The play Pygmalion is one of Bernard Shaw’s best pieces of art. The play is Shaw’s account of the young flower lady from the ghettos who was trained to talk so appropriately that she was able to be accepted as a duchess at a diplomat’s garden party. The story later became famous as it inspired the film My Fair Lady, a musical drama film adapted from the play. We are introduced to the character Eliza Doolittle, the daughter of Alfred Doolittle as an easy-going young lady. She progresses along with the play, grows in stature, and has outperformed her maker in numerous ways. This paper focuses on the excerpt of the Pygmalion part II in Higgins’ laboratory, where Eliza is portrayed as rebellious, humble, and with a great sense of humor.
Eliza is rebellious, and although the author portrays her as attractively rebellious. The first act of rebellion is seen when Eliza returns to Higgins’ laboratory in his home. Even though Higgins sends her away when he recognizes her after he had sent her away the previous evening, “Why, is this girl I jotted down last night, 428.” Higgins claims that he has already recorded a lot of her type of “Lisson grove Lingo” and was unwilling to spend more time on it. Eliza is rebellious and insists that her proposition will interest Higgins. Secondly, when Higgins asks Eliza to sit down, she rebels bewilderedly, and she has to be asked repeatedly,” sit down, girl. Do as youre told, 429″.
Humble and Modest; Eliza comes out as humble. On hearing that Eliza came in a taxi, Professor Higgins challenges Eliza to ride in many taxis as possible in the future. Professor Higgins tells Eliza that in the end, she will be able to ride in a taxi every day, and he tells him that while she thinks about her future, she should also think about gold, diamonds, and chocolates. Eliza insists that she is a good girl and is not interested in gold and diamonds, “No: I don’t want no gold and no diamonds. I’m a good girl, 432.”
Eliza Doolittle is portrayed as a wellspring of great humor. She entertains us significantly by coming to the place of Professor Higgins and letting his maid know that she wishes to meet with the Professor as her guide to train her in communicating in English. She would pay the Professor his charge for the lessons. She again entertains us while, when asked the amount she proposes to pay, she answers that he ought to be happy with pushing for every illustration. “Now you’re talking, I thought you’d come off it when you saw a chance of getting back a bit of what you chucked at me last night, 429”, she says in a tone of conclusion.
As this paper demonstrates, Eliza is rebellious, humble, and with a great sense of humor. The author brings out Higgins’s personality using his acts. He is “violently interested in everything that can be studied as a scientific project.” This shows that Higgins does not have dignity for humanity and would be very willing to experiment on human beings just like any other specimens. Although, Higgins is forthright and without any ingenuity or vindictiveness. I can’t entirely agree with this imagery used by the author as I believe that despite having a professional relationship like Higgins and Eliza, humanity is vital for its fruition.
References
Pygmalion by George Bernard Shaw, Pages 428-433
Rai, Emmanuel. N.p., 2022. Web. 20 June 2022.
Xiaowei, Z. O. U. “A Study on Feminism of George Bernard Shaw’s Pygmalion.” Studies in Literature and Language 17.3 (2018): 6-9.
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