976 shaw, George Bernard
corner of Tottenham Court Road,” meaning that
she was more independent as a flower girl than as
a lady. She continues: “I sold flowers. I didn’t sell
myself. Now you’ve made a lady of me I’m not fit to
sell anything else.” Eliza has come to realize that for
many middle-class women, marriage is equivalent to
institutionalized prostitution.
One of the most interesting aspects of Pygmalion
is the false expectations it sets up with respect to
the relationship between Eliza and Higgins. Given
the subtitle of the play, A Romance in Five Acts, the
audience would expect the couple to fall in love and
live happily ever after, but Shaw does not follow
this conventional route. Instead, he rejects what he
calls the “ready-mades . . . of the ragshop in which
Romance keeps its stock of ‘happy endings’ ” and
has Eliza keep her independence. In fact, Higgins
encourages Eliza’s rebellion: “I think a woman fetch-
ing a man’s slippers is a disgusting sight: did I ever
fetch your slippers? I think a good deal more of you
for throwing them in my face.” Thus, while Ovid’s
Pygmalion creates Galatea to fulfil a romantic
dream, Shaw’s Pygmalion (Higgins) creates a “tower
of strength.” As it is performed, the “Romance” ends
with Higgins exclaiming, “By George, Eliza, I said
I’d make a woman of you; and I have. I like you like
this.”
Katherine Ashley
SocIaL cLaSS in Pygmalion
In Pygmalion, appearances are of the utmost
importance and are used to expose the shallowness
of class bias. Judgments are passed, and people
of all walks of life are categorized based on their
presumed social standing. A bystander identifies
Professor Henry Higgins’s class by his clothing,
announcing “e’s a gentleman: look at his boots.”
Higgins describes Eliza Doolittle—to her face—as
“deliciously low” and “horribly dirty,” while his
housekeeper, Mrs. Pearce, describes her as “very
common indeed” and later teaches her that she
“can’t be a nice girl inside” if she is dirty on the
outside. Meanwhile, Eliza’s father, Mr. Doolittle,
berates the middle classes for “never giving [him]
anything” because they think he is one of the so-
called “undeserving poor.” Furthermore, despite her
privileged upbringing, Clara Eynsford Hill lacks
the money to keep up appearances; consequently,
her mother’s class “simply would not have her.”
Every character is constrained by the outdated
social system within which they must operate.
For Eliza, social and personal advancement
necessitates changing her accent. She wants to
work in a flower shop, which “requires better En-
glish”; she therefore needs to learn to “talk more
genteel.” Higgins agrees and believes that her
“kerbstone English” will “keep her in the gutter.”
In this respect, both characters accept the relation-
ship between language and social class. Yet when
Higgins wagers that he can pass off Eliza, a flower
vendor, for a duchess, he little anticipates the con-
sequences of his experiment. Indeed, the fact that
he succeeds proves that class divisions are based on
superficial criteria.
As the characters soon discover, the transforma-
tion from flower girl to “lady” is more complicated
than simply modifying one’s accent. The comedy of
act 3 illustrates that what is said is just as important
as how it is said. When Eliza sells the Eynsford Hills
flowers in act 1, Clara is haughty, dismissive, and
rude; when she is formally introduced to them by
Higgins in act 3, her pronunciation is impeccable,
but her grammar and vocabulary betray her origins.
As Mrs. Higgins states, Eliza gives “herself away in
every sentence she utters.” Fortunately, because her
accent resembles theirs, Clara and Freddy mistake
Eliza’s lapses for the “new small talk.” Because of
her accent, Clara shallowly assumes that they are
social equals. Her scorn has turned to fascination.
As Eliza later remarks, “The difference between a
lady and a flower girl is not how she behaves, but
how she’s treated.”
Differences in social class are also apparent in
Shaw’s descriptions of living conditions and hygiene.
Accommodations, for instance, are juxtaposed in
acts 1 and 2: Eliza’s small room has damp wallpaper
and a broken window; Higgins, on the other hand,
lives surrounded by luxuries. Basic cleanliness is
another middle-class luxury that Higgins enjoys.
Eliza, in contrast, is as “as clean as she can afford
to be,” has no nightclothes, and uses her clothing
for blankets. When she takes up residence at Hig-
gins’s house, her clothing is burned for reasons of
cleanliness. Eliza is aware of the differences in their