Pygmalion

Analysis

Profesora Maura López

Beatriz Huerta Velasquez

 Summary:
The play starts with two old gentlemen who meet in Covent Garden, Professor Higgins
and Coronel Pickering. On the same place they meet Eliza, a girl who has a bad
language and the two men talk about transform her into a duchess. The next morning
Eliza appears into the laboratory of the professor and ask him to teach her how to be a
well-speaking person and well-mannered. Pickering goads into an agreement with
Higgins to cover the cost of the experiment of transform her just if Higgins can pass
Eliza as a duchess at an ambassador’s garden party. For a number of months, Higgins
trains Eliza to speak properly. Her first challenge was a completely mess but months
later at the second challenge of Eliza in the ambassador’s party, that was a huge
success, but when this finished, both Higgins and Pickering, don’t get Eliza’s effort, the
attention it deserves, this causes Eliza to be hurt. He suggested her to married with
somebody, so she returns the hired jewelry and she accuses her from ingratitude. The
next day Eliza bumps with Pickering and Higgins. First she thanks Pickering for always
treating her as a lady no matter the way she was, but threatens Higgins that she will go
work with his rival Nepommuck, and he cannot help but started to admire her. When
she leaves to her father’s wedding, he sends her a few messages for her to return,
assuming that she will go back to his house. But the books don’t let clear whether she
will return or not.

 Plot: the book is about two men who are specialist on language and in a conversation
decided to transform a girl which is impolite and her speaking is really poor. Finally
they get with his goal to turn her into a lady, kind of a duchess well- speaking and
independent.

 Setting: The book takes place in London, England in the early twentieth century. The
plays action takes place into three places: Covent Garden (Market on London west
end), Henry Higgins’s laboratory and his living room on Mister Higgins’s apartment.

 Climax: To me the climax starts when her is a huge success in the ball, pickering and
higgins didn’t recognize the effort of eliza to get to their goal, make her a polite and
well-speak lady. That is why she left the home of Henry and throw out Higgin’s
sleepers to show her dissapointment before it.

 Context: This book was written in the early twentieth century. It is named Pygmalion
because of a Greek myth, Pygmalion was a man who look for his real love to make her
his wife with one condition, she have to be perfect. He were tired about looking this
and start making sculptors but he fell in love of one of its sculptor, Galatea. By the
intervention of Aphrodite she make the sculptor turns into life so he could love her
forever. Showing us a metamorphosis of a thing into a dream person like the
transformation of Eliza into a Lady.
 Author: George Bernard Shaw (1912).

 Themes:

 Language and communication: on this play, we can read all kind of language
forms. Language can separate or connect people and let discovered the social
situation of the person. And also when Eliza learn how to speak politely show
us that this concept that language show the social class of a person it is not
that true as we can see, because she learn how to speak and nobody noted
this.
 Transformation: it is because in the all book or play tell us how a person
transforms to another one. This metamorphosis of Eliza is like how to turn a
poor person into a duchess. But it was not successfully at all, because when
the transformation gets to the end, she didn’t know how to do with all the
things that she learn because didn’t feet to any place.
 Society and class: show us the different social classes, divided by language,
education and behavior. Also tell us one way of how to jump to the high class,
by the example of Eliza.
 Women and feminity: at the time of the play women could not vote and their
opinions were not significant. The role of the woman in the play is housewife’s
and mothers or strong-willed and independent. It also put emphasis on the
role of women in the society.
 Dreams and hopes: The dream of the characters in the case of Higgins or Eliza
is the most important issue for them. On one side she wants to be a lady and
he wants to turn her into a kind of duchess. But it also play a game of it is good
or bad to achieve that goal because it can be bad for them in some way.

 Topics:

 Social Classes
 Language
 Romance
 Dreams
 Transformation

 Characters:
  Professor Henry Higgins: he is a teacher of phonetics who put into practice
“Pygmalion” to a girl named Eliza Doolittle. He like to research about the
languages and sounds by using all kind of machines to make phonographic
materials and record the voice or dialects people. He is different from the
common people, sometimes i think that is against common society because of
his behavior. One of his faults is that is a man with strong character and
sometimes can hurt people who is around him.

 Eliza Doolittle: She is a poor girl who lives in the streets she finally became into
a polite, brilliant, beautiful young woman, smart and independent. She put
herself into the hands of Professor Higgins to learn how to be a kind of
duchess. All this to achieve her goals, to have a job and be a real good girl.

 Coronel Pickering: He is an expert in Sanskrit. His figure inside the play is the
image of the “father” and a really nice person. Eliza give all the credits to him
for being a gentleman and the fact that he makes her feel like a real lady all
the time.

 Symbols:

 The ring: represents the love and compromise of Eliza and Henry, when it was
thrown away by Higgins and she retrieved the ring making us think that she
rescue the feelings for him.

 Money: when Higgins gives Eliza some coins, represents the difference
between characters and conformity of social classes.

 Flowers: Eliza at the beginning of the book is a woman of flowers, before she
meet Henry. He gave her coins without accepting her flower, and after her
studies with Higgins she goes back to sell Flowers.

 Slippers: Higgins often loose his slippers, and Eliza always is the person who
find them for him. Reflecting her affection for him and avoiding him from
annoying.