Pygmalion
Writing about what happens to Eliza at the end of the play, Shaw commented "people in all directions have assumed for no other reason than that became the heroine of a romantic, that she must have married the hero of it". Do you agree from your consideration of Higgins's and Eliza with his words the true sequel is patent to anyone with a sense of humour in general and of feminine instinct in particular?
George Bernard's Shaws comedy `Pygmalion` presents the unlikely journey of an impoverished flower girl into London's society in the early twentieth century.
The two main characters in the play are Henry Higgins, master of phonetician and Eliza Doolittle, a common flower girl.
Some say Shaw created a mouthpiece of his own ideas and the character of Eliza is the personification of these views.
Bernard Shaw played two main roles in society before the publication of Pygmalion. Two of these may be link to his creation of Eliza and Higgins. Firstly his active role as a supporter of women's right, secondly his campaign for the simplification of spelling and the reform of the English alphabet. The two characters both represent his love for social action.
Higgins characters is not only extravagant but also comic. His passionate fondness for sweets and chocolates stands out in contrast to his seriousness and austere mode of living. He is constantly forgetting appointments, stumbling and tripping over something (Act 3 p58) "He goes to the divan, stumbling into the fender and over the fire ions on his way, extricating himself with muttered impatiently on the divan that he almost breaks it". These lines and oddities of his character contribute to the laughs in the play and place Higgins in the tradition of the comic hero.
Eliza on the other hand comes across as quite naive, simple and sometimes quite ignorant. Her behavior is the result of a poor upbringing and lack of education. Eliza has a strong moral...
View Full Essay
