Pygmalion

GEORGE BERNARD SHAW

● Cool Irish dude

● Pygmalion

○ Title of the play refers to the Greek myth of the same name.

■ There was once a king named Pygmalion who sculpted a

very beautiful statue of a woman.

■ He falls in love with the statue and names her Galatea.

■ Venus brought her to life in answer to his prayers.

■ Together they gave birth to children.

○ Premier - Hofburg Theatre, Vienna, on 16th October 1913.

Presented in German.

○ English Premier - His Majesty’s Theatre, West End, April 1914.

Starring -

■ Herbert Beerbohm Tree (Higgins)

■ Mrs. Patrick Campbell (Eliza)

○ Other Adaptations

■ Pygmalion (1938) - Film

■ My Fair Lady (1958) - Musical

■ My Fair Lady (1964) - Musical Film

SUMMARY

● Act 1

○ A group of people sheltering from the rain. Among them, Mrs.

Eynsford Hill and her daughter Clara. Her son, Freddy, had gone

to get them a cab. (Which they can ill afford - they were

superficial social climbers, eking out a living in genteel poverty).

He fails to get them a cab. He hurries to get another one, bumps

into the flower girl Eliza while doing so. Her flowers, which she

needs to survive, fall into the mud.

○ A gentleman joins the scene, Colonel Pickering. Eliza tries to sell

some flowers to him. Whilst doing so, a bystander tells her that

someone was noting down everything she said. She thinks that

the man was a police officer, and would not calm down until the

man introduced himself.

○ The man was Henry Higgins, a linguist. He was noting down

Eliza’s speech patterns. He says that her speech was akin to

committing a crime - when she was given the chance to say

proper words in a beautiful language, she instead chose to yap.

○ Pickering and Higgins bond over their mutual admiration for

phonetics. They soon realise that Pickering had come all the way

from India to meet Higgins himself, Higgins was planning on going

to India to meet Pickering.

 ○ Higgins brashly claims that he would be able to transform Eliza

into a duchess just by making her speak properly. Eliza is

starstruck by this.

○ At the end, Freddy arrives with the cab, but realises that his

mother and sister had left him. Eliza takes the cab from him, using

the money Higgins had tossed her.

● Act 2

○ Higgins is demonstrating his work to the Colonel when his

housekeeper Mrs. Pearce tells him that a girl wanted to see him.

○ It was Eliza, who’d come because she wishes to speak like a lady

in a flower shop. She says that she would pay for her lessons.

○ Higgins is not interested. Eliza reminds him of his boastful claim

that he would be able to transform her into a duchess.

○ The Colonel then makes a bet with Higgins, stating that he would

pay for her lessons if he were successful.

○ Eliza is then made to have a bath.

○ Mrs. Pearce tells Higgins now that there was another girl who

was to be living in their household for a while, he must behave

himself and stop his swearing, and also improve his table

manners. He is dumbfounded himself as to what he did wrong.

○ Eliza’s father, Alfred Doolittle, arrives with the purpose of getting

money from Higgins for the loss of Eliza. He isn’t too concerned
 paternally about his daughter’s welfare and doesn’t care what he

does with her. He requests five pounds for his daughter. Higgins

is shocked at this low price, and is tempted to pay ten.

○ Alfred rejects the ten, saying that he sees himself as a member of

the undeserving poor, and that he intends on remaining

undeserving. His intelligent mind is untamed by education,

leaving him with an eccentric view of life. He is also aggressive,

and tries to hit Eliza when she arrives back.

○ Scene ends with Higgins telling Pickering that they had a difficult

job on their hands.

● Act 3

○ Takes place in Mrs. Higgins’ drawing room.

○ Higgins bursts in and tells his mother that he’d found a common

flower girl whom he was now teaching. His mother is

unimpressed as she was going to be busy attending to her guests

- the Eynsford-Hills. Higgins is rude to them on their arrival.

○ Eliza then enters the room and introduces herself. She starts

doing small talk with them, asking about the weather and their

family.

○ She is now able to speak in a more polished manner, but the

substance of her speech is still lacklustre.

 ○ She ends up confiding in them her suspicions that her aunt was

murdered by her own relatives, that gin was the motherly milk

which her aunt lived on, and that her own father was always more

cheerful after some gin.

○ Higgins passess off her remarks as the new small talk.

○ Freddy is enamoured by Eliza. When she is leaving, he asks her

whether she was going to walk across the park so that he could

accompany her. To this, she replied - “Walk? Not bloody likely!”

■ This is the most famous line from the play.

■ For many years, the use of the word bloody was known as a

pygmalion.

■ Mrs. Campbell, who played the role of Eliza in the theatrical

debut, was considered to have risked her career by

speaking that line out loud on stage.

○ After Eliza and the guests leave, Higgins asks for his mothers

opinion on his student. She says that she was concerned about

what will happen to her - Higgins and Pickering don’t understand

what she means, and they leave confidently. Mrs. Higgins

remarks - “Men! Men! Men!”

● Act 4

○ Higgins, Pickering, and Eliza return from a ball.

○ Eliza sits tiredly. Higgins is congratulated by Pickering for having

won the bet. Higgins scoffs it off, declaring the evening a “silly

tomfoolery”, and thanks God that it was over, saying that he’d

been sick of the whole thing for months. He barely acknowledges

Eliza, and even asks her to leave Mrs. Pearce a note regarding his

coffee. Pickering and Higgins go to bed.

○ A while later, Higgins returns to the room looking for his slippers.

Eliza throws the slippers at him.

○ At first, Higgins was unable to understand why Eliza was upset.

Initially he thinks it was because she was being ignored and not

congratulated enough. But it soon became clear that she was

worried about what she was going to be doing now.

○ Higgins states that she could get married. Eliza interprets this as

prostitution, and claims that “We were above that at the corner

of Tottenham Court Road”

○ She returns her jewellery to him, including the ring that he gave

to her. In a fury, he throws the ring violently at the fireplace. -

“Damn Mrs. Pearce; and damn the coffee; and damn you; and

damn my own folly in having lavished MY hard-earned

knowledge and the treasure of my regard and intimacy on a

heartless guttersnipe!” He leaves the room. Eliza fumbles around

in the fireplace and retrieves the ring.

● Act 5

○ The next morning, Higgins and Pickering arrive at Mrs. Higgins’

home to insist her to call the police, stating that Eliza had walked

out on them.

○ Mrs. Higgins states that they were acting as if Eliza were a lost

umbrella.

○ Higgins is particularly distracted, because Eliza had been the one

who assumed the responsibility of maintaining his diary, his

possessions, etc.

○ Alfie Doolittle enters the room, dressed in wedding attire. He is

furious with Higgins.

■ Higgins, who had been impressed with his character,

recommended him as the “most original moralist in

England” to the rich American founder of the Moral Reform

Societies.

■ The American left Alfie Doolittle with a pension worth

3000 pounds a year.

■ As a consequence, Alfie feels pressured into joining the

middle class, and to also marry his missus in the process.

○ Mrs. Higgins states that this solved the problem of who shall

provide for Eliza. Higgins objects, stating that he did pay 5

pounds for Eliza.

○ Mrs. Higgins tells him that Eliza was upstairs. She explains the

circumstances of her arrival - that she felt marginalised and

overlooked the previous night. She tells him that he must be on

his best behaviour if he wants to meet her, to which he sulks.

Doolittle is asked to wait outside.

○ Eliza enters. Higgins explodes at her, but she is unfazed. She

throws his insults back at him, stating that she was ‘only a

squashed cabbage leaf’. She exclusively speaks to Pickering, and

tells him that it was only because of him that she was able to

become a lady - this makes Higgins speechless.

○ Eliza tells him that the flower girl she once was, was now left

behind. She couldn’t utter her old sounds if she wanted to. At this

point, Doolittle emerges, and Eliza relapses into her gutter

speech.

○ Higgins makes fun of her. Doolittle explains about the marriage

and asks Eliza to join him. Mrs. Higgins and Pickering agree that

they too will go. They leave Eliza and Higgins.

○ A confrontation occurs. Higgins asks whether Eliza would come

back. He says that there was no need for her to feel singled out,

as he treated everyone the same. Eliza replies that she just

expected a little kindness. Since he wasn’t willing to stoop to her

 level, she says she would not come back, and would instead be

marrying Freddy.

○ Higgins is outraged by this, stating that he made a consort for a

king. Eliza goes further and says that she would become the

assistant of his academic rival Nepommuck. He is so angry that

he says he would wring her neck if she did that.

○ Nevertheless, Higgins is struck by the fire within Eliza. He

remarks that he liked her like this.

○ Mrs. Higgins returns and Eliza leaves with her for the wedding.

○ Higgins gives Eliza a list of chores, as though their conversation

never took place. Eliza explains that it was unnecessary, and

wonders what he would do without her. Higgins laughs to himself

wondering how Eliza would put up with Freddy.

● Shaw’s Defence of the Ending

○ The theatrical audience of the time, and the critics as well, did not

fancy the unhappy ending. Everyone was expecting an ending

where Eliza and Higgins ended up together.

○ Shaw staunchly defended the ending of the play to deliver his

message. He was of the opinion that when Eliza emancipates

herself - that is, when Galatea comes to life - she must not relapse

into her old self and must carry her pride till the end. Higgins’
pride must be thrown off with an implacable pride. He should

stand on the balcony as he witnesses Eliza’s departure.