Discuss Eliza's transformation in Pygmalion.
Under the tutelage of Henry Higgins, Eliza Doolittle's accent, dress, and manners change so that she transforms from a working-class Cockney woman into an upper-class English lady. By showing how easily Eliza becomes upper-class by adopting only a few superficial changes, Shaw skewers an ideology that maintains that the upper classes are "innately" superior to the the lower. Even a little education, the play shows, can make a lady out of a flower seller.
But Eliza's transformation goes deeper, and Shaw shows this to be both positive and negative. On the positive side, her acceptance into higher society builds her sense of confidence and self-worth. She rebels and asserts herself against Henry Higgins' verbal abuse, such as his calling her a "squashed cabbage," as well as his careless assumption that she will always function to suit his convenience--and go away as soon as she becomes inconvenient. Henry treats her as a thing: Eliza insists, at the end, on being treated as a human. On the negative side, however, the play points out that by transforming Eliza into a lady, Higgins has left her unfit for any role in society but marriage. Shaw critiques a culture in which a woman's ascent up the class ladder leaves her increasingly useless and dependent. As a working girl selling flowers, Eliza might have been very poor, but at least she could earn her own keep. As a lady, she must marry and rely on a man to support her, for holding a job in that class would be unacceptable for a woman.
Discuss Eliza's transformation in Pygmalion.
Eliza Doolittle makes the transition from uneducated Cockney flower girl to elegant duchess in George Bernard Shaw's play, Pygmalion. Eliza's transformation from a girl of the streets to a beauty whose manners and appearance inspires awe--from just about everyone except Henry Higgins, that is--is complete, up to the end of the experiment. After Higgins wins his bet, his job is over, and Eliza's allure proves to have worked on everyone except the man who has shaped her new persona. She realizes that her new life has come to a standstill, since she feels she can no longer return to her flowers. However, her capacity for learning and change is still in its infancy, and Eliza still has enormous room to grow. It is Higgins who has reached his limits, and he is the one with a lack of inner growth capabilities. Meanwhile, Eliza discovers that appearances and social graces are not necessarily a means to an end, for in Higgins she sees that perfection is only skin deep. She has been become a lady in nearly every respect, but Higgins still fails to treat her as one. Consequently, her intellectual growth is not a completely happy one since her new independence repels Higgins and, in the end, she sees that he is far from the perfect man. And, in turn, she finds her new identity, her new class status, a mystery as well.
Who does Eliza marry in Pygmalion?
In George Bernard Shaw's play Pygmalion, Eliza Doolittle actually does not marry anyone within the action of the play itself. Eliza has been transformed from a lowly flower seller with a vulgar manner of speech and no refinement to an upper-class lady of refined speech and manners by Professor Henry Higgins. Higgins has done this as an experiment and as a bet with Colonel Pickering, but he hasn't counted on the force he has created in Eliza.
Eliza is now an attractive, well-bred woman whom Higgins describes as a “tower of strength.” Even though Higgins admires Eliza, he takes her for granted. Eliza feels that Higgins is too cold emotionally, yet the audience gets the feeling that she would very much like to marry him. He suggests that she marry Colonel Pickering, and Eliza insists that she could never marry Higgins. Her slip of the tongue reveals her feelings.
Higgins, too, seems taken with Eliza although he refuses to admit it. Eliza says that Freddy Eynsford Hill has declared his love for her, and Higgins becomes extremely jealous, saying that Freddy is a fool and declaring, “I'm not going to have my masterpiece thrown away on Freddy.”
Yet Eliza and Higgins never come to an agreement. Higgins ends the argument by giving Eliza a list of errands. He tells his mother that she will certainly do them, but the play ends. In the “sequel” or epilogue, however, the narrator informs us that Eliza declares that she will marry Freddy if she is to marry anyone. She does exactly that and ends up with her own flower shop.
Who does Eliza credit for her transformation into a lady in Pygmalion?
In Pygmalion, Eliza believes that she owes everything she learned about being a lady to Colonel Pickering.
In Act V, Mr. Doolittle, Eliza's father, has come to take her home. Mr. Doolittle is now a very wealthy man on account of Ezra Wannafeller, who has bequeathed him the sum of three thousand pounds a year, in 'exchange for lecturing at his Wannafeller Moral Reform World League as often as they ask,' for up to six times a year. Mrs. Higgins is genuinely happy for Eliza, as she reasons that the poor girl will now be provided for. Higgins, however, isn't too happy about this new development. He wants Eliza to return to him, as he believes that since he created her out of 'the squashed cabbage leaves of Covent Garden,' she should readily do whatever he says.
However, when Eliza comes downstairs to meet with Pickering and Higgins, she admits to Pickering that it was he who taught her how to control her temper. She thanks Pickering for teaching her the proper way ladies and gentlemen ought to behave. In one of the most famous lines in the play, she asserts that a woman becomes a lady when she is treated like one.
...the difference between a lady and a flower girl is not how she behaves, but how shes 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 reiterates her admiration of Pickering when she later tells Higgins that Pickering 'treats a flower girl as if she were a duchess.'
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