I am simply too intelligent and demanding to be controlled by anyone. -Simone de Beauvoir Tete-a-Tete: The Lives and Loves of Simone de Beauvoir & Jean-Paul Sartre

This paper aims at examining and analyzing, as portrayed within G. B. Shaw’s Pygmalion, Henry Higgins’ transformation of Eliza Doolittle into a socially acceptable persona by a man, who gives himself her creator status. The paper discusses from a Liberal, Marxist, Socialist Feminist point of view, how the improvement in Eliza Doolittle’s manners is illusory, but also her loss of control and eventual awareness. It also talks about the differences between the expectations that society has for men and women.

George Bernard Shaw cleverly transforms what begins as an entertaining look at linguistics and turns it into a commentary on the impact of society on gender identities. Shaw’s Pygmalion portrays class and gender relationships through an entertaining plot that revolves around a flower girl and a Professor in Linguistics who are both playing their roles in a fatal bet. Professor Henry Higgins is initially more interested in Eliza because he wants to impress his friend Colonel Pickering.

The note taker. You can see her with her kerbstone English. It’s the English which will keep her in a gutter until she dies. Sir, in just three months I’d be able to pass this girl off as an ambassador at a garden party. I can even get her to work as a Lady’s Maid or Shop Assistant, which would require a better English. (Shaw 12)

Eliza’s desire to completely change her identity shows that she is regarded as someone essentially below Higgins and Pickering. The fact that she is a woman of social standing automatically makes her identity of little consequence. Higgins doesn’t seem to even consider her to be a real person. She is not treated with dignity because of her social status. Higgins doesn’t see Eliza as more than just a way to display his linguistic abilities. Eliza may lack the genteel ways of a traditional flower girl, but she knows her rights and is not tolerant of people who walk over her. She feels threatened because Higgins is taking mysterious notes. Underneath the hysterical outburst, there are a few statements that reveal a sense for personhood.

A young girl who handed out flowers at a wedding. He has no right to steal my character. I have the same character as any woman… (Shaw 10).

The young lady who was responsible for selling flowers. [With feeble indignation] I also have the right to come here, as do you. (Shaw 11)

You could say that these statements result from living in poverty and suffering as a London Flower Girl. She has little choice but to trust herself in order to survive. Eliza may not have a carriage or jewels but she is able to support herself through her work. She is able to be productive without relying on the approval of society. She is a strong, independent woman.

Eliza is a proletarian woman, a worker who has no choice. Mary Wollstonecraft, in A Vindication of the Rights of Woman tries to demonstrate how affluence acted against married, bourgeois, eighteenth century women. Wollstonecraft likened such “privileged” woman (whom she wanted to inspire towards a more humane way of life) to birds in cages who have no other purpose than to preen and “stalk from perch-to-perch with mock dignity”. Wollstonecraft believed that middle-class ladies sacrificed their health and freedom for whatever power, prestige and pleasure they could obtain from their husbands. Tong 13. Eliza Doolittle’s status is elevated to that of a middle-class woman, and Higgins becomes her guardian rather than a husband.

The women who were excluded from exercise in the open air were often unable to maintain a healthy physique and were denied the right to make decisions for themselves. The women were discouraged from developing reason because “a great deal of emphasis was put on gratifying oneself and others, including men and children” (Tong). Henry Higgins takes Eliza’s brazen way of life away by making her a lady. Her speech and manners are monitored, as well as her clothing and her choice of topics. She is forbidden to speak of economics, death, or disease because she’s too sophisticated to work as a florist. She is made to lose her independence as the two linguists use her for their own amusement.

PICKERING. Higgins: I’m interested. What about ambassador’s party? If you can do that, I’ll call you the best teacher in history. I bet that you won’t succeed. I’ll pay the lesson.

LIZA. You are really good. Captain, thank you.

HIGGINS. It is almost impossible not to be tempted by her. She is so disgustingly dirty, but deliciously low (Shaw 20,)

Eliza continues to believe that her experiment will bring her great economic benefits. She believes that florists will hire Eliza if they find out that she speaks well. Eliza doesn’t anticipate the social baggage attached to being a lady. The simple idea she had of taking speech lessons turned into passing herself off at an expensive function as a princess. Now, it’s hard to say whether or not her control is still in her hands. In order to appear ladylike, she must become a member the bourgeoisie. The bourgeoisie has a lot of money, and therefore can afford to make women stay home. However she is not wealthy. They are more oppressed because upper class women are not seen as being capable of productivity. They are viewed almost as decorative objects, which can be used to enhance the appearance of the home and entertain guests.

LIZA. Oh! Oh, if only I could get back to my basket of flowers! I am independent of you, father and the entire world. Why did I lose my independence? Why did you take my independence away from me? For all my expensive clothes, I am now a slave. (Shaw 79)

Eliza’s decision-making power is taken away by her taking on this role. She will be at the mercy and discretion of Higgins or Pickering as well as her father Alfred Doolittle. Alfred Doolittle, who has a sudden fortune, is also expected to assume the responsibilities that come with being an upper-class man. This includes caring for his daughter until she gets married. Doolittle, who is a proletarian and free of norms, seems to prefer the life of a proletarian over the formalities that come with bourgeoisie. Rosemarie tong explains that Heidi Hartmann, the socialist feminist interactive system of understanding gender and class, talks about a bargain struck by bourgeois men and proletarians to keep proletarians in line. Tong echoes Hartmann, saying that only if men of all classes–proletarians or bourgeoisie alike–could agree on a way to deal with this “woman issue” could patriarchy’s interests and capitalism’s be reconciled. This harmony was attained to some extent when bourgeoisie males agreed to pay the proletarians a wage that would allow them to stay with their families. (117)

Alfred Doolittle’s conversations with Higgins in regards to Eliza are an example. The goal is to keep Eliza at her place without allowing Eliza any choice. Eliza’s freedom is lost as a result of the transformation. Eliza can be settled by exchanging a few pounds with both men. They don’t seem to mind when they are warned that they are treading in dangerous territory.

MRS. HIGGINS. You two stupid men: what will you do with her afterward?

HIGGINS. This is not something I can see. She’s free to do as she pleases, given all the benefits I have provided her.

MRS. HIGGINS. The advantages that the poor woman had just been here! The habits and manners that prevent a woman from being able to earn her own income without giving her an income for a lady. Are you saying that? (Shaw 54)

These men will dismiss any solid plans for Eliza’s life by telling her that they can find her “light work” or marry her to someone capable of providing for her. The two men often make these statements without consulting her. This shows that they might think she is theirs and can decide how to treat her based on their whims. Higgins treats her like clay, just as Pygmalion treated Galatea.

Higgins, Pickering and her family “create” her identity and strip her off her old life and clothing. Higgins is attached to her primarily because of his familiarity with her and her beauty. Higgins switches from being her teacher to becoming her custodian.

MRS. HIGGINS. Your doll and you are both very cute.

HIGGINS. Playing! Mother, I can assure you that this was the most difficult job I’ve ever undertaken. You don’t know how fascinating it is to transform a person by giving them a different speech. It’s about filling in the gap between soul and class. (Shaw 52)

Here, the female identity is given to a woman who doesn’t conform to society’s normative structures. Eliza grew up without any knowledge about how to behave in a way that is socially acceptable to upper-class society. She had two priorities: selling flowers and eating enough. She kept her dignity to do this. Higgins’ and Pickering’s actions are not as important as they think. They are just improving Eliza’s behavior. Eliza wears fancy clothes and is taught how to talk ‘properly.’ She is only allowed to talk about weather and people’s health in her first meeting with Higgins after starting work. The fact that the conversation was limited to weather and health is a sign of how serious or realist topics were not acceptable. Eliza does not receive any academic training from the linguists other than phonetics, despite her being praised for her ability to learn quickly. Pickering or Higgins do not push her to be independent and to think critically. She is told exactly what to do.

The men were initially hired to improve the woman’s economic standing and to improve her speech. However, the two men decided to make a doll that would be the ideal social doll. In this situation, the women’s identity is based primarily on their appearance. Eliza, the hostess at the Ambassador’s party is well liked because she has a pleasing appearance and says everything that’s right. She portrays a wealthier and more refined image. She creates an image of wealth and good breeding. She becomes a stunning member of a “feathered species” (qtd.). Mary Wollstonecraft speaks about the “feathered race” (qtd. Eliza is said to have benefited most from Higgins’ and Pickering’s experiment. Her social acceptance, however hollow, is seen as an empowerment by Higgins and Pickering. She isn’t concerned about losing her livelihood, but she is.

Eliza’s power to penetrate upper class society, a mere surface mask, is a reflection of the lack of control she feels in her life. The play also shows how upper class societal standards differ with respect to gender. Higgins is not criticised for his loud, passionate and impulsive behavior. He is moody and irritable, and he curses. Mrs. Pearce says that he “walks over everyone” (Shaw 21, and hardly a word is said).

LIZA. It was very hard for me to always have Professor Higgins’ example in front of me. I was taught that I should be just like Professor Higgins, who could not control himself and used bad language when provoked. You would never have told me that women and men behaved differently if you weren’t there. (Shaw 72)

Eliza says that Higgins was tyrannical and he treated her with disrespect. Higgins retorts that he acts the same way with everyone. While Pickering treats a Flower Girl like a Duchess, Higgins will “treat an duchess as though she were a Flower Girl”. Higgins’ statement shows that he doesn’t care about respectability. It has long been a feature of Higgins that audiences have enjoyed, but Eliza may not find it as appealing. Eliza’s emotionality or her tendency to overreact is often criticized. This behavior could be due to the expectations society places on women, and the structures it sets up for them. Wollstonecraft denied that by nature women are more pleasure-seeking and pleasure-giving than men. She argued that men, if confined in the same cages as women, would develop the exact same flaws. When men are denied the chance to develop morality, or to have concerns and commitments that go beyond their own pleasure, they, like women, become too “emotional”, as Wollstonecraft often associated it with hypersensitivity. In Tong 14,

Higgins is a narcissist and self-indulgent individual who fits Wollstonecraft’s definition of emotional. This term was used often to insult women, which is ironic. Eliza, realizing her productivity had been snatched from her, resists the “empowerment”. Marxism describes a similar class consciousness, but in this instance it’s an individual awareness that they are being exploited.

After she realizes that Higgins only saw her as a conquest after the party, she takes back control of her own life. After snatching the control of her life back from Higgins, she quickly distances herself from the girl at Higgins’ home who was doing menial chores like fetching his shoes. She uses his articulation to tell him she’ll do whatever she wants. Eliza declares to Higgins that she will never see him again at the end of Shaw’s play. He then rattles off an errand list for her. Eliza dismissively asks Higgins to run them himself. That is her last statement in the play. Eliza is a woman who has changed a lot over the years. From a flower girl easily flustered by a simple doll, she’s now a confident and smart woman. The ending of many adaptations has been changed to be “happy”.

My Fair Lady, arguably the best-known movie adaptation, shows Eliza going back to Higgins, speaking like her flower girl self. Shaw’s original intention was to adapt the play in the opposite way. He wrote a note explaining what happened after the play.

Paul Lauter compares two Shaw plays and discusses how they have been changed to suit the public: “The usual perversions” of Candida and Pygmalion make sense: in order to adapt the plays to musical comedy audiences, the playwrights must bend them into a sentimental frame and give them stereotypical happy ends. Producers must first and foremost give their house the dreams it deserves. But Shaw was out to make his subversive points; he could not, like his Don Juan, be content with the “romantic vowings and pledgings and until-death-do-us-partings” of sentimental marriage. In both plot and dramaturgy he showed how the artist must adopt strategies that are not based on silence but rather exile and cunning in order to survive in a world full of bourgeois clichés. (19)

The audience’s desire to have Eliza get together with Higgins proves just how blind one can become when confronted with a seemingly attractive man that is actually abusive. Barbara Cristina Gallardo said: “The unrequited affection between Eliza’s and Higgins has been turned into a romantic relationship that pleases the viewers. They become passive because it is not necessary to analyze the reasons as to why Eliza could not be with Higgins.” Despite that, some may believe it was because of the man’s status and the girl’s beauty. (2)

Shaw’s version does not show Eliza as a victim. She gets her money back, marries Freddy, a man who may be poor and insignificant but is still respectful to her. Eliza runs her own store with all the ups and downsides that come along with it. Eliza Doolittle is a literary icon for women in a world that overvalues their appearance and bombards them with behavior norms.

Work Cited

George Bernard Shaw wrote of the power of thought. He believed that our thoughts have a great control over our lives, and that they can shape our reality. Pygmalion. 1916. New Delhi: Peacock Books, 2013. Print.

Gallardo, Barbara Cristina. “Why don’t women speak the same as men?” “An Investigation of Gender in Bernard Shaw’s Play Pygmalion”. Florianopolis: Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina, 2001. Web. October 10, 2016.

Lauter, Paul. Shaw’s subversion of stereotypes in “Candida” & “Pygmalion”. The Shaw Review vol. 3, No. 3 (September 1960): 14-19. JSTOR. October 10, 2016.

My Fair Lady. Dir. George Cukor was a director. Perf. Audrey Hepburn and Rex Harrison. The Warner Bros. production studio released the film in 1964. DVD.

Rowley, Hazel. Tete-a-Tete. Loves & Lives of Simone de Beauvoir, Jean-Paul Sartre. Chatto & Windus published London in 2006. Epub.

Tong, Rosemarie. Feminist thought: A more comprehensive introduction. The book, Boulder, was published by Westview Press in 2009. Print.

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Amy Fox is a 28 year old school blogger, who has been writing for over 10 years. She has been a student at the University of Utah for three years and is now a graduate student.