Class Differences in Shaw's Pygmalion

Pygmalion illustrates the difference and tension between the upper and lower class. A basic belief of the
period was that a person is born into a class and that no one can move from one class to another. Shaw,
on the contrary, believed that personality isn't defined by birth. Instead, he thought that you can
achieve social change if you really believe in yourself. As to the play, the barriers between classes aren't
natural and can be broken down.

Eliza and Alfred Doolittle, originally living in bad conditions, represent the working class. What happens
to Eliza and her father expresses Shaws belief that people are able to improve their lives through their
own efforts, but they have to consider that their character might change as well. Thus it doesn't seem
astonishing that the difference between a lady and a flower girl lies rather in her treatment than in her
behaviour. Shaw's criticism is obviously in the paradox of Alfred's character: He is happy being poor and
miserable being rich. In the same way, Doolittle shows how difficult it can be to change one's whole
personality. Once he becomes wealthy, he adapts to the conventions of the upper class and fears the
lower class. Instead of this development, one should develop one's own personal, flexible code of
behavior.

The upper class regards background and wealth as decisive and is keen to preserve class distinctions. In
the play they are represented by the Eynsford Hills appearing dishonest towards themselves. They
escape from reality and prefer an illusion. This can be explained by the fact that the Eynsford Hills are
lacking money, but refuse to go earning their own living. At the end, Clara can be seen as an exception
because she makes up her mind and takes an honest, realistic look at her own life. [303]

Pygmalion and My Fair Lady are a modern parallel of the story of Pygmalion, legendary sculptor and King
of Cyprus, who fell in love with his own statue of Aphrodite. At his prayer, Aphrodite brought the statue
to life as Galatea. George Bernard Shaw's play Pygmalion is the story of Henry Higgins, a master
phonetician, and his mischievous plot to pass a common flower girl, Eliza Doolittle, off as a duchess at
the Embassy Ball. In order to achieve his goal, Higgins must teach Eliza how to speak properly and how
to act in upper-class society. The play looks at middle class morality and upper-class superficiality, and
reflects the social ills of nineteenth century England, and attests that all people are worthy of respect and
dignity. Shaw's Pygmalion is Henry Higgins, professor of phonetics, who, comes upon a homely flower-
girl selling flowers in the streets, makes a wager with Colonel Pickering that in three months he can so
transform her as to pass her off for a lady. To Higgins, this is but a task that he accomplishes, a wager
that he wins; but in Eliza Doolittle, the flower girl, a new personality has been created. With the manners
and speech of a lady, she cannot fall back into her old life, and with those ways has come an asserting
will, which selects Henry Higgins, her creator, as her mate. To Higgins' dismay, he finds that his
laboratory case has surged into all his life, with emotional entanglements he had not anticipated.
Throughout most of civilization, people have been divided into social classes. In a lot of different
especially capitalist cultures there is an upper class rich, powerful and in control. Then there was a middle
class, less comfortably off than the upper class, and certainly less powerful, but respected nonetheless.
At the bottom there is the lower working class making up the majority of people, rarely having the
necessities of life and never considered by other classes no matter how long or hard they worked on
improving their situation. In the following essay, I will discuss whether George Bernard Shaw agreed with
this distinction and division of society and how he exhibited his views through his renowned play
Pygmalion. Throughout the play, ladies and gentleman are continuously recognized for who they are
through different factors such as how they are dressed, their manners, how they speak, morality or their
money. It is however noticeable that a combination of all factors is rarely to be found. For instance Henry
Higgins although well dressed, well spoken and with money, has manners which could not be
characterized as genteel. Alfred Doolittle (after acquiring some money) is well dressed, has some form of
manners and could be classified as rich, yet is not well spoken. Nevertheless, when the maid opens the
door to him she instantly perceives that he is a gentleman. So what really does make a lady or a
gentleman? Alfred Doolittle arrives at Wimpole St, in the second act, and doesn't even recognize his own
daughter, Eliza, just because she has been washed and elegantly dressed. Alfred: Beg Pardon, miss.
Eliza: Garn! Don't you know your own daughter? Alfred: Bly me! Its Eliza. This demonstrates that the
working class was not used to washing and dressing up, which was customary for the upper class. The
dissimilarity in the appearance of the upper class from the working class was so sensational that even
someone who was your own flesh and blood could be naturally mistaken. This trend of depicting
appearances goes right through to the end of the play, when on arrival at Mrs. Higgins' house, Doolittle is
mistaken for a gentleman by the maid, merely because of the way he is dressed Higgins: Doolittle! Do
you mean a dustman? Maid: Dustman! Oh no sir, a gentleman. The appearance of Doolittle is taken into
main consideration when it comes to deciding what class he belongs to. The question is raised, what
separates the classes really, if clothing can do so much for how someone is perceived. Apart from the
way people dress, they are also defined by the way they speak. In Pygmalion the way people converse is
a very important part of the play, not least because the structure of it is based on the fact that Eliza can't
speak properly and Higgins can teach her how. It was obviously considerably important to speak well at
that time, which is emphasized by Shaw over and over again. The play even starts with Higgins criticizing
the way that Eliza speaks, because it is not only up to standard compared to proper English it will also
resultantly keep her in the gutter for the rest of her days. He expresses that he could teach even
someone with such dreadful pronunciation within 3 - 6 months, this already means that whether you can
speak adequately or not doesn't actually mean anything, if you can be taught how to in such a short
period of time. Noticeably Shaw doesn't make it a must to speak correctly, this is probably for the reason
that a lady or gentleman, although would preferably have to have good English, would not necessarily
have perfect English to be accepted into the upper class. I think that language is a very important part of
our society, whether it should be or not, is another question. Some people seem to judge one's first
appearance and they don't look past what they see. Mr. Higgins never saw Eliza as more than a flower
girl, even though she had been a lady all along. Language is a powerful thing; it can make you a duchess
or a flower girl, a bum or a high society gentleman...or at least appear to be. Pygmalion also looks at
middle class morality through the characterization of Mr. Doolittle, Eliza's father. Mr. Doolittle is a
common dustman, an indolent man who spends his time drinking alcohol at the local pub. He is not too
proud to beg for money, even from Eliza. Moreover, he lives with a woman to whom he is not married.
When Henry Higgins writes to a politician and refers to him as the best moralist speaker in London, Mr.
Doolittle is forced into the middle class, and thus he must adhere to middle-class morality. This means he
is expected go to church, marry his live-in girlfriend, give up alcohol, refrain from picking up women, and
give money to his impoverished relatives. There will always be a division between the classes, but the
question is what distinguishes ladies and gentlemen from flower girls and dustman. Eliza says: Really and
truly, apart from the things anyone can pick (the dressing and the proper way of speaking and so on),
the difference between a lady and a flower girl is not how she behaves but how she is treated... I learnt
really nice manners and that's what makes one a lady. Because isn't the way you are treated more
important then what you are treated to? While one may expect a well-educated man, such as Higgins, to
be a gentleman, he is far from it. Higgins believes that how you treated someone is not important, as
long as you treat everyone equally. The great secret, Eliza, is not having bad manners or good manners
or any other particular sort of manners, but having the same manner for all human souls: in short,
behaving as if you were in Heaven, where there are no third-class carriages, and one soul is as good as
another. Higgins never respects Eliza, and never will in Act V of Pygmalion, Eliza confronts him about his
manner towards her. He (Pickering) treats a flower girl as duchess. Higgins, replying to Eliza, And I treat
a duchess as a flower girl. In an attempt to justify this Higgins replies The question is not whether I treat
you rudely, but whether you ever heard me treat anyone else better. Eliza does not answer this question
but the reader knows that Higgins has treated others better than Eliza. These are examples of Higgens
expressing his maleness to Higgins Eliza is a female not worthy of his respect, only thing she is worthy of
is fetching his slippers. Pygmalion looks at the superficiality of upper class society, a society in which
social status is determined by the language that one speaks, one's manners, and the clothes one wears.
It is astounding that Higgins is able to pass Eliza off as an elite, and Hungarian royalty at that, merely by
altering her appearance and speech. The wealthy are so superficial they can not see past Eliza's
appearance. On a deeper level, Pygmalion addresses the social ills in England at the turn of the century.
Victorian England was characterized by extreme class division and limited, to no, social mobility.
Language separated the elite from the lower class. In Pygmalion, Eliza's dialect inhibits her from
procuring a job in a flower shop; Pygmalion is about the universal truth that all people are worthy of
respect and dignity, from the wealthy nobleman to the beggar on the street corner. The difference
between a common flower girl and a duchess, apart from appearance and demeanor, is the way she is
treated. Treat the flower girl as if she were a duchess, worthy of respect and decency, and she will
become a better person as a result.

Shaw says that comedy must be didactic: it must teach as well as entertain.  Under the
guise of comedy, Shaw is presenting a serious issue, one that is not easily resolved. 
Shaw lived in a society structured by class.  For most, the class you were born into
determined the rest of your life, and few people made significant changes in class. 
Shaw is suggesting that class barriers, marked by speech and accent, are false
indicators of an individual’s worth and ability.  The upper class is not superior by
virtue of its birth.  A flower girl can pass for a duchess and prove herself worthy of
this status by virtue of her character and determination.  In a democratic society, this
is not a shocking assumption, but in Shaw’s society, England in the 19th and  early
20th centuries, it would be.
The play has five acts.  Act I serves as a sort of prologue.  In Acts II and III, the
flower girl becomes a duchess.  In Acts IV and V, the duchess becomes a complete
human being, unlike her creator, who never quite achieves this status.

Gender

She says, “you’re certainly a pretty pair of babies, playing with your live doll,”
which suggests that she understands how they view Liza: they take more credit for
Liza’s transformations than they give to her.  Pickering and Higgins are more
interested in their own power of transformation; Liza, in their eyes, seems not to
have any power.   Mrs. Higgins also wonders what will happen to Liza when they
are done with her: she is worried that Liza’s “manners and habits that disqualify a
lady from earning her own living without giving her a fine lady’s income!”  Mrs.
Higgins sees that being a “lady” in and of itself isn’t enough without the economic
support to go with it.  Her perceptions about the realities of class structures are
sharper than are those of her son or Colonel Pickering.

11.  A climactic event of the play, when Liza successfully plays the duchess, occurs
offstage.  Why do you think that Shaw makes this choice?  What is the true climax of
the play?

The “climax” of the a play or a novel is its highest dramatic moment; the turning
point of the play.  At the end of Act III, Liza is presented as a duchess, and passes
the test of Higgins’ former student Nepommuck, who thinks that she is
Hungarian.  Liza has successfully fooled everyone. Although it seems like being
successful in society would be the turning point of the play, the real turning point
occurs later, in Act IV, when Liza rebels against Henry Higgins.  Shaw’s real
point in this play has less to do with Liza’s transformation into a beautiful society
lady and has more to do with her transformation into an independent woman
who can think for herself; it is this transformation that is the real climax of the
play.  It is because Shaw’s play is more about the internal transformation that
occurs within Liza that the scene about externals, at the Embassy ball, is less
important.  Look at the beginning of Act IV: notice that Higgins and Pickering
talk about Liza as if she isn’t there, referring to her in the third person. 
Pickering at one point says to Higgins that the ball has been “a great occasion: a
triumph for you.”  But whose triumph is it, really?  Shouldn’t Liza at least share
in some of the credit?  When she tells Higgins that she’s won his bet for him, he
calls her a “presumptuous insect” and says that “I won” –he wants all the credit
for her success.
12. In Act IV, Liza is asking the same question about her future that Mrs. Higgins
asked.  What are the options available to her?  How is she in some ways more limited
in her choices than when she lived “in the gutter”?  What parallel does Liza draw
between a lady and a prostitute?

She asks Higgins what she is “fit for” and Higgins doesn’t really want to answer
that question.  Look at the stage directions for Higgins’s behavior: he is
“condescending” and doesn’t look at her while he talks, as if the whole subject
makes him nervous.  Remember that at the beginning of Act II we are told that
Higgins is more interested in science experiments than he is in people; emotions
(particularly women’s emotions) make him nervous.  In response to her
questions, the first option that Higgins can come up with is that she marry some
nice young man, which makes Liza even angrier. She tells him that as a flower-
seller she was “above that” and claims that now, as a lady, all she is fit to do is
“sell herself.”  The problem that Mrs. Higgins has predicted has come true: Liza
now has all the attitudes of being lady and is used to a certain level of comfort in
her life, but she cannot support herself without a man because she hasn’t been
trained to do anything other than be pretty and nice to talk to.  Running a flower
shop, at this point, no longer interests her—and she doesn’t have the money to
start such a business without Colonel Pickering’s help.

4. A joking comment by Higgins changes Doolittle’s life.  What is Doolittle’s new

job? Doolittle has achieved the middle-class respectability that everyone is supposed
to aspire to.  Why is Doolittle miserable?  What does this suggest about middle-class
respectability?

Higgins suggests as a joke to Ezra D. Wannafeller that the “most original

moralist at present in England” is Doolittle, dustman.  Wannafeller leaves
Doolittle money in his will to travel around giving lectures for moral reform.  As
a result, Doolittle is suddenly wealthy (by his standards) and respectable, neither
of which he likes very much.  He says that everyone “touches him” for money
and that he feels “tied neck and heels.”  Despite not wanting to be middle-class,
however, he won’t give up the money.  He says “we’re all intimidated,” by which
he means that he is afraid of ending up in the poorhouse in his old age, when he
is too old to work.  His misery illustrates that middle-class respectability may not
be that worthy a goal.  It also suggests that “respectability” may not have
anything to do with virtue: is Doolittle a “good” man?  Didn’t he essentially sell
his daughter to Higgins for the price of a beer, after all?  And yet now he is
considered a respectable man because he has an income.  Doolittle’s situation is
another way that Shaw satirizes the middle-class in particular and class
structures in general, particularly people’s belief that social class is something
innate, something that you are born with.  Shaw disagrees with this perspective. 
When Higgins says to Doolittle “either you are an honest man or a rogue,”
Doolittle says “a little of both, Henry, like the rest of us.”  Higgins doesn’t ever
want to think of himself as a rogue, but Doolittle is right: Higgins is both an
honest man and a dishonest man, as we can see by his treatment of Liza.