Who is Alfred Doolittle in George Bernard Shaw's Pygmalion?

If one of Shaw's goals in Pygmalion is to demonstrate that social class is based on nurture not nature (i.e., education not genetics) another is to illustrate that being middle class is not all it is cracked up to be. The happy-go-lucky Alfred Doolittle, Eliza's father, is the chief mouthpiece for the freedoms of a working class lifestyle.

When Alfred first appears, he shows himself to be an inadequate parent out to get what he can from Henry Higgins even if it means blackmail. Later, we meet this impoverished dustman (garbage man) after he has been given money by an American philanthropist. This wealthy man, Ezra D. Wannafeller, bestows a stipend of four thousand pounds a year, a huge income in 1913, on the hapless dustman, all because of Higgins's joking recommendation.

Alfred is a careless hedonist who wants to be left alone to have a good time. He has no interest in middle class morality or taking care of his health and no interest in his relatives. He complains bitterly that now that he is a respectable middle class man he is forced to marry his partner, go to the doctor for any and all ailments, and deal with swarms of relatives who are suddenly interested in him due to his money. He was happier, he says, in his drinking, loafing, ne'er do well former existence in which nobody cared if he lived or died. Now he feels hemmed in and beset on all sides.

Alfred lives in the moment and puts pleasure first. He is lively, irrepressible, and outspoken, and doesn't in any way try to hide who and what he really is.

    The gregarious Alfred P. Doolittle is the father of the cockney flower girl, Eliza, in George Bernard Shaw's classic play, Pygmalion. Although Doolittle only makes a few appearances in the play, they are virtually all scene-stealers. He is a poor dustman, and he has not been a good father to his daughter. He shows up when he needs money but is perfectly happy as long as he has enough to spend drinking and carousing in the local pub. Although Doolittle complains about "middle-class morality," he is suddenly vaulted into a higher social and economic class when he inherits three thousand pounds yearly (thanks to Henry Higgins' philanthropy connections) to lecture about moral reform. Of course, Doolittle is totally morally unrepentant whether he is wealthy or penniless. Despite his many faults, Doolittle is presented by Shaw as a humorous and sympathetic rascal whose rich characterization becomes a classic of the English theatre. Doolittle's later re-creation in My Fair Lady--perhaps the greatest musical of them all--features two memorable Lerner and Loewe songs: "With a Little Bit of Luck" and "Get Me to the Church on Time."

In George Bernard Shaw's Pygmalion, who is Eliza Doolittle?

In George Bernard Shaw’s 1912 play Pygmalion, the character of Eliza Doolittle is described by the playwright as a destitute, clearly uneducated flower girl plying her trade on the rainy sidewalks of upper class London.  When Eliza is introduced, it is in the midst of a collision with a doorman frantically attempting to locate a cab for an exceedingly unreasonable woman and her daughter.  Cast once more into the torrential downpour, the hapless doorman collides with Eliza, described as follows:

“She is not at all an attractive person. She is perhaps eighteen, perhaps twenty, hardly older. She wears a little sailor hat of black straw that has long been exposed to the dust and soot of London and has seldom if ever been brushed. Her hair needs washing rather badly: its mousy color can hardly be natural. She wears a shoddy black coat that reaches nearly to her knees and is shaped to her waist. She has a brown skirt with a coarse apron. Her boots are much the worse for wear. She is no doubt as clean as she can afford to be; but compared to the ladies she is very dirty. Her features are no worse than theirs; but their condition leaves something to be desired; and she needs the services of a dentist].” 

Putting aside the irony of any citizen of England commenting negatively on another citizen of England’s dental situation, Shaw clearly intends Eliza to represent a suitable project for which the play’s other protagonist, Henry Higgins, can indulge in a wager regarding his ability to transform his human subject into a representative of London’s elite.  Eliza is desperately poor, and the contrasts among England’s social classes was notoriously dramatic.  That within that course exterior lied the heart of a lovely young woman was Pygmalion’s point.  The old adage of not judging on the basis of outward appearances found its ultimate manifestation in Shaw’s play, since renamed My Fair Lady and a regular source of material for stage and film productions.  “Eliza Doolittle” has become synonymous with the potential within an individual otherwise rejected for his or her appearance.