Two old gentlemen meet in the rain one night at Covent Garden.
Professor Higgins is a scientist of phonetics, and Colonel Pickering is a
linguist of Indian dialects. The first bets the other that he can, with his
knowledge of phonetics, convince high London society that, in a matter
of months, he will be able to transform the cockney speaking Covent
Garden flower girl, Eliza Doolittle, into a woman as poised and wellspoken as a duchess. The next morning, the girl appears at his laboratory
on Wimpole Street to ask for speech lessons, offering to pay a shilling, so
that she may speak properly enough to work in a flower shop. Higgins
makes merciless fun of her, but is seduced by the idea of working his
magic on her. Pickering goads him on by agreeing to cover the costs of
the experiment if Higgins can pass Eliza off as a duchess at an
ambassador's garden party. The challenge is taken, and Higgins starts by
having his housekeeper bathe Eliza and give her new clothes. Then
Eliza's father Alfred Doolittle comes to demand the return of his
daughter, though his real intention is to hit Higgins up for some money.
The professor, amused by Doolittle's unusual rhetoric, gives him five
pounds. On his way out, the dustman fails to recognize the now clean,
pretty flower girl as his daughter.
For a number of months, Higgins trains Eliza to speak properly. Two
trials for Eliza follow. The first occurs at Higgins' mother's home, where
Eliza is introduced to the Eynsford Hills, a trio of mother, daughter, and
son. The son Freddy is very attracted to her, and further taken with what
he thinks is her affected "small talk" when she slips into cockney. Mrs.
Higgins worries that the experiment will lead to problems once it is
ended, but Higgins and Pickering are too absorbed in their game to take
heed. A second trial, which takes place some months later at an
ambassador's party (and which is not actually staged), is a resounding
success. The wager is definitely won, but Higgins and Pickering are now
bored with the project, which causes Eliza to be hurt. She throws Higgins'
slippers at him in a rage because she does not know what is to become of
her, thereby bewildering him. He suggests she marry somebody. She
returns him the hired jewelry, and he accuses her of ingratitude.
The following morning, Higgins rushes to his mother, in a panic because
Eliza has run away. On his tail is Eliza's father, now unhappily rich from
the trust of a deceased millionaire who took to heart Higgins'
recommendation that Doolittle was England's "most original moralist."
Mrs. Higgins, who has been hiding Eliza upstairs all along, chides the
two of them for playing with the girl's affections. When she enters, Eliza
thanks Pickering for always treating her like a lady, but threatens Higgins
that she will go work with his rival phonetician, Nepommuck. The
outraged Higgins cannot help but start to admire her. As Eliza leaves for
her father's wedding, Higgins shouts out a few errands for her to run,
assuming that she will return to him at Wimpole Street. Eliza, who has a
lovelorn sweetheart in Freddy, and the wherewithal to pass as a duchess,
never makes it clear whether she will or not.
Characters
Professor Henry Higgins - Henry Higgins is a professor of phonetics
who plays Pygmalion to Eliza Doolittle's Galatea. He is the author of
Higgins' Universal Alphabet, believes in concepts like visible speech, and
uses all manner of recording and photographic material to document his
phonetic subjects, reducing people and their dialects into what he sees as
readily understandable units. He is an unconventional man, who goes in
the opposite direction from the rest of society in most matters. Indeed, he
is impatient with high society, forgetful in his public graces, and poorly
considerate of normal social niceties--the only reason the world has not
turned against him is because he is at heart a good and harmless man. His
biggest fault is that he can be a bully.
Eliza Doolittle - "She is not at all a romantic figure." So is she
introduced in Act I. Everything about Eliza Doolittle seems to defy any
conventional notions we might have about the romantic heroine. When
she is transformed from a sassy, smart-mouthed kerbstone flower girl
with deplorable English, to a (still sassy) regal figure fit to consort with
nobility, it has less to do with her innate qualities as a heroine than with
the fairy-tale aspect of the transformation myth itself. In other words, the
character of Eliza Doolittle comes across as being much more
instrumental than fundamental. The real (re-)making of Eliza Doolittle
happens after the ambassador's party, when she decides to make a
statement for her own dignity against Higgins' insensitive treatment. This
is when she becomes, not a duchess, but an independent woman; and this
explains why Higgins begins to see Eliza not as a mill around his neck
but as a creature worthy of his admiration.
Colonel Pickering - Colonel Pickering, the author of Spoken Sanskrit,
is a match for Higgins (although somewhat less obsessive) in his passion
for phonetics. But where Higgins is a boorish, careless bully, Pickering is
always considerate and a genuinely gentleman. He says little of note in
the play, and appears most of all to be a civilized foil to Higgins'
barefoot, absentminded crazy professor. He helps in the Eliza Doolittle
experiment by making a wager of it, saying he will cover the costs of the
experiment if Higgins does indeed make a convincing duchess of her.
However, while Higgins only manages to teach Eliza pronunciations, it is
Pickering's thoughtful treatment towards Eliza that teaches her to respect
herself.
Alfred Doolittle - Alfred Doolittle is Eliza's father, an elderly but
vigorous dustman who has had at least six wives and who "seems equally
free from fear and conscience." When he learns that his daughter has
entered the home of Henry Higgins, he immediately pursues to see if he
can get some money out of the circumstance. His unique brand of
rhetoric, an unembarrassed, unhypocritical advocation of drink and
pleasure (at other people's expense), is amusing to Higgins. Through
Higgins' joking recommendation, Doolittle becomes a richly endowed
lecturer to a moral reform society, transforming him from lowly dustman
to a picture of middle class morality--he becomes miserable. Throughout,
Alfred is a scoundrel who is willing to sell his daughter to make a few
pounds, but he is one of the few unaffected characters in the play,
unmasked by appearance or language. Though scandalous, his speeches
are honest. At points, it even seems that he might be Shaw's voice piece
of social criticism (Alfred's proletariat status, given Shaw's socialist
leanings, makes the prospect all the more likely).
Mrs. Higgins - Professor Higgins' mother, Mrs. Higgins is a stately lady
in her sixties who sees the Eliza Doolittle experiment as idiocy, and
Higgins and Pickering as senseless children. She is the first and only
character to have any qualms about the whole affair. When her worries
prove true, it is to her that all the characters turn. Because no woman can
match up to his mother, Higgins claims, he has no interest in dallying
with them. To observe the mother of Pygmalion (Higgins), who
completely understands all of his failings and inadequacies, is a good
contrast to the mythic proportions to which Higgins builds himself in his
self-estimations as a scientist of phonetics and a creator of duchesses.
Freddy Eynsford Hill - Higgins' surmise that Freddy is a fool is
probably accurate. In the opening scene he is a spineless and resourceless
lackey to his mother and sister. Later, he is comically bowled over by
Eliza, the half-baked duchess who still speaks cockney. He becomes
lovesick for Eliza, and courts her with letters. At the play's close, Freddy
serves as a young, viable marriage option for Eliza, making the possible
path she will follow unclear to the reader.
Analysis
Pygmalion derives its name from the famous story in
Ovid's Metamorphoses,in which Pygmalion, disgusted by the loose and
shameful lives of the women of his era, decides to live alone and
unmarried. With wondrous art, he creates a beautiful statue more perfect
than any living woman. The more he looks upon her, the more deeply he
falls in love with her, until he wishes that she were more than a statue.
This statue is Galatea. Lovesick, Pygmalion goes to the temple of the
goddess Venus and prays that she give him a lover like his statue; Venus
is touched by his love and brings Galatea to life. When Pygmalion returns
from Venus' temple and kisses his statue, he is delighted to find that she
is warm and soft to the touch--"The maiden felt the kisses, blushed and,
lifting her timid eyes up to the light, saw the sky and her lover at the same
time" (Frank Justus Miller, trans.).
Myths such as this are fine enough when studied through the lens of
centuries and the buffer of translations and editions, but what happens
when one tries to translate such an allegory into Victorian England? That
is just what George Bernard Shaw does in his version of the Pygmalion
myth. In doing so, he exposes the inadequacy of myth and of romance in
several ways. For one, he deliberately twists the myth so that the play
does not conclude as euphorically or conveniently, hanging instead in
unconventional ambiguity. Next, he mires the story in the sordid and
mundane whenever he gets a chance. Wherever he can, the characters are
seen to be belabored by the trivial details of life like napkins and neckties,
and of how one is going to find a taxi on a rainy night. These noisome
details keep the story grounded and decidedly less romantic. Finally, and
most significantly, Shaw challenges the possibly insidious assumptions
that come with the Pygmalion myth, forcing us to ask the following: Is
the male artist the absolute and perfect being who has the power to create
woman in the image of his desires? Is the woman necessarily the inferior
subject who sees her lover as her sky? Can there only ever be
sexual/romantic relations between a man and a woman? Does beauty
reflect virtue? Does the artist love his creation, or merely the art that
brought that creation into being?
Famous for writing "talky" plays in which barely anything other than
witty repartee takes center stage (plays that the most prominent critics of
his day called non-plays), Shaw finds in Pygmalion a way to turn the talk
into action, by hinging the fairy tale outcome of the flower girl on
precisely how she talks. In this way, he draws our attention to his own art,
and to his ability to create, through the medium of speech, not only
Pygmalion's Galatea, but Pygmalion himself. More powerful than
Pygmalion, on top of building up his creations, Shaw can take them down
as well by showing their faults and foibles. In this way, it is the
playwright alone, and not some divine will, who breathes life into his
characters. While Ovid's Pygmalion may be said to have idolized his
Galatea, Shaw's relentless and humorous honesty humanizes these
archetypes, and in the process brings drama and art itself to a more
contemporarily relevant and human level.
Pygmalion Theme of Language and Communication
We hear language in all its forms in Pygmalion: everything from slang
and "small talk," to heartfelt pleas and big talk about soul and poverty.
Depending on the situation, and depending on whom you ask, language
can separate or connect people, degrade or elevate, transform or prevent
transformation. Language, we learn, doesn't necessarily need to be "true"
to be effective; it can deceive just as easily as it can reveal the truth. It is,
ultimately, what binds Pygmalion together, and it pays to read carefully;
even something as small as a single word can define a person.
This one may seem like a no-brainer: Pygmalion's all about turning a
poor girl into a duchess, right? Well, sure, and Eliza's metamorphosis is
stunning. You could even go so far as to call it a Cinderella story. But
remember: Cinderella turned back into a poor girl before she finally
found her prince. Pay attention and you'll notice that not all the attempts
at transformation here are successful. There are plenty of false starts and
false endings. By play's end, Shaw's made one thing very clear: be careful
what you wish for.
Every single day we talk about ourselves, saying "I did this," "I did that,"
"I am," and "I'm not," but we don't usually think about what "I" means. In
Pygmalion, Shaw forces us to think this through. Some characters want to
change who they are, others don't want to change at all. Things get even
more complicated when identities are made up, constructed. The play
wants us to ask ourselves what I really means to think about different
versions of the self, and whether that self can ever really be changed.
Pygmalion Theme of Appearance
Is beauty only skin deep? Is it in the eye of the beholder? Or is it the
consequence of social circumstances? Shaw's more interested in dealing
with the big questions – like that last one – than with old saws. In
Pygmalion, anything from a pair of boots to a bath to an expensive dress
can tell us important stuff about a character, like their place in the world
or their state of mind. They can reveal what might normally be hidden
from view, or hide that which might normally be obvious. So appearances
can be deceiving, and the trick is learning how to judge what is true and
what is false. The thing is, it's not an easy skill to pick up.
Pygmalion Theme of Manipulation
In Pygmalion, we see different types of influence and control, sometimes
literal and other times metaphorical: the teacher training his student, the
artist shaping his creation, the con artist fleecing his mark, the child
playing with his toy. That said, these roles aren't always well-defined;
they can change easily, without warning. Sometimes the master becomes
the slave and the slave the master, in the blink of the eye, while other
times the two simply become equals. Shaw wants us to observe the
consequences of control, to see how these changes occur.
Pygmalion Theme of Society and Class
In Pygmalion, we observe a society divided, separated by language,
education, and wealth. Shaw gives us a chance to see how that gap can be
bridged, both successfully and unsuccessfully. As he portrays it, London
society cannot simply be defined by two terms, "rich" and "poor." Within
each group there are smaller less obvious distinctions, and it is in the
middle, in that gray area between wealth and poverty that many of the
most difficult questions arise and from which the most surprising truths
emerge.
Pygmalion Theme of Women and Femininity
A lot, as you've probably guessed, has changed in the last century. Back
when Shaw wrote Pygmalion, women could not vote in the United
Kingdom; in 1918 women over the age of 30 were given the right, and it
took another ten years for all women to be given a voice. Shaw's
depiction of women and attitudes toward them is impressively and
sometimes confusingly varied. They are shown in conventional roles – as
mothers and housekeepers – and as strong-willed and independent. The
play pays special attention to the problem of women's "place" in society
(or lack thereof), and Shaw offers no easy answers to the tough questions
that arise.
Pygmalion Theme of Dreams, Hopes, and Plans
Mick Jagger is right when he sings, "You can't always get what you
want." It's true, sometimes just by trying you can get what you need, but
that's not always the way it works. What if you get what you want only to
find out it isn't what you imagined it would be? What if your dreams
come true, only to turn into nightmares? They say the best laid plans of
mice and men often go astray. Well, in Pygmalion that's true. That said,
Shaw also shows us what happens after everything ends up wrong. He
offers no quick fixes, but he does leave room for hope.