUCATION AND IDENTITY CHANGES

Eliza and Rita, the principal characters of the two plays are both objects of identity change in the course of the stories. Are these changes identical or can we find differences? The two young women originally come from intellectually poor circles. Eliza is a young flower girl who speaks a gutter language. She talks in the following way: "Aint no call to meddle with me, he aint." (1) Her manners are crude, and her cockney accent leaves her feeling as if she is a second-class citizen. She is treated that way. Still, she seems to be proud of herself, "I’m a good girl, I am." (2)

Rita is a twenty-six-year-old, brash, earthy hairdresser, married to a Liverpudlian beerdrinker who demands her to have children and to be a good wife. She feels unsatisfied with her marriage. At the hairdressing salon where she works, she gets tired of the daily listening to women who talk a lot without saying any important. "They never tell y’things that matter." (3)

The story of the two plays tells how the education of the women changes their lives. There are remarkable progresses in their studies and the result is an obvious change of their lives.

INTERNAL AND EXTERNAL CHANGES

I would guess that many readers and spectators of the two plays regard them as about the same story. As a matter of fact, they are not. There is at least one important difference. The changes are not the same. One of them is external while the other is internal.

What happens to Eliza is more or less a change on the surface. In a few months Henry Higgins, a professor of linguistics, manages to lift her up from a low status on the street and transform her into a refined young lady. Among the upper class representatives of London she is able to behave like a duchess and by those who do not know her she is treated like a princess. Her mastering of English grammar, vocabulary and pronunciation is admirable. But do these progresses of language skills mean a real change of personality? Certainly not! Eliza remains a cockney gutter girl even though her conversation becomes more sophisticated. A few months of language learning do not transform her character and identity profoundly.

Rita, on the other hand, keeps her old manners of talking like an uneducated woman. When Frank, her teacher, at the end of the story asks her if she will follow a friend to France, she answers: "I dunno. He’s a bit of a wranker really. But I’ve never been abroad. An’ me mother’s invited me to her’s for Christmas." (4)

Nevertheless, Rita has been changed. Not because of pure language training, but owing to her literary learning. Her deep determination to change her life brings her to a world ofd self respect and new ideas.

There is a link between language and identity. But language studies that are concentrated on pure linguistic training of grammar, vocabulary and pronunciation bring only about external progresses. If they are completed with literature they are likely to attain a higher level. Language skills are important, but the are nothing but tools. To be used in a fertile way that produces interior changes of character and personality, the need to be completed with a knowledge of literature.

Eliza achieves good language proficiencies, but her identity remains that of a cockney gutter girl, while Rita develops her character and reaches personal independence. However, it would have been ideal if the two young women had been able to study together and learn more about both language and literature.

 

Footnotes

1. George Bernard Shaw, 1957: Pygmalion, page 24

2. Shaw, 1957, page 24

3. Willy Russell, 1997, Educating Rita, page 10

4. Russell, 1997, page 72"

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Pygmalion  - Higgins' Philosophy

 

Professor Higgins is seen throughout Pygmalion as a very rude man. While one may expect a well educated man, such as Higgins, to be a gentleman, he is far from it. Higgins believes that how you treat someone is not important, as long as you treat everyone equally. 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. -Higgins, Act V Pygmalion. Higgins presents this theory to Eliza, in hope of justifying his treatment of her. This theory would be fine IF Higgins himself lived by it. Henry Higgins, however, lives by a variety of variations of this philosophy. It is easily seen how Higgins follows this theory. He is consistently rude towards Eliza, Mrs. Pearce, and his mother. His manner is the same to each of them, in accordance to his philosophy. However the Higgins we see at the parties and in good times with Pickering is well mannered. This apparent discrepancy between Higgins' actions and his word, may not exist, depending on the interpretation of this theory. There are two possible translations of Higgins' philosophy. It can be viewed as treating everyone the same all of the time or treating everyone equally at a particular time. It is obvious that Higgins does not treat everyone equally all of the time, as witnessed by his actions when he is in "one of his states" (as Mrs. Higgins' parlor maid calls it). The Higgins that we see in Mrs. Higgins' parlor is not the same Higgins we see at the parties. When in "the state" Henry Higgins wanders aimlessly around the parlor, irrationally moving from chair to chair, highly unlike the calm Professor Higgins we see at the ball. Higgins does not believe that a person should have the same manner towards everyone all of the time, but that a person should treat everyone equally at a given time (or in a certain situation). When he is in "one of those states" his manner is the same towards everyone; he is equally rude and disrespectful to all. Yet when minding his manners, as he does at the parties, he can be a gentleman. If the second meaning of Higgins' theory, that he treats everyone equally at a particular time, is taken as his philosophy, there is one major flaw. Higgins never respects Eliza, no matter who is around. In Act V of Pygmalion, Eliza confronts him about his manner towards her. "He (Pickering) treats a flower girl as duchess." Higgins, replying to Eliza, "And I treat a duchess as a flower girl." In an attempt to justify this Higgins replies "The question is not whether I treat you rudely, but whether you ever heard me treat anyone else better." Eliza does not answer this question but the reader knows that Higgins has treated others better than Eliza. At the parties, for example, Higgins is a gentleman to the hosts and other guest, but still treats Eliza as his "experiment." Higgins could never see the "new" Eliza. Higgins only saw the dirty flower girl that had become his "experiment." Much like an author never sees a work as finished, Higgins could not view Eliza lady or duchess. Since Higgins knew where Eliza came from it was difficult for him to make her parts fit together as a masterpiece that he respected. Part of Higgins' problem in recognizing the "new" Eliza is his immaturity. He does not see her as what she is, he only sees her as what she was. This immaturity is representative of Higgins' childish tendencies that the reader can see throughout the play. Higgins' child-like actions can partially explain the variations in his philosophy. Try to imagine Higgins as a young teenager. A young Higgins, or any teenage boy for that matter, has a very limited outlook. They treat everyone the same; depending on the situation they may be little gentlemen or rude dudes. When around parents the teenager is rude and inconsiderate yet when among his friends he a complete gentleman. The adult Higgins' actions are the same as the child.

"    The greatest problem in communication is the illusion that it has been accomplished.

" Eliza as a Strong, Assertive Woman in Pygmalion   Bernard Shaw’s comedy Pygmalion presents the journey of an impoverished flower girl into London’s society of the early 20th century.  Professor Higgins proposes a wager to his friend Colonel Pickering that he can take a common peddler and transform her into royalty. Eliza Doolittle is the pawn in the wager. But little does Higgins know the change will go far beyond his expectations: Eliza transforms from a defensive insecure girl to a fully confident,strong, and independent woman. When the audience first meets Eliza Doolittle she is a flower girl peddling at 11 PM in front of St. Paul’s Church. The audience’s first impression is one of sympathy because she is dressed in rags and pedestrians are unkind to her. Higgins calls Eliza "you squashed cabbage leaf, you disgrace to the noble architecture of these columns, you incarnate insult to the English language." (p. 21) The audience’s sympathy is intensified when we see Eliza’s wretched lodgings. These lodgings are much contrasted to those of Higgins in Wimploe Stre..."
        -George Bernard Shaw

Though almost universally interpreted as a critical statement on the artificiality of class and social status, Pygmalion is really just an update of Paradise Lost and the Genesis story of the Fall of Man.  This is most obvious from the way that Shaw changes the ending of the classic myth from which he borrows the plot and title and by his referring several times to Henry Higgins as Miltonic.  The original Pygmalion was a character in Ovid's Metamorphoses, a woman-hating sculptor who chiseled a perfect female out of stone.  He became so enamored with his creation that he asked the gods to grant her life.  Venus answered his prayers, turning the statue into a living woman, Galatea, whom Pygmalion then married.

In his version of the Pygmalion tale, Shaw eschews this happy ending and, whether wittingly or no, turns the story into a Biblical allegory.   Henry Higgins takes the role of God :

    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 duchess at an ambassador's
    garden party. I could even get her a place as lady's maid or shop assistant, which requires better
    English. Thats the sort of thing I do for commercial millionaires. And on the profits of it I do
    genuine scientific work in phonetics, and a little as a poet on Miltonic lines.

Lifting Liza--who it must be noted is a flower girl, deriving her living from the products of the garden, get it?--up from the gutter (note the implication that she is dirt), Higgins turns her into a cultured woman, remakes her in his own image, only to find himself taken with his creation.  He finds that he has not merely given her form, but has revealed a worthwhile soul too :

    HIGGINS [arrogant] I can do without anybody. I have my own soul: my own spark of divine fire.
    But [with sudden humility] I shall miss you, Eliza. [He sits down near her on the ottoman]. I have
    learnt something from your idiotic notions: I confess that humbly and gratefully. And I have grown
    accustomed to your voice and appearance. I like them, rather.

    LIZA. Well, you have both of them on your gramophone and in your book of photographs. When
    you feel lonely without me, you can turn the machine on. It's got no feelings to hurt.

    HIGGINS. I cant turn your soul on. Leave me those feelings; and you can take away the voice and
    the face. They are not you.

But this is not the same thing as love, and Liza wishes to be loved, resulting in an impasse between the two :

    LIZA. What did you do it for if you didnt care for me?

    HIGGINS [heartily] Why, because it was my job.

    LIZA. You never thought of the trouble it would make for me.

    HIGGINS. Would the world ever have been made if its maker had been afraid of making trouble?
    Making life means making trouble. Theres only one way of escaping trouble; and thats killing
    things. Cowards, you notice, are always shrieking to have troublesome people killed.

    LIZA. I'm no preacher: I dont notice things like that. I notice that you dont notice me.

    HIGGINS [jumping up and walking about intolerantly] Eliza: youre an idiot. I waste the treasures
    of my Miltonic mind by spreading them before you. Once for all, understand that I go my way and
    do my work without caring twopence what happens to either of us. I am not intimidated, like your
    father and your stepmother. So you can come back or go to the devil: which you please.

Liza ultimately chooses independence from her creator and marries the dull but earnest Freddy.  As Shaw said in a postscript which was added to later editions :

    Galatea never does quite like Pygmalion: his relation to her is too godlike to be altogether
    agreeable.

And so you have it : God creates a creature in his own image, and is pleased with it, but wishes it to remain wholly His.  The creature, created too well, wants its independence, more than it wants to bask in the reflected glow of the Creator, and so rebels. Odd as it may seem,