Pygmalion

“It's aw rawt: e's a gentleman: look at his bǝ-oots. [Explaining to the note taker] She thought you was a copper's nark, sir.”

The bystander’s observation about Higgins’s shoes demonstrates the importance of clothes in determining class and manners. By looking at his boots, the bystander can tell that he is not a police informant. The use of sir suggests that Higgins appears of a higher class than an informant and the bystander.

“A woman who utters such depressing and 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 and Milton and The Bible; and dont sit there crooning like a bilious pigeon.”

Higgins imagines speech as having spiritual and cultural implications such that language is tied to the soul. As English is used by great artists and God, English should be respected and not corrupted by lower-class dialects. His criticism of Eliza reflects his inability to apply his linguistic philosophy and teaching empathetically. Because all can choose to use articulate language, their misuse, to Higgins, is an affront worthy of death.

“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.”

In his bragging about his linguistic skills, Higgins outlines what will become the central conceit of the play. It also outlines the core concern of Shaw’s: The use of language can allow a person to climb the English social structure. His phrasing indicates his self-centered mindset and his conception of Eliza as an object; he alone will be responsible for the success of passing her off.

“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.”

This line, though not originally in the play, has become one of its most well-known lines. Higgins compares Eliza to a rotting cabbage leaf discarded on the ground from the market. His elevated, articulate language contrasts with his rude content. Despite his command of language, Higgins is still a bully, highlighting the gap between formal education and emotional intelligence.

”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 the girl] Be off with you: I don’t want you.”

In his dismissal of Eliza and her offer, Higgins reveals his own biases. He sees her as a possible object of study. Her value comes from her ability to provide new information, so her familiarity means studying her would be a waste of materials. His declaration that he does not want her seems to follow tropes from the beginning of a romantic comedy, suggesting the audience should expect a reversal of his feelings by the end. However, Shaw subverts his audience’s generic expectations and criticizes romance and marriage.

“What is life but a series of inspired follies? The difficulty is to find them to do. Never lose a chance: it doesn't come every day. I shall make a duchess of this draggletailed guttersnipe”

Higgins’s decision to take on Eliza as a student reflects his emphasis on the theoretical and the philosophical. His use of the derogatory term “guttersnipe” to refer to a person who is unhoused, equating this situation with low moral character, reveals Higgins’s own rude and crude manners. He has decided to challenge himself, without considering the human element of his choice.

“I’m one of the undeserving poor: that’s what I am. Think of what that means to a man. It means that he’s up agen middle class morality all the time.”

Doolittle often functions as Shaw’s mouthpiece, delivering long speeches on moral issues. Describing himself to Higgins and Pickering at his first visit, Doolittle deconstructs the idea that there are only three classes: upper, middle, and lower. Instead, he subdivides the lower class and differentiates himself from what he calls the deserving poor. Doolittle also pinpoints middle-class morality as judgmental and confrontational.

“What is middle class morality? Just an excuse for never giving me anything. Therefore, I ask you, as two gentlemen, not to play that game on me. I'm playing straight with you. I ain't pretending to be deserving. I'm undeserving; and I mean to go on being undeserving. I like it; and that's the truth.”

Doolittle perceives middle-class morality as the excuse given to disguise middle-class hypocrisy. The middle class would help poor people, but only if they were angelic and perfect. Doolittle refuses to perform this role, contrasting with Eliza’s interest in learning to act like a lady. Doolittle’s blunt refusal to participate intrigues Higgins and inspires him to try to offer an extra five pounds.

“She’s a triumph of your art and of her dressmaker’s.”

Mrs. Higgins notes the superficial quality of Eliza’s transformation when she appears at Mrs. Higgins’s house. She identifies it as performance, associating language with art and creation and her dress with costume. Both factors play a part in her appearance without creating an internal change.

“As if I ever stop thinking about the girl and her confounded vowels and consonants. I'm worn out, thinking about her, and watching her lips and her teeth and her tongue, not to mention her soul, which is the quaintest of the lot.”

Higgins describes Eliza in a way that subverts the expectations of a romantic hero. He does not describe her body as a lover would but as an object of study. He equates Eliza with the sounds she makes. In the process, he reveals how he connects language with the soul, suggesting that he believes the good use of language indicates a pure soul.

“You certainly are a pretty pair of babies, playing with your live doll.”

Mrs. Higgins jokes that Higgins and Pickering appear to be children playing with a doll. In making this joke, she highlights the way this experiment treats Eliza as if she were a doll rather than human. Higgins takes insult with the use of the word play only because it suggests that his work is easy and trivial, which he resents.

“It is not the first time for me, Colonel. I have done this fifty times—hundreds of times—in my little piggery in Angel Court in my day-dreams. I am in a dream now.”

Eliza, in contrast to the nervous Colonel, enters the ball with elegance and poise. She ascribes her ease to the performances she put on for herself in her dilapidated home. Eliza has practiced this performance hundreds of times. By describing the situation as a dream, she underscores the illusory nature of upper-class social life.

“I was quite frightened once or twice because Eliza was doing it so well. You see, lots of the real people can’t do it at all: they’re such fools that they think style comes by nature to people in their position; and so they never learn.”

In Pickering’s reaction to Eliza’s ease and poise, he identifies a further hypocrisy of gentility. While they criticize the lower class for their poor language, their language is imperfect. The perfection of Eliza’s speech is an illusion and not something that real people attain naturally and easily.

“You won my bet! You! Presumptuous insect! I won it.”

Higgins indignantly refuses to acknowledge Eliza’s role in their success. Despite his claims that changing one’s language would better one’s character, he denigrates her character by implying that she is incapable of bettering herself. Ignoring his role in Eliza’s rise, he criticizes her for trying to move to a higher class. This denial is further evidence of Higgins’s view of Eliza as an object of study, not an active participant.

“Why didn’t you leave me where you picked me out of—in the gutter? You thank God it’s all over, and that now you can throw me back again there, do you?”

Eliza describes how Higgins sees her as a piece of trash that can be disposed of. This experiment had personal stakes for Eliza, as it disrupted her life. She complicates the Pygmalion imagery, as her supposed-creator treats her like an object that can be disposed of, not a piece of art.

“What am I fit for? What have you left me fit for? Where am I to go? What am I to do? What’s to become of me?

After being disposed of by Higgins and Pickering, Eliza worries about her future. The transformation of her speech and dress has left her stranded between the lower class and the middle class. Without a material change in circumstances, she is unable to sustain the illusion.

“We were above that at the corner of Tottenham Court Road [...] 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.” 

Eliza views marriage as a sort of prostitution. As a lady, she can sell herself only as if she were an object. In her street life, she still maintained her dignity and sold flowers. She had independence on the street, which Eliza realizes is more valuable than the title of a lady.

“Dont you call me Miss Doolittle, do you hear? Liza’s good enough for me.”

Reflecting her internal transformation, Eliza no longer tries to maintain the illusion and instead values herself. She no longer needs the genteel language of Miss Doolittle but instead connects with the identity reflected in her name. While she demands the use of Miss Doolittle from Higgins as a sign of respect, Freddy treats her with dignity throughout the play and does not need to prove his respect for her.

“Done to me! Ruined me. Destroyed my happiness. Tied me up and delivered me into the hands of middle class morality.”

Doolittle bluntly describes the effects of Higgins’s actions. Even though Eliza’s ascent to the middle class was willing and Doolittle’s was unwilling, both suffer. Because of the expectations of the middle class, they can no longer do as solely they see fit, no matter the justification.

“You see, really and truly, apart from the things anyone can pick up (the dressing and the proper way of speaking, and so on), the difference between a lady and a flower girl is not how she behaves, but how she's treated. I shall always be a flower girl to Professor Higgins, because he always treats me as a flower girl, and always will; but I know I can be a lady to you, because you always treat me as a lady, and always will.”

Eliza describes the illusory nature of her physical transformation. Her treatment by Higgins and Pickering is what drove the more meaningful internal change. Eliza realizes that good character is possible for any class, but Higgins’s higher class does not automatically bestow him with good manners.

”I have learnt my lesson. I dont believe I could utter one of the old sounds if I tried. [Doolittle touches her on her left shoulder. She drops her work, losing her self-possession utterly at the spectacle of her father's splendor] A-a-a–ah-ow-ooh!”

Eliza’s slip back into her old speech suggests that it is possible she will return to her old ways. The slip also suggests the performativity of speech, as she drops the act when startled. This code-switching also suggests how she straddles two worlds, despite her and her father’s appearances.

“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.”

In his explanation of his own code of morality, Higgins claims to treat all people equally. Despite his claims, Higgins shows this to be false. While never possessing perfect manners, he never treats the Eynsford Hills, Pickering, or even Mrs. Pearce with the cruelty with which he treats Eliza. In this line, Shaw suggests that Higgins is unaware of his own Victorian middle-class moral hypocrisy.

“If you come back I shall treat you just as I have always treated you. I can't change my nature; and I don't intend to change my manners. My manners are exactly the same as Colonel Pickering's.

Higgin’s refusal to treat Eliza with respect and dignity reflects a fundamental difference in his character versus Pickering’s or Eliza’s. Pickering attempts to treat all with civility, regardless of class. In comparing himself to Pickering’s honest attempts at respect, Higgins reveals his lack of self-awareness. His insistence on not changing sharply contrasts with Eliza’s persistent effort to better herself. Without his changing like she has, Eliza’s and his relationship cannot continue.