Pygmalion Study Guide

Pygmalion has become by far Shaw's most famous play, mostly through its film adaptation in
1938. Shaw was intimately involved with the making of the film. He wrote the screenplay and
was the first man to win both a Nobel Prize and an Academy Award.
Shaw wrote the part of Eliza Doolittle for a beautiful actress named Mrs. Patrick Campbell, with
whom it was rumored that he was having an affair. This rumor later turned out not to be true, and
some critics read the disappointed love affair between Higgins and Eliza as reflecting Shaw's
own romantic frustrations including a long, celibate marriage.
Shaw once proclaimed: "The English have no respect for their language, and will not teach their
children to speak it. They spell it so abominably that no man can teach himself what it sounds
like." Much of Pygmalion is wrapped up with the class identification that comes with having an
accent in British society. As a socialist with strong convictions, Shaw used the stage to expose
hypocrisies surrounding marriage, language, and convention. Shaw's preoccupation with
language in this play may also have had something to do with the fact that the most frequent
criticism of his earlier plays was that his characters engaged in witty banter that lacked depth. By
making language the center of this play, Shaw highlights the significance of something that his
critics, despite their criticisms, were tending to downplay.
Pygmalion Summary
In Covent Garden, the Eynsford Hills wait for a cab in the rain. When Freddy goes to hail one, he
knocks Liza's flowers out of her basket. She accepts money from Freddy's mother, then Colonel
Pickering. A bystander warns her that a man is writing down what she is saying, and she
confronts him, saying that she has done nothing wrong. Higgins amazes the crowd by imitating
her accent and guessing where they all come from. Pickering and Higgins meet and agree to have
dinner, and Higgins fills Liza's basket with money before he leaves. Liza leaves in a cab.
The next day, Liza intrudes upon Pickering and Higgins in Higgins's home. She wants English
lessons, and Pickering bets that Higgins could not pass her off as a lady at the ambassador's ball
in a month's time. Mrs. Pearce takes Liza away to bathe her and dress her more appropriately,
and Liza's father arrives and demands some payment. Higgins likes him and gives him five
pounds.
A few months later, Mrs. Higgins is writing letters at home when she is interrupted by her son,
who shocks her by telling her that he is bringing a flower-girl to his house. The Eynsford Hills
arrive for a visit, as does Eliza--with her newly elegant accent and manner. Freddy is infatuated
right away. Eliza makes the mistake of swearing and describing her aunt's alcoholism, and she is
hustled away by Higgins. Clara thinks that swearing is the new fashion and shocks her mother by
saying "bloody" on the way out. Mrs. Higgins scolds Pickering and her son for not considering
what is to be done with Eliza after the experiment.

At midnight at Higgins's house, Eliza enters looking exhausted. Higgins ignores her, looking for
his slippers and crowing over her success at fooling everyone as his own. Eliza begins to look
furious. When Higgins asks where his slippers are, Eliza throws them at his face. She explains
that she does not know what to do with herself now that Higgins has transformed her. He
suggests that she marry, to which she responds that she used to be something better than a
prostitute when she sold flowers. She throws the ring that he gave her into the fireplace, and he
loses his temper at her and leaves the room. She looks for the ring in the ashes.
Mrs. Higgins is in her drawing room when her son comes and tells her that Eliza has run away.
Doolittle arrives and announces that after he spoke with Higgins, Higgins recommended him as a
speaker to an American millionaire who died and left him everything. Doolittle is now middleclass and hating every minute of it; his mistress is forcing him to marry her that afternoon. Eliza
comes downstairs (she ran away to Mrs. Higgins's house), and Higgins looks flabbergasted.
Doolittle invites Pickering and Mrs. Higgins to the wedding, and they leave Eliza and Higgins
alone to talk. Eliza says that she does not want to be treated like a pair of slippers--and Freddy
writes her love letters every day. When she threatens to become a phonetics teacher herself and
use Higgins's methods, he says that he likes the new, stronger version of Eliza. He wants to live
with her and Pickering as "three bachelors."
Mrs. Higgins returns dressed for the wedding, and she takes Eliza with her. Higgins asks her to
run his errands for him, including that of buying some cheese and ham. She says a final goodbye
to him, and he seems confident that she will follow his command.
The onstage drama ends, and Shaw narrates, in an epilogue, that Eliza recognizes Higgins as
predestined to be a bachelor; she marries Freddy instead. With a gift from Colonel Pickering,
Eliza opens a flower shop. The only person truly bothered by this state of affairs is Clara, who
decides that the marriage will not help her own marriage prospects. But then she begins to read
H.G. Wells and travel in the circles of his fans, and she is convinced to begin working in a
furniture shop herself in the hopes that she might meet Wells (because the woman who owns the
shop is also a fan of his). Freddy is not very practical, and he and Eliza must take classes in
bookkeeping to make their business a success. They do reach success, and they live a fairly
comfortable life.

Pygmalion Character List

Liza
a poor girl who was thrown out by her parents as soon as she was old enough to make a living
selling flowers on the street
Eliza Doolittle
the same person as Liza; what she begins to be called when she acquires a genteel accent and set
of manners under Higgins's tutelage
Henry Higgins
a professor of phonetics who takes on Liza as a pupil as a dare, or as an experiment
Colonial Pickering
an Englishman who has served in India and written in the field of liguistics there; a perfect
gentleman who always treats Liza with utmost kindness
Mrs. Higgins
Henry's mother, who disapproves of her son's wild ways and who takes Liza under her wing
Mrs. Pearce
Higgins's housekeeper; an extremely proper and class-aware lady, she heartily disapproves of the
experiment
Freddy
a poor, genteel young man who falls in love with Eliza
Clara
Freddy's sister, who regards Higgins as marriageable
Mrs. Eynsford Hill
Freddy's and Clara's mother

Mr. Doolittle
Liza's father, who amuses Higgins very much; he comes into a fortune after the death of an
American millionaire to whom Higgins had recommended him

Pygmalion Themes
Class
The social hierarchy is an unavoidable reality in Britain, and it is interesting to watch it play out
in the work of a socialist playwright. Shaw includes members of all social classes from the
lowest (Liza) to the servant class (Mrs. Pearce) to the middle class (Doolittle after his
inheritance) to the genteel poor (the Eynsford Hills) to the upper class (Pickering and the
Higginses). The general sense is that class structures are rigid and should not be tampered with,
so the example of Liza's class mobility is most shocking. The issue of language is tied up in class
quite closely; the fact that Higgins is able to identify where people were born by their accents is
telling. British class and identity are very much tied up in their land and their birthplace, so it
becomes hard to be socially mobile if your accent marks you as coming from a certain location.
Gentility and Manners
Good manners (or any manners at all) were mostly associated with the upper class at this time.
Shaw's position on manners is somewhat unclear; as a socialist, one would think that he would
have no time for them because they are a marker of class divisions. Yet, Higgins's pattern of
treating everyone like dirt--while just as democratic as Pickering's of treating everyone like a
duke or duchess--is less satisfactory than Pickering's. It is a poignant moment at the end of
Pygmalion when Liza thanks Pickering for teaching her manners and pointedly comments that
otherwise she would have had no way of learning them.
Marriage and Prostitution
These institutions are very much related in Shaw's plays, especially in Mrs. Warren's profession.
From his unusual standpoint of being committed to a celibate marriage, Shaw apparently feels
free to denounce marriage as an exchange of sexuality for money similar to prostitution (even
though this was not happening in his own marriage). Ironically, while her father expresses no
regrets when he is led to believe that Liza will take up this profession, it is she who denounces it.
She declares that she was less degraded as a flower-seller than as a "genteel" lady trying to make
an appropriate marriage--because as a flower-seller, at least, she wasn't selling her body.

Myths of Creation
Of all Shaw's plays, Pygmalion has the most references to Greek and Roman mythology. Higgins
represents Pygmalion, a Greek sculptor who lived alone because he hated women. Pygmalion
created a sculpture of a perfect woman and fell in love with it; after he prayed, Aphrodite brought
it to life for him. This statue is named Galatea, and it is represented in Shaw's play by Liza.
Unlike the myth, Shaw's play does not end in a marriage between the pair, and Liza is infuriated
with Higgins's suggestion that her success is his success and that he has made her what she is.
She has worked to recreate her identity as well.
Language
In this play and in British society at large, language is closely tied with class. From a person's
accent, one can determine where the person comes from and usually what the person's
socioeconomic background is. Because accents are not very malleable, poor people are marked
as poor for life. Higgins's teachings are somewhat radical in that they disrupt this social marker,
allowing for greater social mobility.
Professionalism
At the time that this play was written, the idea of female professionals was somewhat new. Aside
from the profession of prostitution, women were generally housewives before this period, and
there is some residual resistance to the idea of normally male professions being entered by
females in the play.
Moreover, Pickering is initially horrified by the idea of Eliza opening a flower shop, since being
involved in a trade was a mark of belonging to the lower class. Pickering is shaken similarly after
his experience of watching Eliza fool everyone at a garden and dinner party, saying that she
played her part almost too well. The idea of a professional female socialite is somehow
threatening to him.
Gender Solidarity or Antagonism
Although British society is supposed to break down along class lines, Shaw makes a point of
highlighting gender loyalties in this play. Although Mrs. Higgins initially is horrified by the idea
that her son might bring a flower-girl into her home, she quickly grows sympathetic to Liza. As a
woman, she is the first to express a concern for what will be done with the girl after the
experiment--the idea that her training makes her highly unmarriageable by anyone anywhere on
the social scale. When Liza runs away from Wimpole St., she instinctively knows that Mrs.
Higgins will take good care of her. Higgins's mother sides with Liza before even her son, not
revealing that Liza is in the house while Higgins is dialing the police.

In contrast, relations between people of opposite genders are generally portrayed by Shaw as
antagonistic. Higgins and his mother have a troubled relationship, as do the professor and Mrs.
Pearce. Freddy and Liza get along better perhaps only due to his more passive, feminine
demeanor.

Pygmalion Summary and Analysis of Act I

It is raining in Covent Garden at 11:15 p.m. Clara complains that Freddy has not found a cab yet.
Freddy returns to his mother and sister and explains that there are no cabs to be found. They
chide him, and as he runs off to try again to find a cab, he knocks into Liza, a flower girl, spilling
her flowers into the mud. Freddy's mother gives her sixpence when she complains that her
flowers are ruined. Colonel Pickering comes onstage, and Liza tries to sell him a flower. He
gives her three hapence. A bystander advises Liza to give Pickering a flower for it, because there
is a man behind a pillar taking down every word that she says.
Liza becomes hysterical, claiming that she has done nothing wrong. She thinks that he is an
informant for the police. The man, Higgins, shows Liza what he has written--which is not a
record of possible misdeeds. When she complains that she cannot read it, he reads it out to her,
reproducing what she has said in her exact accent.
Higgins amuses the small crowd that has gathered when he listens to what they say and guesses
their hometowns with exactitude. Higgins whistles for a taxi for Clara and her mother, and they
exit.
Liza picks her flowers out of the mud while Higgins explains to Pickering that he is able to guess
where people are from because he studies phonetics. To make money, he gives lessons to
millionaires to improve their English, which allows them to be accepted in higher social milieus.
When Higgins finds out that Pickering has been in India and is the writer of [I]Spoken Sanskrit],
he exclaims that he was planning to travel to India to meet the man. Pickering is equally excited

when he realizes that he has happened upon the creator of "Higgins's Universal Alphabet"--for he
has traveled from India to meet Higgins.
They arrange to have dinner together. Liza makes a last-ditch effort to sell Pickering some
flowers, claiming that she is short for her rent. Having recorded what she was saying, Higgins
points out that she cannot be short for her rent because she said she had change for half a crown.
(His record traps her in her own words after all.) Liza flings her basket at him in desperation.
Higgins hears a church bell tolling and generously fills her basket with money anyway, before
leaving with Pickering.
Freddy arrives in a cab, looking for his mother and sister. He does not know what to do with the
cab when he realizes that they have left already, but Liza wants to take the cab home. The
cabman looks doubtful at her ragged appearance, but she shows him her money before she gets
in.
Analysis
Besides introducing the major characters of the play, this act introduces socioeconomic class as a
central theme of Pygmalion. As a socialist, Shaw was particularly concerned with exploring and
exposing the power divide between the poor and the rich. By setting the play in London, Shaw
chooses to deal with a society that is particularly stratified. British class-consciousness is based
not only on economic power, as it is in many other societies, but also on history (historic class
differences). The play highlights British people's recognition of accents to differentiate among
themselves not only geographically (a Welsh accent is distinct from a Scottish accent, which is
distinct from a Surrey accent), but also to distinguish (on another but related dimension of
accents) the various social classes.
Higgins's ability to pinpoint the location of origin of members of the crowd means not only that
he can tell what part of England, or even what neighborhood of London, they are from, but also
that he can probably guess fairly easily their socioeconomic status. In the early twentieth century,
social mobility in Britain was slim to none, so the fact that Pickering's accent is audibly a
Cambridge one (tying him to a very upper-class university) means that he is upper-class and
likely to remain so. Conversely, Liza was born into Lisson Grove and, correspondingly, grew up
speaking with what was considered a terrible accent. She is thus likely to remain poor not only
because her family was poor, but also because everyone else can tell that she had a poor
upbringing from the way that she speaks.
Nevertheless, Higgins's system of teaching better English serves to undermine the system in
which his keen awareness of language so easily has allowed him to participate. Higgins, like
Shaw, sees the strict hierarchy of British society as mutable after all. Higgins's alphabet is a new
type of shorthand which more accurately conveys the exact sound of the speaker's voice. So,

while normal shorthand conveys the content of a conversation, Higgins's form also records the
intonation and accent of a speaker's voice. Even the name of his system of shorthand writing,
"Higgins's Universal Alphabet," not only indicates that it reproduces all the sounds of language,
but also implies that he believes that everyone should have access to elevated language.

Pygmalion Summary and Analysis of Act II

The next day at 11:00 a.m., Higgins and Pickering are at Higgins's place on Wimpole Street.
Higgins has just shown Pickering his Universal Alphabet, and they are about to break for lunch
when Mrs. Pearce shows Liza in. She has cleaned up somewhat and wants it to be known that
she arrived in a cab. She wants to take language lessons from Higgins, and she offers to pay him
back some of the money that he threw into her basket the night before in exchange. She also
implies that he was drunk when he gave her the money. Ultimately, she wants to work in a flower
shop, which requires that her accent become more genteel.
The idea of teaching someone like Liza grows on Higgins, especially after Pickering bets him he
could not pass her off as a lady at the Ambassador's Ball in six months. Pickering offers to pay
the full costs of the experiment, having Liza live in the house to become a full-time pupil. Mrs.
Pearce protests that the arrangement would be improper. She urges Liza to go home to her
parents, but Liza replies that her parents turned her out of their home once she was old enough to
make a living. Pickering protests that the girl might have some feelings, but Higgins claims that
she has none at all.
Liza attempts to leave, but Higgins offers her a chocolate. As a claim of good faith and to settle
her fear that it is poisoned, he cuts it in half, eats one half, and gives her the other. He says that if
she is a successful student, he will give her some money to start life as a shop lady. She accepts.
She is hustled away by Mrs. Pearce to be given a bath.
Pickering asks Higgins if he is to be trusted around women, and Higgins expresses incredulity at
the idea of being attracted to Liza. Pickering feels assured of his honorable intentions. Mrs.
Pearce reenters the room and makes Higgins promise to act as a role model for Liza by not
swearing. The training is to be about culture and manners rather than language alone.
Liza's father, Alfred Doolittle, arrives at the house. Higgins amazes Alfred by immediately
guessing that his mother was Welsh. Undeterred, Alfred claims that he wants his daughter back.
Higgins says that she is upstairs and that her father may have her at once. Alfred, taken aback,
says that Higgins is taking advantage of him. Higgins claims the reverse, arguing that Alfred is
trying to blackmail him. Higgins says that Alfred sent Liza there on purpose. Alfred claims that
he has not even asked for money yet, saying that he only found out where Liza was because she

took the son of her landlady for a ride in the cab on the way over to Higgins's house. He stayed
around hoping to get a ride home, and she sent him to get her luggage when she decided to stay
at Higgins's house. The boy reported to Alfred that she only wanted her luggage, but not to
bother with any clothes. Alfred says that this report naturally made him anxious as a father.
Higgins, seeing that Alfred has brought his daughter her luggage, asks him why he would do that
if he wanted to bring Liza back home. In not too subtle language, Alfred says that he does not
mind if Liza becomes Higgins's prostitute so long as he gets some money out of it, too. He asks
for five pounds. He adds that his life is very hard because he is one of the "undeserving poor."
Higgins, who finds this character delightful, offers him ten pounds, but Alfred takes only five,
saying that ten is too much and might make him feel so prudent that he would want to save the
money. Five pounds is just enough for a spree for himself and his "missus." Pickering says that
he should marry his missus. Alfred replies that he is willing, but the missus likes being unmarried
because it means that he has to be nicer to her and give her presents.
Liza enters wearing a stylish Japanese kimono, now that she is clean from her bath. She asks her
father if he recognizes her, and Pickering and Higgins express surprise that she has cleaned up so
well. Higgins invites Alfred to come back, saying that he would like his brother the clergyman to
talk with him. Alfred makes a quick escape, however, and Higgins explains to Eliza that he said
that so that her father would not return anytime soon.
Mrs. Pearce announces that the new clothes have come for Eliza to try on, and she rushes out
excitedly. Pickering and Higgins remark about how difficult their job will be.
Analysis
Despite the somewhat pathetic figure that she cuts initially, Liza's goal is admirable. She longs
for that which is precisely so difficult in British society: self-improvement. In this act, Mrs.
Pearce is the foil for Liza; she represents propriety and morality. Mrs. Pearce is duly shocked at
Liza's wish to attain a higher social class. The Americanmotif of success and class mobility
through individual hard work is not part of Mrs. Pearce's cultural inheritance.
Shaw is at pains in this act to show that Eliza does not enter into the deal willingly. Rather, she is
manipulated into participating in the experiment by Higgins's chocolates, plus his promises to
her that she will get married or own a flower shop if she does what he says. His offer is one that
she can hardly refuse in order to get what she wants. Shaw, who is often read as a feminist
playwright, sets Eliza up as a victim of the two older, better educated men, who take up Eliza's
case as a challenge rather than a humanitarian endeavor. This situation gives emotional weight to
her later anger against them.

The appearance of Eliza's father in this act is quite important, because we realize just how rough
a background Eliza comes from. She is an illegitimate child whose father is a dustman willing to
pimp his daughter. Doolittle, whose name is a pun on the fact that he hardly works, defines
himself explicitly as a member of the undeserving poor. Despite the humor that arises when
Doolittle explains that he is no less deserving than a widow who collects from a number of
different funds for the death of the same husband, the man's joke holds a grain of truth. As a
socialist, Shaw was concerned with all of the poor, not just the working or bereaved poor.

Pygmalion Summary and Analysis of Act III

A few months later, Higgins's mother (Mrs. Higgins) is writing letters in her drawing room when
she is interrupted by her son. She scolds him for turning up during her "at-home day," the day
when she receives guests. Mrs. Higgins claims that her son scares off her guests.
Higgins explains his bet with Pickering over Eliza and says that she is coming to the house to try
out her accent. Mrs. and Miss Eynsford Hill are shown in, and they are the same mother and
daughter who were waiting for a cab at the beginning of the play. Higgins recognizes them, but
he cannot figure out where he has seen them before. Freddy also arrives. Miss Eynsford Hill tries
to flirt with Mr. Higgins, but he rails at the company (including himself) for having no
knowledge of science, philosophy, or poetry--merely knowing how to act in society.
Eliza is shown in, exquisitely dressed, and she makes quite an impression. In fact, Freddy falls in
love with her. Mr. Higgins realizes that they all met on that day at Covent Garden, but nobody
else makes the connection. Eliza, who has been warned to limit her conversation to the weather
and to people's health, talks about an aunt of hers who supposedly died of influenza but who was
perhaps killed so that the killer might steal her new straw hat. Mr. Higgins grows alarmed, and
Eliza leaves, but the Eynsford Hills think that by talking about coarse subjects and swearing,
Eliza was using a new, fashionable type of slang. Pickering tries to support this assumption by
declaring that he can no longer distinguish high society from a ship's forecastle now that people
swear so often. Clara declares the "new slang" charming--and to her mother's horror, she herself
uses the British curse word "bloody."
Mrs. Higgins invites the smitten Freddy back to spend more time with Eliza. The Eynsford Hills
exit. Mrs. Higgins scolds the men, declaring that their project with Eliza, while clever, cannot
work because no skill in pronunciation or fancy dresses can change the subject matter of what
Eliza talks about. The content will trump the style; she will always give herself away. Like Mrs.
Pearce, she also disapproves of the fact that Eliza lives in the house with the two men. Moreover,
she complains that Pickering and Higgins are treating her like a "live doll."

The men protest that they take Eliza very seriously and are quite taken with her talents, including
the fact that she has a wonderful ear and has taught herself to play the piano. Mrs. Higgins
reminds them of the problem they have not yet faced--what to do with Eliza after the experiment
is over--and the men reply that they will set her up in some sort of genteel occupation. They exit,
talking about how they will take Eliza to a Shakespeare exhibition and then have her mimic all of
the people there when they get home. Mrs. Higgins resumes writing letters and exclaims,
"men!!" with exasperation.
Analysis
In this act we witness the transformation of Liza the flower-girl into Eliza the society lady. The
change caused by repackaging her in new clothing and providing her with a new accent is so
complete that she goes unrecognized by people who have seen her in her former state. Even the
rough content of her conversation does not reveal her class, despite the concerns of the people
who know to look out for such content.
The fact that Freddy becomes instantly smitten with her emphasizes the concept of infatuation on
the basis of external characteristics. He barely noticed her when she was a flower-girl, but the
change in her looks and her talk has made her infinitely more attractive to him. These
characteristics make her seem to be of a class much higher than before. The location makes a
difference, too; what would a girl like Liza be doing in such a respectable home? Furthermore,
the fact that the other characters play her as a cultured woman makes it harder for the visitors to
become suspicious.
Act III also brings a sobering touch of realism back to the play. Standing alone, the bet between
Pickering and Higgins seems amusing, worthwhile on humanitarian grounds, and intellectually
and practically challenging. Taken in the context of society more generally, a stance which Mrs.
Higgins emphasizes, the process is potentially dangerous. The primary function of genteel ladies
at this time was to secure a safe and lucrative marriage for themselves, a fact of which we are
reminded as Clara eyes Higgins. She views him as marriageable not because she loves him, but
because she has calculated thatshe would be a "good catch" monetarily and in terms of his
position in society. Eliza has already been made dangerous, however, because she exists outside
of this market. Because of her background and lack of pedigree, she is unmarriageable, no matter
how charming she may seem. Changing her accent and manner of dress ultimately will cause
confusion because it will come out that she is taking part in a slice of society of which she cannot
become fully a part-Freddy will only be disappointed. Mrs. Higgins puts it bluntly when she
complains that Higgins has given Eliza the "manners and habits which disqualify a fine lady
from earning her living without giving her a fine lady's income." The change of setting from the
isolated Wimpole Street laboratory into a "society house" makes this shift even starker. Eliza is
becoming too good for her old society, and she is not yet good enough for her new society. This

gap in the experiment is troublesome, and something must be done about it. It is not clear,
however, that the men are fully aware of the problem or that they have a viable solution.

Pygmalion Summary and Analysis of Act IV

At midnight on Wimpole Street, Eliza enters looking pale and tired, almost tragic. Pickering and
Higgins ignore Eliza, talking about where Higgins's slippers are and whether there is any mail.
They have been to a garden party, a dinner party, and the opera, and Eliza was extremely
successful, fooling everyone. Higgins expresses his contempt for society and says that he is glad
that the experiment is over, since he was beginning to grow tired of it. Pickering says that it is
almost scary how good at it all Eliza is-she is better than the society ladies. Eliza, who has gone
to find Higgins's slippers, begins to look angry, then murderous. Higgins leaves, asking Eliza to
turn off the light and to ask Mrs. Pearce to make coffee in the morning.
Higgins returns, looking for his slippers again, and Eliza throws them at him. Eliza angrily
explains that she does not know what to do with herself, now that she has won the bet. Higgins
says that she is overreacting. He tells her that after she sleeps she will feel better. He adds that
she is quite attractive, so maybe she could marry after all-perhaps his mother could find someone
genteel for her to marry. Eliza responds that she was above selling herself when she was a
working-class woman; she merely sold flowers instead of her body. Higgins replies that her
moral judgment against marriage is unfair.
Eliza asks whether her clothes belong to her or Pickering, since he is the one who bought them.
Higgins replies that of course they belong to her. When she protests that she did not want to be
accused of stealing them, he is hurt. (She has not forgotten her roots in poverty.) He says that that
her comment shows a want of feeling. Eliza pushes her advantage, asking him to take the hired
jewels to his room so that they will be safe. Higgins exclaims that he would shove them down
her throat if only he would not have to return them to the jeweler. Eliza also gives Higgins back a
ring that he bought her, a piece of jewerly that was not borrowed. He angrily throws it into the
fireplace and says that she has "wounded him to the heart."
Eliza is glad to get "a little of her own back." Higgins tries to regain his dignity, saying that he
has lost his temper for the first time in a long time. He leaves the room in a controlled manner,
but he slams the door on the way out. Eliza smiles, imitates his accent in a wild manner, and gets
down on her knees to look in the ashes for the ring.
Analysis

In this pivotal act, the relationship between Eliza and Higgins finally explodes. It is revealed that
there has been a deeper feeling between them, and the fact that he has given her a ring certainly
suggests a promise of marriage. This act also expresses Shaw's deepest condemnation of society,
which is fleshed out more fully in Mrs. Warren's profession; that is, he puts in Eliza's words the
idea that societal marriage is nothing better than the exchange of sex for money like what one
sees among prostitutes. Eliza, if not also Shaw, views the upper-class marriage market as more
degraded than her previous profession of selling flowers. From a class perspective, at least, her
opinion expresses Shaw's deep socialism, supporting the claim that the working classes can and
often do have more dignity than the hypocritical segments of the upper class.
Act Four also reveals an interesting power dynamic between Eliza and Higgins. Eliza most
greatly resents the fact that Higgins views her success as his own, and she is infuriated by his
idea that (like the mythological Pygmalion) he is the agent who created her. She views this claim
as presumptuous and dehumanizing. Although by questioning Higgins about the jewelry she
reminds him of the gap in class between them, she succeeds in making him angry. The ability to
affect someone who holds himself maddeningly superior to her heartens her-she is glad to get
"some of her own back" in this way. The relationship between the two now includes Eliza's
pleasure at being able to hurt Higgins.
Eliza's actions at the end of the act remind the audience of the very real dilemma facing Eliza:
what is she to do-stay or go? She mimicks Higgins, pleased that she has effectively gotten him
angry, but she then begins to search, almost compulsively, for the ring that she has just discarded.
This juxtaposition demonstrates that she still has feelings for Higgins, being not yet ready to
throw away the sentimental token that he gave her. Searching for the ring also suggests an
economic prudence on Eliza's part; her future is very unclear.
Pygmalion Summary and Analysis of Act V
Mrs. Higgins is in her drawing room when her parlor-maid enters and informs her that Pickering
and Higgins are downstairs calling the police. Mrs. Higgins sends the parlor-maid upstairs to
inform Eliza that the men are here and that she should not come until she is called. Higgins
enters and explains that he is frantic that Eliza has left-he cannot find anything and now has
nobody to remind him of his appointments. Mrs. Higgins scolds her son for calling the police as
if Eliza were a lost parcel.
The parlor-maid announces Mr. Doolittle, who enters in a fancy waistcoat. Doolittle claims that
Higgins has ruined his happiness. Higgins says that this is impossible because he only gave him
a small amount of money, and because he has had only two conversations with him since the first
one. Doolittle explains that Higgins wrote a letter to a man named Ezra D. Wannafeller saying
that Doolittle was the most original moralist in England, and the man died and left his millions to
Doolittle-partially to show that the Americans do not regard class in the same way that the

English do. Doolittle says that he is miserable after being made a gentleman: everybody asks him
for money, and he does not have the nerve to forsake his new wealth and station.
Mrs. Higgins says that at least he now can provide for his daughter. Higgins objects to this idea,
saying that he bought her for five pounds. Mrs. Higgins reveals that Eliza is upstairs, having
come upset very early in the morning. Mrs. Higgins censures them for not admiring Eliza or
telling her she did a good job.
When Eliza comes down, she looks self-possessed and very much at home. She uses the genteel
accents that Higgins has taught her. Higgins is furious and claims that he has made her what she
is. Pickering assures Eliza that he does not think of her as just an experiment, and she expresses
her gratitude to him for everything, especially for teaching manners to her. She adds pointedly
says that Higgins could not have taught her such manners.
Eliza says that the difference between a lady and a flower-girl is not in anything that she does but
in how she is treated. Pickering always treated her like a lady, whereas Higgins has treated her
like dirt. Higgins claims in response that he treats everyone like dirt.
Doolittle tells his daughter that he is marrying her mother. Doolittle is nervous, and he asks
Pickering to come to help see him through the wedding. Mrs. Higgins decides to go as well,
leaving Higgins and Eliza alone. Eliza says that she will not come back because Higgins only
wants her to pick up his slippers and the like. Higgins says that he cannot change his own
manners, but at least he is democratic: again, he says he treats everyone as if they were of the
lower class. Eliza says that she shall not be passed over and that she can do without Higgins.
Higgins says that he needs to determine if he can do without her, since he has grown accustomed
to having her around. Eliza claims that he should not have taught her anything because it only
leads to trouble, but Higgins claims that all creation leads to trouble.
Eliza says that she is holding out for something more, adding that Freddy is infatuated with her
and writes her letters every day. She says that she participated in the experiment because she had
come to care for Higgins, and all she wanted was a little kindness. She had not forgotten the
social and economic gaps between them. Higgins idealizes the lower-class life, saying that you
work until you are inhuman, then you squabble or make love or drink until you fall asleep. He
also says that Eliza needs too much attention. She says that to assert her independence she will
marry Freddy or become a teacher of phonetics. He finds her spirit to be attractive and says that
she is no longer a woman but a tower of strength. He suggests that she live with him and Colonel
Pickering, the three of them together as bachelors.
Mrs. Higgins returns dressed for the wedding, and she takes Eliza with her. Higgins asks her to
run his errands for him, including one to buy some cheese and ham. She says a final goodbye to
him, and he seems confident that she will follow his command.

The onstage drama ends, and Shaw adds, in an epilogue, that Eliza recognizes Higgins as
predestined to be a bachelor-and that she marries Freddy instead. (This was somewhat of a
scandal, but the fact that Eliza's father had become a social success made it less hard on the
Eynsford Hills.) With a gift from Colonel Pickering, Eliza opens up a flower shop. The only
person truly bothered by this state of affairs isClara, who figures that the marriage will not help
her own marriage prospects. But Clara began to read H.G. Wells and travel in the circles of his
fans, and she decides to begin working in a furniture shop herself in the hopes that she might
meet Wells (because the woman who owns the shop is also a fan of his). Freddy is not very
practical, and he and Eliza have to take classes in bookkeeping to make their business a success.
But they do make it a success, and they live a fairly comfortable life.
Analysis
The mythological themes that give the title to this play are at their strongest in this act. The
audience learns conclusively that Higgins truly views himself as Eliza's creator.
Shaw sets up a strange, almost Freudian symmetry between Higgins and his mother on the one
hand and Eliza and her father on the other. Higgins gives one of his reasons for never marrying
as his too great respect for his mother. Her love of beauty, art, and philosophy has led her son to
value Milton's poetry and his own universal alphabet more highly than he could a relationship
with a woman. From Eliza's perspective, Higgins seems too much like her father in that neither
of them really need her. Eliza genuinely cares about Higgins and is stung by the idea that he
needs her no more than he needs his slippers. This represents the same sort of nonchalance with
which Doolittle sells his only daughter in Act II for a five-pound note. Paternal relations and
romantic relations, should be stronger than this. But Higgins's respect for his mother seems to
interfere with his own life.
Shaw's description of the final state of affairs shows an interesting perspective on love. Freddy
was infatuated with Eliza and remains so, but it is unclear what her feelings are towards him. She
certainly likes him, but she continues to feel the most passionately (mostly in anger) about
Higgins. She wishes that she could get him on a "desert island" just to see him make love like
any other man-but this remains a private fantasy which Shaw dismisses as ultimately
unimportant. The social mores of the characters tend to favor balanced and practical love over
passionate, romantic love.
Despite the fact that Shaw moved away from Ireland at a young age, he is a quintessentially Irish
writer. (See, for instance, John Bull's Other Island Show.) Read in the light of the imperial
relationship between England and Ireland, Eliza's final declaration of independence might have a
political connotation, especially since language and location have been intertwined from the
beginning. The fact that the English forced their language on the Gaelic-speaking Irish, after
invading Ireland, has particular bearing on this play, where we witness a male forcibly teaching a

female to speak. (One might consider the possibility of similar themes of colonization and
intrusion that involve reshaping language in Shakespeare's (otherwise very different play) The
Tempest and, much later, Beckett's Endgame.) Like Shakespeare's Caliban, Eliza may see a
significant benefit of her newly-acquired language as the ability to curse her "master" with
fluency. And Ireland (like many countries) is feminized in the Irish popular imagination,
represented by female names like Erin and "Kathleen Ni Houlihan," while in colonial narratives
the conqueror is usually portrayed as male. Pygmalion was produced only four years before the
1916 Easter Uprising, and Eliza's demand for self-determination, after rising into her own social
maturity, may reflect the Irish nationalist cause.

Does higgins want a mate?

In the end, the most important person.... Eliza, determines that he doesn't. Eliza recognizes
Higgins as predestined to be a bachelor marries Freddy instead. (This was somewhat of a
scandal, but the fact that Eliza's father had become a social success made it less hard on the
Eynsford Hills.) With a gift from Colonel Pickering, Eliza opens up a flower shop.

What was elizas internal conflict?

Eliza's inner conflict is directly relates to her lack of confidence. She's a bright, funny, young
woman and is determined to meet her goals. Unfortunately, she sometimes allows the negativity
and thoughts of others to interfere.

coparision between the characters of freedy and higgens in whole play of

pygmalion

Higgins is a pompous intellectual who "masterminds" the experiment with Eliza. Unlike Freddy,
Higgins is rich and hence controls things around him. Freddy is a hapless poor young fellow who
seems part of this experiment. The fact that Freddy becomes instantly smitten with her
emphasizes the concept of infatuation on the basis of external characteristics. He barely noticed
her when she was a flower-girl, but the change in her looks and her talk has made her infinitely
more attractive to him.