IOC Sample 1 – Transcription

I’ve drawn a passage from Pygmalion by Bernard Shaw. The passage comes in the end of
the novel when Higgins’ – a phonetician’s – bet has already been proven as Eliza, who was
a poor, deliciously common flower girl has been passed off as a Duchess at a high-class
ball. And so at this point, Higgins is essentially done with Eliza and so the passage is
about what Eliza’s next step is. But at the same time it’s about Higgins’ – it show
Higgins’ relaxedness and his non-concern with Eliza, as his bet and hypothesis has already
been proven.

The work itself, Pygmalion, is a comic drama. It’s Shaw’s reinterpretations of Ovid’s
classic myth about a sculpture who makes the perfect woman. The comedy uses
characters who embody certain aspects of class, be it a deliciously low flower girl or a
rich scientist, as well as characters who are socially mobile, for instance a character who
moves up all the class or characters who are moving down classes, and uses these
characters to criticize elements of class, notably elements of the established class
system in Britain at the time, which was 1913, when there was a very strong class
system, however one that was slowly being reformed. So he criticizes this established
class system as well as certain gender roles. This particular passage criticizes the
superficiality of certain class distinctions through characterization, stage directions,
repetition and dialogue.

To start off I’m going to talk about characterization and notably the characterization of
Professor Higgins, as his bet has been completed and has proven his hypothesis. In
essence we see that he is done with his experiment, and this shows very much in how he
is portrayed. For instance, he is very dismissive in the first four lines. He says, “It’s only
imagination, low spirits and nothing else. Nobody's hurting you. Nothing's wrong. Go to bed
like a good girl and sleep it off. Have a little cry and say your prayers: that will make
you comfortable.” So there’s a lot of words like ‘only’ ‘nobody’, ‘nothing’. So he is really
dismissing all of her problems, saying there are no problems that he can see. And even
the problem that he does see for her emotions, he says, “Have a little cry and say your
prayers.” So he’s diminishing that cry and diminishing her emotions. So he is really giving
off this air of nonchalance. And this comes again in his long speech here, where in the
stage directions especially we see that he has very little concern for Eliza. For instance,
“She looks quickly at him: he does not look at her, but examines the dessert stand on the
piano and decides that he will eat an apple.” That’s on line 19. And then again, toward
the end on line 32, “Eliza again looks at him, speechless, and does not stir. The look is
quite lost on him: he eats his apple with a dreamy expression of happiness, as it is quite a
good one.” So we see that he is more concerned with this apple, and just simple food,
even the fact that the apple is just ‘good’, such a trivial thing, is more important than
the life of this person that he has been spending his time with for such a long time,
which gives us this extreme nonchalance. There is this extreme nonchalance and non-
concern.

This is contrasted with the characterization of Eliza, who, yes, she has proven Higgins’
bet and she also in a sense has won, but her future is less secure, she hasn’t achieved
anything yet. She has this class and this ability to speak but she still, as in line 9, “pulls
herself together in desperation,” because, much like at the beginning of the novel, she
has very little future, and this small change has not changed that future yet. And we see

 
that again, further in the characterization, because her speech contains a great
repetition of questions. She says, “What am I fit for? What have you left me fit for?
Where am I to go? What am I to do? What’s to become of me?” Those questions repeat
the ‘w’ and always start with a ‘w’ which strengthens the coherence of all these
questions, but it also, in all these questions and this questioning mood, illustrates to us
that her future is very, very insecure, and we don’t know what’s going to happen to her
and neither does she. And so that comments on this class idea then, because, despite his
winning and despite his having finished and his success, she is nonetheless, completely
unsure of her future, and her advancement in the class system has not changed anything
about her future and her position. So we see that the class change has only been a
superficial one.

So, let’s see. Sorry, can I just take a second? [Pause].

Sure.

Now I’m going to move on to dialogue, where we see that the dialogue between them is
very much contrasting, I suppose, because when he says something she will contradict it.
So for instance, mostly seen in his mainly dismissal of all her problems, “It's only
imagination. Nothing else. Nobody's hurting you. Nothing's wrong.” This is a constant
dismissal, negativity and assumption of no problems, contrasted with her .. in the first
couple of lines, he uses very many ‘n’s. So we get this repetition of “nothing else,”
“nobody’s hurting you,” “nothing’s wrong.” And then that contrasts with the repetition of
the ‘w’s of “what,” “where am I to go,” and “what.” And so this is a contradiction of
extremely sure and extremely unsure. And so that gives us the idea of contrast between
the classes, because whereas the truly high class and the truly powerful are nonchalant,
the more superficially educated – as Eliza’s education is only phonetics – is more
questioning. But also we get this in this reversal of power dynamics. At first we see this
calm and relaxed Higgins, who especially in this long speech where he’s just allowed to
talk. He’s very much in power and in control of the conversation and she is somewhat
submissive in the conversation, and so that dynamic changes very much in line 35 when
she cuts him off. He says, “I daresay my mother could find some chap or other who would
do very well” for her to marry. And then she cuts him and says, “We were above that at
the corner of Tottenham Court Road.” And there what we see is that there is this shift.
And also so on stage that would be especially notable, because at first you see Higgins
relaxed and easy and then suddenly he being cut off. And then so on stage we have Eliza
who’s more to the corner of the stage in desperation. Now we see suddenly she snaps, she
cuts him off. Now we see after that that Higgins wakes up. So that would change the
whole stage dynamics from this powerful nonchalant character to this new powerful
character, as she wakes him up. And now he’s in more of a questioning mood and then he,
where before she said, “What am I fit for? What am I to do?” asking him, he now says,
“What do you mean?” So now he’s in the questioning mood and she has the power in the
conversation. She’s leading. And then she switches over to being able to talk about
herself and so then we see this switch of dialogue where she gains more power and that
power shift is really, the main thing that it tells us is that it’s – sorry I need to take
just one second – well it shows a shift in the entire play. As before this passive, low
class character now snaps and new becomes a more powerful character. What this does
is it also comments on Higgins’ reversal of gender roles as she now becomes this more

 
powerful character. But what also comes now, is that in her power she can say what she
wants to say. And her message is really that “We were above that at the corner of
Tottenham Court Road.” And also later, on line 39 to 40 “I sold flowers. I didn’t sell
myself. Now you’ve made a lady of me I'm not fit to sell anything else. I wish you'd left
me where you found me.” So now we see that she is like her father who became rich and
blames the rich for his moral corruption essentially. She says, ‘you’ve made me this high-
class woman, but now I have no more morals. Now I have to, instead of selling flowers,
sell myself.’ So that show superficiality of class also because it shows that not only is
class superficial, but its actually detrimental to morality.

So in conclusion, Shaw, through this characterization, stage direction, repetition and

dialogue, Shaw shows class to be extremely superficial, and that class change doesn’t
create a change in character. But also, more importantly, he shows that class destroys
morality. And so he criticizes class and, in the end, calls for a reform of class, which ties
into the context that where a revolution nary Britain almost also the fact that Shaw
himself is a socialist.

Great. Thank you. I’m going to direct you to the lines where Higgins – 10,11,12 – “He
thrusts his hands into his pockets, and walks about in his usual manner, rattling the
contents of his pockets, as if condescending to a trivial subject out of pure kindness.”
Could you talk a little bit about those lines?

Well again, it shows his nonchalance but also his, it says there, condescension of
Elizabeth and his trivialization of her struggle, which also comments on class, as Higgins
somewhat embodies this high-class scientist, and in this passage very much, the whole
high-class in general. And so, what it then illustrates is that the upper classes do not
care for the lower classes. They find that their struggles and their problems are just
trivial and aren’t important.

All right, now there’s mention of marriage in here. Could you talk about the Epilogue and
how it illuminates our expectations of what will happen between Higgins and Eliza?

Well the Epilogue is Shaw’s explanation of the novel and response to many critics and
audience members who thought that they would get married. And so it’s his aggressive
response to that. And so, in that Epilogue and here, we’re hinted at marriage and we’re
hinted at marriage between them. But Shaw does this almost comically, because he wants
to hint at this marriage but then show how it’s impossible. Could you repeat the question
again?

Sure: How does the Epilogue illuminate the idea of marriage? There is this expectation we
have that they will eventually marry. And you said that it was his aggressive response.
Why does he do it and how does he help us understand his purposes with this?

Well she uses the Epilogue and also aggressively because a marriage between Eliza and
Higgins would undermine his whole message of the play, and really of Pygmalion, because
in Pygmalion you really have this submissive ideal woman, but now he creates this more
powerful ideal woman, so also in this reversal at the end. And he wants to illustrate that
women shouldn’t be this submissive, perfect woman. So he is suggesting that Eliza

 
becomes this ideal woman. He want to say that the ideal woman is not one who is more
submissive to a more powerful man, and so that’s why he has her marry Freddy, a
submissive character, so that she is in the powerful role and he is in the submissive role.
So he almost takes a feminist viewpoint on the subject.

OK. Great. Thank you.