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George Bernard Shaw

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Welcome to the LitCharts study guide on George Bernard Shaw's Pygmalion . Created by the original team behind SparkNotes, LitCharts are the world's best literature guides.

Pygmalion: Introduction

Pygmalion: plot summary, pygmalion: detailed summary & analysis, pygmalion: themes, pygmalion: quotes, pygmalion: characters, pygmalion: symbols, pygmalion: literary devices, pygmalion: quizzes, pygmalion: theme wheel, brief biography of george bernard shaw.

Historical Context of Pygmalion

Other books related to pygmalion.

• Full Title: Pygmalion
• When Written: 1912
• Where Written: London
• When Published: 1912
• Literary Period: Victorian period
• Genre: Drama, comedy, comedy of manners
• Setting: London
• Climax: In act four, after winning the bet concerning Eliza, Higgins says he has been bored with his experiment, and treats Eliza poorly. Infuriated, Eliza throws Higgins' slippers at him and argues and fights with him.
• Antagonist: While Eliza and Higgins argue with each other, they both cooperate in order to fool London's high society. The rigid hierarchy of social classes in Victorian England can be seen as the antagonist against which all the characters struggle, as they deal with issues of class and wealth.

Extra Credit for Pygmalion

Double Threat. George Bernard Shaw is the only person to have ever won both the Nobel Prize in Literature and an Oscar. He won the Oscar for his work on a film adaptation of Pygmalion .

Thanks But No Thanks. At first, Shaw declined to accept the Nobel Prize. He later changed his mind, but still refused the prize money, wanting it instead to fund translations of Swedish literature into English.

A Summary and Analysis of George Bernard Shaw’s Pygmalion

By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University)

Although it is often conflated in the popular imagination with the much-loved musical it inspired, George Bernard Shaw’s 1912 play Pygmalion is somewhat different from the romantic comedy My Fair Lady . Let’s take a closer look at Shaw’s play and some of its prominent themes. Before we offer an analysis of Pygmalion , though, let’s briefly recap the story of the play.

Pygmalion : summary

The ‘plot’ of Shaw’s play is easy enough to summarise. Henry Higgins, a professor of phonetics, has an almost Sherlockian ability to deduce the hometown or region of anyone based on their accent. He overhears a flower girl named Eliza Doolittle and mocks the common way she talks. The next day, Eliza shows up and asks Higgins to give her elocution lessons so she can learn to talk ‘proper’.

Eliza’s father, Alfred Doolittle, shows up and tries to get some money off Higgins: he shows himself to be boorish and prone to violence – he tries to strike his daughter when she sticks her tongue out at him – and Higgins, realising the upbringing his young protégé has had, acknowledges that he has taken on a mammoth task in trying to make Eliza into a respectable-sounding lady.

Higgins nevertheless accepts the challenge, with his friend Colonel Pickering betting him that he can’t pass Eliza off as a lady at the ambassador’s party in six months’ time. Higgins is emboldened by this challenge, and a few months later he tests his progress on Eliza by taking her to his mother’s drawing-room party, where Eliza’s diction impresses the partygoers. However, her use of vulgar language – including the swearword ‘bloody’ – is greeted less enthusiastically.

But the young Freddy Eynsford-Hill is smitten by her, and pursues her. At the ambassador’s ball, Eliza charms everyone with her diction and her language, and Higgins wins his bet. However, he loses interest in her afterwards, much to her annoyance. Indeed, he even crows that her transformation is only superficial and possible because of his work on her; when her father appears, announcing his marriage, and Eliza immediately reverts to her Cockney speech, he is triumphant. Eliza accepts Freddy’s attention instead, agreeing to marry him.

Note: the most famous line from the play was also the most daring. When Eliza is leaving Mrs Higgins’s party and Freddy asks her if she plans to walk across the park, Eliza replies, ‘Walk? Not bloody likely!’ Mrs. Patrick Campbell, for whom Shaw wrote the part of Eliza Doolittle, was risking her whole career in saying such a strong swearword, for the times, on the public stage.

Pygmalion : analysis

Most theatre critics regard the musical adaptation of Shaw’s play, the Lerner and Loewe musical My Fair Lady , as a sentimental travesty of Pygmalion , and with good reason – not least because the friendship between Henry Higgins and Eliza Doolittle in Shaw’s play is founded on Higgins’s professional pride (read: arrogance) rather than any romantic interest he has in her. His lifelong bachelorhood is a result of his love for his mother, as Shaw himself made clear, and his interest in Eliza is purely professional.

Indeed, as the great critic Michael Billington notes in The 101 Greatest Plays: From Antiquity to the Present , Pygmalion is actually an ‘ironic inversion’ of the standard romantic plot. It gives us a boy (well, man) who meets a girl and then uses her to try to win a bet, before casting her aside as soon as he’s done so: hardly the way we expect a romantic comedy to end. Shaw felt the need to qualify his ending by adding a long epilogue to the play when it was printed.

Taking the superficial structure of the romantic comedy and inverting it for his own ends, Shaw explores the English class system with all of its petty attitudes and posturings. The fact that a Cockney flower girl can, with a few months’ tuition, be trained up so she will convince even the most blue-blooded within society that she is one of them doesn’t say much for the inherent superiority of the upper classes. It’s all a sham, a show: class is not just a social construct, but an artificial one.

The title of Shaw’s play alludes to the classical myth of Pygmalion, a Cretan king who fell in love with his own sculpture. She was transformed into a woman, Galatea, by Aphrodite, the Greek goddess of love. But here again, as Billington observes, Shaw inverts this love story: in Pygmalion a woman is turned into a statue, a ‘mechanical doll who resembles a duchess’.

As Shaw makes clear in the epilogue to the play, Eliza makes a carefully considered decision not to marry Professor Higgins, not least because she realises she could never supplant his mother in his affections.

Shaw’s socialist thinking is central to his exploration of the English class system in Pygmalion . In his depiction of the ease with which Eliza is transformed into a lady in fashionable upper-class society, he exposes the hollowness at the heart of that society.

And yet just as Eliza is easily made into a passable lady, so the spell can instantly wear off and she can be transformed back into her former self, such as when Mr Doolittle appears in the final act. It is, apparently, harder to lose or forget our humble roots than it might first appear.

But another of Shaw’s interests – indeed, his life’s project – is at the core of Pygmalion : the English language as it is spoken. In his preface to the play, Shaw famously argued, ‘It is impossible for an Englishman to open his mouth without making some other Englishman hate or despise him.’ He also states in the preface: ‘If the play makes the public aware that there are such people as phoneticians, and that they are among its most important people in England at present, it will serve its turn.’

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Pygmalion Questions and Answers

The Question and Answer section for Pygmalion is a great resource to ask questions, find answers, and discuss the novel.

What tensions already show in the relations between the Mother (later named as Mrs. Eynsford Hill), the Daughter (later named as Clara), and the son, Freddy?

It is raining in Covent Garden at 11:15 p.m. Clara complains that Freddy has not found a cab yet. Freddy returns to his mother and sister and explains that there are no cabs to be found. They chide him, and as he runs off to try again to find a...

What does Higgins mean when he says, “teaching would be impossible unless pupils were sacred”?

Higgins is answering Pickering's charge that he cannot be involved in an experiment where the girl (Eliza) is not treated with the utmost respect. Higgins replies that his pupils are sacred, which means regarded with reverence and respect.

explain the myth of pygmalion in what significant ways and with what effect.has shaw transformed that myth into his plav?

This story is about a sculptor who sculpts the most beautiful woman in stone ever and then falls in love with her. The sculptor's name is Pygmalion; the goddess in the myth transforms the stone into a real woman and they live happily ever...

Study Guide for Pygmalion

Pygmalion study guide contains a biography of George Bernard Shaw, literature essays, a complete e-text, quiz questions, major themes, characters, and a full summary and analysis.

• About Pygmalion
• Pygmalion Summary
• Character List

Essays for Pygmalion

Pygmalion essays are academic essays for citation. These papers were written primarily by students and provide critical analysis of Pygmalion by George Bernard Shaw.

• An Atypical Romance in Five Acts
• Nurture or Nature: The Gentleman Versus the Guttersnipe
• Pygmalion and Pretty Woman
• The Extent Contextual Attitudes and Values Regarding Gender and Class are Maintained or Altered in Pygmalion and Pretty Women
• The didactic purpose of Shaw's 'Pygmalion'

Lesson Plan for Pygmalion

• About the Author
• Study Objectives
• Common Core Standards
• Introduction to Pygmalion
• Relationship to Other Books
• Bringing in Technology
• Notes to the Teacher
• Related Links
• Pygmalion Bibliography

E-Text of Pygmalion

The Pygmalion e-text contains the full text of Pygmalion by George Bernard Shaw.

• Preface to Pygmalion

Wikipedia Entries for Pygmalion

• Introduction
• Inspiration
• First productions
• Critical reception

64 pages • 2 hours read

A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more. For select classroom titles, we also provide Teaching Guides with discussion and quiz questions to prompt student engagement.

Act Summaries & Analyses

Character Analysis

Symbols & Motifs

Important Quotes

Essay Topics

Discussion Questions

Discuss the similarities between Higgins and Pygmalion. Examine how Eliza and Pygmalion’s statue are alike and how they are different. How might Shaw be commenting upon the Pygmalion story? How are the lessons in the two stories similar or different?

How does Eliza Doolittle change over the course of the play? Which changes are the most meaningful? What do the constants in her character suggest about her character and Shaw’s themes?

How does Shaw reveal the hypocrisy and inconsistency of Victorian high society throughout the play? How does the transformation of Eliza reflect these flaws? Does Shaw present the possibility of social transformation as a positive or negative idea?

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Pygmalion by George Bernard Shaw | Summary, Characters & Themes

Julie has taught English and reading classes for over six years. She have a bachelor's in Sociology from Fordham University and a master's degree in Education from the University of Pennsylvania. She also has specialized certifications in English Grades 7-12 and Special Education.

Shamekia has taught English at the secondary level and has her doctoral degree in clinical psychology.

Jenna received her BA in English from Iowa State University in 2015, and she has taught at the secondary level for three years.

Pygmalion Activities

Journal activities.

Respond thoroughly to the following questions. Remember to answer in complete sentences.

• What are the major themes from Shaw's play?
• Describe each of the main characters from Shaw's Pygmalion .
• Why does Eliza allow Professor Higgins to transform her? Why does she agree to do this?

Pygmalion Essay

Have you wondered why Shaw decided to call his play Pygmalion ? Well, Shaw was inspired by an Ancient Greek myth about a king named Pygmalion. For this assignment, you need to find a version of this Greek myth to read. After reading the myth, brainstorm the similarities and differences between the myth and Shaw's play. Then, write an essay describing these similarities and differences in detail. The essay should be at least 4-5 paragraphs with an introduction, body paragraphs, and conclusion.

Advice Column

For this assignment, pretend that you are Eliza Doolittle's best friend. She has just informed you that a linguist named Mr. Higgins wants to teach her proper English and transform her. As her friend, give her advice. Should she allow this man to teach her? Or should she tell him that she is just fine the way she is? Your advice column can be formatted as a letter, which means that it needs a greeting, a complimentary closing, and a signature.

Did Shaw write Pygmalion?

George Bernard Shaw wrote the play Pygmalion in 1913. The name is based off a Greek myth in which a sculptor makes a statue of the ideal woman and falls in love with her.

What does the ending of Pygmalion mean?

The ending of Pygmalion is ambiguous as it is not clear if Eliza will indeed go back to live with Higgins or start a relationship with him. However, Eliza has stood up for herself and asserted that she is still the same person she was when she sold flowers, and that conforming to upper class standards has not made her a better person.

What is the lesson of Pygmalion?

The lesson of Pygmalion is that social standing is not an indicator or goodness or integrity. Instead, anyone from any social class can be a person of good character and conforming to upper class social norms does not necessarily improve a person.

What is the main idea of Pygmalion?

The main theme of Pygmalion is that social class is not something to be valued. Those of a higher social class may not be good people, and those of lower social class can have many virtues of their own. There is no inherent goodness in being a member of the upper class.

What does Shaw criticize in Pygmalion?

Shaw wrote Pygmalion to criticize social class and division in England in the 1900s. He shows that class has nothing to do with quality of character and that social standing does not necessarily make one happy.

What type of story is Pygmalion"

Pygmalion is technically classified as a romance, as it tells the story of the relationship between Henry Higgins and Eliza. The last scene explores their feelings for each other, but leaves their ending up to the interpretation of the audience.

Table of Contents

George bernard shaw, pygmalion summary, pygmalion themes, pygmalion characters, pygmalion quotes, the lasting impact of pygmalion, lesson summary.

George Bernard Shaw was an Irish-English playwright born in 1856, who died in 1950. While he was born in Ireland, he moved to London in 1876, soon after which he became a theater critic. He started out as a novelist but began to write plays as a way to criticize current theater and English society. Perhaps his most famous play is Pygmalion from 1913. It not only comments on how the middle and upper class view themselves, but also deals with how rigid class distinctions were during that time.

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• 0:02 Introduction to Pygmalion
• 0:49 Characters
• 1:57 Plot Summary
• 4:54 Themes
• 5:50 Lesson Summary

Pygmalion is a play about a flower girl named Eliza Doolittle who speaks with a Cockney accent. This accent is heavy, a bit hard to understand, and considered lower class. She meets Mr. Higgins, a higher classed and arrogant man, who is convinced that he can train her out of that accent and make her more ladylike. The play tells the story of this process.

It's a rainy night, and people are huddled under a roof in the courtyard of a church, where a girl with a heavy accent is selling flowers. A military gentleman walks by and gives her some change, and then the flower girl and some of the other people see a man nearby taking notes. The girl is scared that he is a policeman, and begins screaming that she has done nothing wrong. The bystanders question him as to why he is taking notes, but every time someone speaks, the man correctly guesses where they are from. He then tells the crowd he is an expert in dialects and says that he would even be able to turn the flower girl's speech into that of a duchess if he tried. He introduces himself as Henry Higgins to the military gentleman, who is Colonel Pickering - also an expert in dialects who has been wanting to meet Higgins. The two go off for dinner and the flower girl excitedly uses the money she's made to take a taxi home.

The next day, Higgins and Colonel Pickering are continue their discussion of speech. Despite Higgins making an off-handed comment about turning the flower girl into a duchess the night before, the girl takes him seriously and shows up at his house asking for lessons. She wants to be sound proper enough to work at a flower shop instead of just selling flowers on the street. At first Higgins dismisses her, but Colonel Pickering is intrigued. He makes a bet with Higgins that if he can pass the girl, Eliza Doolittle , off as a duchess at the ambassador's garden party that he will cover the costs of the experiment. Higgins agrees, and the housekeeper, Mrs. Pearce, takes Eliza upstairs to clean her up. However, Alfred Doolittle, Eliza's father, comes by under the pretense that he is there to protect Eliza's honor, but he really is there to ask for five pounds from Higgins. He sees Eliza after her bath and is amazed, but eventually agrees to leave. Higgins and Colonel Pickering prepare themselves for the difficult task of turning Eliza into a gentlewoman.

Henry Higgins shows up at his mother's house. Mrs. Higgins is worried about his behavior in front of the company she is expecting, especially because he wants to bring Eliza to test out her new skills. The Eynsford-Hill family is coming over, made up of Mrs. Eynsford-Hill, her daughter Clara, and her son Freddy. Eliza enters after they all arrive and does well in their company, impressing them all with her speech and grace. However, once Mrs. Enysford-Hill brings up influenza, Eliza begins to get off topic and fall back into her old speech patterns. However, Freddy finds her charming as does Clara. All the company, including Eliza, leave and Mrs. Higgins lectures Higgins and Pickering about their experiment and what they plan for Eliza once the experiment is over. They ignore her concerns and return home.

The trio of Higgins, Pickering, and Eliza return after the ambassador's garden party. Eliza did very well, and the experiment was a great success. However, both Higgins and Pickering are ignoring Eliza and talking about her as if she is not there, which makes her increasingly angry. They say how boring the experiment had become and how relieved they are that is it finally over. The two go to bed, but when Higgins returns looking for his slippers, Eliza throws them in his face, expressing how hurt she is and how unimportant she feels. Higgins tells her that she is ungrateful. Eliza asks what is to become of her now and Higgins tells her she should get married and open a flower shop. Eliza says she wishes she never participated in the experiment. She implies she is going to leave and Higgins is actually hurt. He goes to bed and Eliza prepares to leave.

Higgins and Pickering show up at Mrs. Higgins house after Eliza has left. There, they find a well-dressed and wealthy looking Alfred Doolittle. Higgins jokingly arranged for Doolittle to be paid as a lecturer for his unique moral views. However, Doolittle claims that the money has ruined his life and that he hates "middle class morality" and would have preferred to behave the way he did before. Mrs. Higgins sends him outside as she sends for Eliza, who has been upstairs all along. Eliza comes down behaving very politely. She thanks Pickering for always treating her as a lady, even when she was just a flower girl. Doolittle comes back in, claims he's getting married and asks everyone to come. Higgins and Eliza are left alone for a moment.

Eliza and Higgins argue, with Higgins asking her to come back telling her that he will adopt her or she could marry Pickering if she likes. She retorts back that Freddy Eynsford-Hill has been writing her letters and perhaps she'll marry him and make money off what she learned from Higgins' speech lessons. While Higgins is annoyed, he finds himself attracted to Eliza. Pickering, Mrs. Higgins, and Doolittle all return. On their way out, Higgins asks Eliza to run some errands. It is unclear if she will actually do so, or if she will return to Higgins at all.

There are several themes in Pygmalion related to social standing and the perception of people within a society. A few are discussed below:

• Social Class: In the play, class is very important and characterized by how one dresses and talks. Eliza strives for a higher social class through her lessons with Higgins because she believes it will give her more opportunities. Additionally, people treat Eliza with more dignity and care once she appears to be of a higher class.
• Stereotypes: Gender stereotypes are prevalent, with men being viewed as more powerful and knowledgeable than women. The play also deals with class stereotypes as those who are higher class are supposed to be more dignified, cleaner, more polite, and of a higher moral character than those who are poor. The play actually challenges these stereotypes through Eliza's transformation and Higgins' arrogance.
• Appearance vs Reality: Despite her physical and speech transformation, Eliza is the same girl that she was at the beginning of the play at heart. However, because her appearance changed, she is treated much better than she was at the beginning of the play.

George Bernard Shaw creates a number of very interesting characters, from the strong but uncultured Eliza to the polished but arrogant Henry Higgins. Each character plays an important role in the play and contributes to the development of the major themes. The most important characters are listed below.

Eliza Doolittle

Eliza begins her life as a flower girl with a strong accent. However, as she works with Higgins and Pickering she learns how to speak properly and becomes a beautiful and well-spoken woman. She maintains her strong personality and stands up for herself at the end of the play.

Professor Higgins

Professor Henry Higgins takes on the bet to transform Eliza from a flower girl into a lady. He is arrogant and often cold and dismissive of feelings or emotion.

Colonel Pickering

Colonel Pickering is a former military officer and also an expert in speech and dialects. He bets Higgins that he will fund the experiment with Eliza if he is able to pass her off as a lady. He is always kind and courteous to Eliza, even at the beginning of the experiment when she is just a flower girl.

Alfred Doolittle

Alfred Doolittle is Eliza's father. He is greedy and asks Higgins to pay him off in exchange for letting him work with Eliza. At the end of the play, he has come into some money but misses his lower-class lifestyle.

Mrs. Higgins

Mrs. Higgins is Henry Higgins' mother. She is sometimes ashamed of how her son conducts himself and prides herself on being a lady. She takes Eliza in when she runs away from Higgins.

Freddy Eynsford-Hill

Freddy is a clumsy but kind boy who is also upper-class. He is charmed by Eliza and falls in love with her. It is implied that he has proposed marriage.

Here is a brief list of some of the most famous lines from Pygmalion :

1. Eliza: "No: I don't want no gold and no diamonds. I'm a good girl, I am."

Eliza repeats the line "I'm a good girl, I am" many times before her transformation. She wants to make it clear that although she is of lower class, she has integrity and is of upstanding moral character. In this particular line, she is also showing that she is not greedy or seeking fortune, as many be expected of her since she is poor.

2. Mrs. Higgins: "No, you two infinitely stupid male creatures: the problem of what is to be done with her afterwards."

Higgins: "I don't see anything in that. She can go her own way, with all the advantages I have given her."

Mrs. Higgins: "The advantages of that poor woman who was here just now! The manners and habits that disqualify a fine lady from earning her own living without giving her a fine lady's income! Is that what you mean?"

Mrs. Higgins lectures Higgins and Pickering after Eliza's first attempt at being a lady during the visit with the Eynsford-Hills because she sees that the men do not realize that Eliza, as a woman who was born lower-class, will not have many options regardless of how well she learns to speak and dress. Furthermore, Eliza has not mastered acting like a lady at this point in the play and seems nothing more than a toy for the two men with which to play and experiment.

3. Higgins: "I daresay my mother could find some chap or other who would do very well--"

Eliza: "We were above that at the corner of Tottenham Court Road."

Higgins: "What do you mean?"

Eliza: "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."

This conversation comes at the point in the play where Eliza is asking what Higgins intends for her now that the experiment is over. When he suggests getting married, Eliza implies that to get married to survive would be selling herself. She feels that it was morally superior to work for her living selling flowers as a lower-class woman than to be married for money as a lady. This contradicts all of what society supposedly values.

4. Eliza: "I want a little kindness. I know I'm a common ignorant girl, and you a book-learned gentleman; but I'm not dirt under your feet. What I done, what I did was not for the dresses and the taxis: I did it because we were pleasant together and I come--came--to care for you; not to want you to make love to me, and not forgetting the difference between us, but more friendly like."

Eliza again challenges classism here in Act V. She tells Higgins that she does not need romance but just wishes to be treated with some respect regardless of her social standing. She knows that there will always be significant differences between them, but believes that they are not so big that they cannot be overcome.

Pygmalion was first performed in 1914 and was quite popular. However, it reached greater popularity when it was first adapted as a motion picture in 1938. It was then adapted as a musical called My Fair Lady , originally starring Julie Andrews. My Fair Lady was then brought to the screen in 1964, starring Audrey Hepburn and Rex Harrison. Today, it is considered one of Shaw's best plays and is often referenced in popular culture.

Pygmalion was a play written by George Bernard Shaw in 1913. It deals with themes of social class , stereotypes , and appearances vs. reality .

It tells the story of Eliza Doolittle , a lower-class girl who sells flowers, and an upper class linguist named Henry Higgins . Higgins and his new friend Colonel Pickering make a bet that he can teach Eliza to be a lady and to be accepted in higher society. While they are successful, Eliza eventually questions whether it was worth it and if she was not happier in her lower social standing. George Bernard Shaw leaves the ending ambiguous but does enforce the idea that Eliza was always a strong woman, regardless of how she spoke.

Video Transcript

Introduction to pygmalion.

Living in poverty and struggling from day to day can be a very difficult way to live your life. Most of us, if given the opportunity, would try to make changes to our lives and our situation if we could. Pygmalion is a play by George Bernard Shaw that tells the story of a poor, young woman who has been disrespected and overlooked because of her appearance and the dialect she speaks.

When given the opportunity, she decides to get language lessons in order to gain the respect of others and improve her overall status in life. The outcome of her training is not what she expected, and she is not only able to change her appearance and speech but also gain confidence in her own abilities.

Eliza Doolittle is the main character in the story. She is first introduced as an unpolished, foul-mouthed flower-selling woman who is transformed into a beautiful, refined woman.

Professor Higgins is a linguist who believes he can transform Eliza Doolittle into a duchess in six months. He is an intelligent man but is also disrespectful to others despite their social class and extremely arrogant.

Colonel Pickering is a linguist who challenges Professor Higgins to transform Eliza Doolittle into a duchess. Colonel Pickering funds Professor Higgins' work with Eliza and is considerate and kind to her.

Alfred Doolittle is Eliza's materialistic father who tries to obtain money when he learns Professor Higgins is working with Eliza.

Mrs. Higgins is Professor Higgins' mother, who disagrees with Higgins' and Pickering's plan to try to change Eliza into a duchess.

Freddy Eynsford Hill - Freddy first meets Eliza during a meeting with his mother and sister at Mrs. Higgins' house. He falls in love with Eliza and writes letters to woo her.

Plot Summary

Pygmalion opens with two linguists, Professor Higgins and Colonel Pickering, placing a bet on whether Professor Higgins can transform the life of Eliza Doolittle by helping her learn to speak proper English rather than her cockney dialect.

Eliza wants to learn proper English so that she can get a job in a flower shop and offers to pay Professor Higgins to teach her. Colonel Pickering decides to pay the cost for Professor Higgins to teach Eliza and challenges Professor Higgins to present Eliza as a duchess for the ambassador's garden party. Professor Higgins believes he can make Eliza a duchess in six months.

Professor Higgins cleans Eliza up and begins his transformation of her; however, her father wants his daughter back home, or he wants money from Higgins and goes to Professor Higgins' home to get her. Eliza's father, Alfred, is a poor man who has been married many times and cares more about money than he cares about what is happening to his daughter.

Alfred leaves Professor Higgins' home without Eliza, when given money, and does not recognize his daughter when he sees her new, clean image. After being mocked and given advice by Professor Higgins, Eliza's father later becomes rich monetarily but finds himself unhappy.

Professor Higgins spends months transforming Eliza into a respectable English woman with proper language skills. After Professor Higgins thinks Eliza is ready to start mingling with others, he takes her to his mother's home to see how well she would do in the company of high-class people. Higgins' mother does not agree with the way her son and Pickering are playing with Eliza's life and tells them she does not think it is a good idea to treat Eliza this way.

At Higgins' mother's home is the Eynsford Hill family, a mother, son, and daughter. Eliza mingles with the family appropriately, but at times during this meeting, her dialect changes and she speaks cockney. Freddy Eynsford Hill, the son, is intrigued by Eliza and her cockney dialect. Freddy is interested in a relationship with Eliza and writes letters to woo her.

Eliza's second public outing is the ambassador's party, and Eliza presents herself in a positive way and is viewed as a duchess. Professor Higgins was successful at transforming Eliza from a ''flower girl'' into a duchess. After the ambassador's party, Professor Higgins and Colonel Pickering become bored with Eliza and are no longer interested in helping her.

Eliza becomes upset because she does not know what to do with her life. Professor Higgins suggests she get married. Eliza does not necessarily like that idea, but she is aware of Freddy's interest in her. Eliza threatens to become a speech teacher herself and provide competition to Professor Higgins. Eliza and Professor Higgins say goodbye to one another, but Higgins is convinced Eliza will return to him.

Social class - The basis of the play focuses on social class differences. These are depicted in the speech/dialect and wealth of the characters. The play challenges social order and expectations.

Stereotypes - In Pygmalion , there are a number of stereotypes perpetuated, such as gender roles and social expectations (higher society individuals being clean, smart, and good, while lower class individuals are dirty, unintelligent, and bad). The play points out that these stereotypes do not always hold true, as evidenced by Eliza Doolittle's transformation.

Appearance versus reality - Eliza is able to convince others that she is a duchess when in fact she is a commoner. Eliza is treated much better as a duchess than she was as a ''flower girl'', largely because her appearance changed, while who she is, in reality, did not.

Pygmalion is a play by George Bernard Shaw that tells the story of Eliza Doolittle, a young woman who speaks cockney and does not get respect from others. Eliza meets Professor Higgins and Colonel Pickering, two linguists, one rainy night, and they immediately feel she needs help to learn to become a '~proper woman'~. Eliza wants to improve her life and agrees to allow Professor Higgins to help her learn proper English and present her as a duchess.

Professor Higgins and Colonel Pickering view Eliza as a 'project,' and once their transformation of her is successfully completed, they do not care about what happens to her. Eliza becomes upset because she feels abandoned by Professor Higgins but speaks up for herself and takes the knowledge she learned in her work with him to improve her life. Themes of this play include social class, stereotypes, and appearance versus reality.

Learning Outcomes

This lesson on Shaw's Pygmalion could prepare you to achieve these goals:

• Name the characters of the play
• Summarize the plot of Pygmalion
• Discuss the main themes of the play

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Home — Essay Samples — Literature — Pygmalion — Pygmalion Eliza’s Character Analysis

Pygmalion Eliza’s Character Analysis

• Categories: Pygmalion

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Words: 614 |

Published: Jan 30, 2024

Words: 614 | Page: 1 | 4 min read

Table of contents

Eliza's appearance and social status in the beginning, eliza's motivation for change, eliza's transformation through education and training, eliza's struggles and resilience during the transformation, eliza's gradual assertiveness and self-confidence, eliza's ultimate empowerment and independence, references:.

• Shaw, George Bernard. Pygmalion. Penguin Books, 2003.
• Hornby, Richard. The Social and Economic Context of Shaw's Pygmalion. The Modern Language Review, vol. 60, no. 2, 2015, pp. 215-230.
• SparkNotes. Pygmalion Study Guide. Spark Publishing, 2019.

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Pygmalion Lesson Plans for Teachers

Teaching Pygmalion

The Pygmalion lesson plan contains a variety of teaching materials that cater to all learning styles. Inside you'll find 30 Daily Lessons, 20 Fun Activities, 180 Multiple Choice Questions, 60 Short Essay Questions, 20 Essay Questions, Quizzes/Homework Assignments, Tests, and more. The lessons and activities will help students gain an intimate understanding of the text, while the tests and quizzes will help you evaluate how well the students have grasped the material. View a free sample

Target Grade: 7th-12th (Middle School and High School)

Length of Lesson Plan: Approximately 154 pages. Page count is estimated at 300 words per page. Length will vary depending on format viewed.

Browse The Pygmalion Lesson Plan:

Full Lesson Plan Overview

Completely customizable.

The Pygmalion lesson plan is downloadable in PDF and Word. The Word file is viewable with any PC or Mac and can be further adjusted if you want to mix questions around and/or add your own headers for things like "Name," "Period," and "Date." The Word file offers unlimited customizing options so that you can teach in the most efficient manner possible. Once you download the file, it is yours to keep and print for your classroom. View a FREE sample

Lesson Plan Calendars

The Lesson Plan Calendars provide daily suggestions about what to teach. They include detailed descriptions of when to assign reading, homework, in-class work, fun activities, quizzes, tests and more. Use the entire Pygmalion calendar, or supplement it with your own curriculum ideas. Calendars cover one, two, four, and eight week units. Determine how long your Pygmalion unit will be, then use one of the calendars provided to plan out your entire lesson.

Chapter Abstracts

Chapter abstracts are short descriptions of events that occur in each chapter of Pygmalion . They highlight major plot events and detail the important relationships and characteristics of important characters. The Chapter Abstracts can be used to review what the students have read, or to prepare the students for what they will read. Hand the abstracts out in class as a study guide, or use them as a "key" for a class discussion. They are relatively brief, but can serve to be an excellent refresher of Pygmalion for either a student or teacher.

Character and Object Descriptions

Character and Object Descriptions provide descriptions of the significant characters as well as objects and places in Pygmalion . These can be printed out and used as an individual study guide for students, a "key" for leading a class discussion, a summary review prior to exams, or a refresher for an educator. The character and object descriptions are also used in some of the quizzes and tests in this lesson plan. The longest descriptions run about 200 words. They become shorter as the importance of the character or object declines.

Daily Lessons

This section of the lesson plan contains 30 Daily Lessons. Daily Lessons each have a specific objective and offer at least three (often more) ways to teach that objective. Lessons include classroom discussions, group and partner activities, in-class handouts, individual writing assignments, at least one homework assignment, class participation exercises and other ways to teach students about Pygmalion in a classroom setting. You can combine daily lessons or use the ideas within them to create your own unique curriculum. They vary greatly from day to day and offer an array of creative ideas that provide many options for an educator.

Fun Classroom Activities

Fun Classroom Activities differ from Daily Lessons because they make "fun" a priority. The 20 enjoyable, interactive classroom activities that are included will help students understand Pygmalion in fun and entertaining ways. Fun Classroom Activities include group projects, games, critical thinking activities, brainstorming sessions, writing poems, drawing or sketching, and countless other creative exercises. Many of the activities encourage students to interact with each other, be creative and think "outside of the box," and ultimately grasp key concepts from the text by "doing" rather than simply studying. Fun activities are a great way to keep students interested and engaged while still providing a deeper understanding of Pygmalion and its themes.

Essay Questions/Writing Assignments

These 20 Essay Questions/Writing Assignments can be used as essay questions on a test, or as stand-alone essay topics for a take-home or in-class writing assignment on Pygmalion . Students should have a full understanding of the unit material in order to answer these questions. They often include multiple parts of the work and ask for a thorough analysis of the overall text. They nearly always require a substantial response. Essay responses are typically expected to be one (or more) page(s) and consist of multiple paragraphs, although it is possible to write answers more briefly. These essays are designed to challenge a student's understanding of the broad points in a work, interactions among the characters, and main points and themes of the text. But, they also cover many of the other issues specific to the work and to the world today.

Short Essay Questions

The 60 Short Essay Questions listed in this section require a one to two sentence answer. They ask students to demonstrate a deeper understanding of Pygmalion by describing what they've read, rather than just recalling it. The short essay questions evaluate not only whether students have read the material, but also how well they understand and can apply it. They require more thought than multiple choice questions, but are shorter than the essay questions.

Multiple Choice Questions

The 180 Multiple Choice Questions in this lesson plan will test a student's recall and understanding of Pygmalion . Use these questions for quizzes, homework assignments or tests. The questions are broken out into sections, so they focus on specific chapters within Pygmalion . This allows you to test and review the book as you proceed through the unit. Typically, there are 5-15 questions per chapter, act or section.

Evaluation Forms

Use the Oral Reading Evaluation Form when students are reading aloud in class. Pass the forms out before you assign reading, so students will know what to expect. You can use the forms to provide general feedback on audibility, pronunciation, articulation, expression and rate of speech. You can use this form to grade students, or simply comment on their progress.

Use the Writing Evaluation Form when you're grading student essays. This will help you establish uniform criteria for grading essays even though students may be writing about different aspects of the material. By following this form you will be able to evaluate the thesis, organization, supporting arguments, paragraph transitions, grammar, spelling, punctuation, etc. of each student's essay.

Quizzes/Homework Assignments

The Quizzes/Homework Assignments are worksheets that can be used in a variety of ways. They pull questions from the multiple choice and short essay sections, the character and object descriptions, and the chapter abstracts to create worksheets that can be used for pop quizzes, in-class assignments and homework. Periodic homework assignments and quizzes are a great way to encourage students to stay on top of their assigned reading. They can also help you determine which concepts and ideas your class grasps and which they need more guidance on. By pulling from the different sections of the lesson plan, quizzes and homework assignments offer a comprehensive review of Pygmalion in manageable increments that are less substantial than a full blown test.

Use the Test Summary page to determine which pre-made test is most relevant to your students' learning styles. This lesson plan provides both full unit tests and mid-unit tests. You can choose from several tests that include differing combinations of multiple choice questions, short answer questions, short essay questions, full essay questions, character and object matching, etc. Some of the tests are designed to be more difficult than others. Some have essay questions, while others are limited to short-response questions, like multiple choice, matching and short answer questions. If you don't find the combination of questions that best suits your class, you can also create your own test on Pygmalion .

Create Your Own Quiz or Test

You have the option to Create Your Own Quiz or Test. If you want to integrate questions you've developed for your curriculum with the questions in this lesson plan, or you simply want to create a unique test or quiz from the questions this lesson plan offers, it's easy to do. Cut and paste the information from the Create Your Own Quiz or Test page into a Word document to get started. Scroll through the sections of the lesson plan that most interest you and cut and paste the exact questions you want to use into your new, personalized Pygmalion lesson plan.

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Kathy Hochul Just Upended a Lot More Than Congestion Pricing

By Tom Wright and Kate Slevin

Mr. Wright is the president and chief executive and Ms. Slevin is the executive vice president of the Regional Plan Association, a nonprofit focused on the economic health, environmental resiliency and quality of life of the New York metropolitan area.

Gov. Kathy Hochul’s decision to “indefinitely pause” congestion pricing in Manhattan is likely to reverberate for decades, much like the former New Jersey governor Chris Christie’s decision in 2010 to block construction of a badly needed new rail tunnel under the Hudson River.

Both were short-term choices that pushed aside critical long-term investments in the most mass-transit-dependent metropolitan area of the nation. The decision by Mr. Christie, which he said was based on the project’s cost, compromised the region’s competitiveness, economy and environment. Ms. Hochul’s could do the same.

Mr. Christie’s move earned him the enmity of many New Jersey Transit commuters, who never know whether their trip to or from work will turn into a hellish, hourslong ordeal on tracks owned by Amtrak that have suffered from decades of underinvestment and compound New Jersey Transit’s own problems. The plan he killed would have cost an estimated $12.4 billion and been completed by now. A project to build new tracks and another tunnel under the Hudson River is now underway, but it will take at least another decade and about $16 billion to complete.

Ms. Hochul’s action raises questions about whether congestion pricing, which was set to begin at the end of the month, will ever happen. It will mean continued congestion on some of the world’s most traffic-stymied streets and no relief from the air pollution from auto and truck exhaust. And it will leave the Metropolitan Transportation Authority without an expected $1 billion a year in toll revenue that the agency planned to use to secure $15 billion in bond financing for desperately needed improvements to the transit system.

This is not the right way to run the nation’s largest mass transit agency.

Congestion pricing of course has its critics. Most automobile drivers would pay a fee of $15 during peak hours to drive into Manhattan south of 60th Street. But the idea had essentially universal support from environmentalists, transit advocates, economists and policy experts. The fee was expected to reduce traffic in the city’s core by as many as 120,000 vehicles a day, significantly improve traffic congestion and reduce the exhaust that is fouling Manhattan’s air.

London and Stockholm have had similar programs in place for decades. After implementation, London immediately saw a 20 percent reduction in carbon emissions and a 37 percent increase in bus transit use. The results in Stockholm were similar and that city also saw a nearly 50 percent reduction in childhood asthma cases. (Children in the Bronx suffer from one of the highest rates of asthma in the country.)

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Texas’ New Plan for Responding to the Horror of Its Abortion Ban: Blame Doctors

Last week, in a widely watched case, the Texas Supreme Court rejected the claims of Amanda Zurawski and her fellow plaintiffs that they had suffered injuries after being denied emergency access to abortion due to lack of clarity in the state’s abortion ban. Zurawski v. State of Texas has offered an important model for lawyers seeking to chip away at sweeping state bans and even eventually undermine Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization , the 2022 decision that overturned Roe v. Wade . Now the state Supreme Court’s decision offers a preview of conservatives’ response to the medical tragedies that have been all too common after Dobbs : to blame physicians and hint that the life of the fetus ultimately counts as much as or more than that of the pregnant patient.

From the beginning, Zurawski had significance for patients outside Texas. Republicans have been increasingly hostile to abortion exceptions since 2022, demanding that sexual assault victims report to law enforcement when such exemptions do exist, dropping rape and incest exemptions altogether in many other states, and going so far as to require physicians to prove their innocence rather than necessitating that prosecutors prove their guilt . Nevertheless, exceptions are critical to the post- Dobbs regime: They are popular with voters and offer the hope—in reality the illusion—that abortion bans do not operate as harshly as we may expect.

The Zurawski litigation illuminated how exceptions fail patients in the real world. Physicians, afraid of harsh sentences up to life in prison, turn away even those they feel confident will qualify under exceptions. The exemptions, by their own terms, do not apply to any number of serious medical complications or fetal conditions incompatible with life. The Zurawski plaintiffs argued that Texas’ law should cover these circumstances and that if the opposite was true, it was unconstitutional.

Although this did not succeed in Texas, Zurawski created a blueprint for litigation in other states. It also kicked off a political nightmare for Republicans. Earlier this year, when Kate Cox, a Texas woman who learned that her fetus had trisomy 18, a condition that usually proves fatal within the first year, the state’s Supreme Court denied her petition for an abortion. In the aftermath, Republicans were flummoxed about how to respond.

The Texas Supreme Court offered Republicans one way to address the emergencies Dobbs has produced. The court began by limiting physicians’ discretion about when to intervene. The plaintiffs in Zurawski argued that physicians require protection when they believe in good faith that they need to protect the life or health of their patients. The court disagreed, suggesting that the standard was whether a reasonable physician would believe a particular procedure to be lifesaving.

On the surface, this doesn’t sound so bad. Who doesn’t want doctors to have to act reasonably? But determining how sick a patient must be is never straightforward—and is all the more complicated when the wrong answer will be determined after the fact by a prosecutor and the physicians with whom they consult, and when guessing wrong will result in a penalty of up to life in prison.

The court’s message was that physicians were the problem. They had misunderstood what the court portrayed as a perfectly clear law. Doctors were the ones who had refused to act reasonably and denied help to the patients that the court thought were deserving, like Amanda Zurawski herself. Texas had stressed the same argument throughout litigation in the case.

Republicans may well borrow the same strategy. If Americans don’t like the new reality that Dobbs has brought on, the party will argue, the GOP is not to blame. It is all the doctors’ fault. This allows conservatives to have it both ways: They frighten—or, in the case of Kate Cox’s doctor, block—physicians who might be willing to offer “reasonable” care, then blame the physicians for failing to care for their patients.

The court’s interpretation of the state constitution was just as revealing. The plaintiffs had argued that Texas’ ban discriminated on the basis of sex because only some persons are capable of pregnancy. The court rejected this argument, drawing both on Dobbs and on claims that have emerged in cases about transgender youth. Regulating abortion, the court reasoned, was no different from regulating gender-affirming care—it was a rule governing a specific medical procedure, not discrimination on the basis of sex.

What about the right to life? The Dobbs case held that U.S. citizens have 14 th Amendment rights only when that liberty was deeply rooted in history and tradition. Is there a federal or state right to access abortion to avoid death or serious bodily harm? As Reva Siegel and I have written elsewhere , there seems to be historical evidence to support this argument. And the political case for such a right is strong too. If courts say that there is no constitutional limit on state abortion bans—even if patients bleed to death—that will raise yet more grave questions about what Dobbs permits.

The Texas Supreme Court did not rule out the idea that the state constitution recognizes a right to life for the patient—or deny that high courts in other conservative states had identified a right to lifesaving abortions. But if there was such a right, the court noted, it would account for “the lives of pregnant women experiencing life-threatening complications while also valuing and protecting unborn life.” In other words, the court suggested, fetuses too have rights to life, and that means that the state has every right to deny treatment to pregnant patients in an effort to prioritize the well-being of unborn ones. Texas may not yet have written fetal personhood—the idea that fetuses are rights-holding people—into its constitutional law in clear terms, but the idea of fetal rights has already affected the lives of pregnant patients in the state.

Voters don’t seem to like the idea that fetal rights trump patients’ rights. The Texas Supreme Court has suggested that judges, not voters, may be the ones who decide the question.

But even in dictating what happens to pregnant patients across the state, other Republicans will join the court in pointing the finger at the doctors charged with implementing draconian bans. “The law entrusts physicians,” the court explained, “with the profound weight of the recommendation to end the life of a child.”

The U.S. Supreme Court is likely to make things worse for pregnant patients later this month, when it hands down a ruling on whether the federal Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act preempts an Idaho ban with very narrow emergency exceptions . None of this makes Zurawski a waste. It may not have changed the reality on the ground for patients in Texas, but it did tell an important story about the kind of America Dobbs has created—and it delivered voters a reminder that they still have the power to change it.