Higgins was not giving Eliza these lessons as a favour. Higgins’s behaviour showed that he did not acknowledge the fact that Eliza was a person with feelings. Higgins treated her as his slave who was in infinite debt to him. This is shown consistently throughout the course of the play. Examples of this form of behaviour on Higgins’s part can be taken to illustrate this from near the beginning and near the end of the play such as:
- When he first decided to take Eliza on as a student he was prepared to carry out all that he believed necessary without consulting, or even informing her even though it was her life which was going to be affected the most. This behaviour was shown when he said “She’s incapable of understanding anything” in reply to Pickering pushing Higgins to explain what was to happen to Eliza. After some time Higgins was finally convinced by Pickering and Mrs Pearce to explain what was going to happen to Eliza and his disregard for her feelings was shown in the way he spoke to her. There are many occasion where this is shown in this speech alone, one is “If youre [sic] naughty and idle you will sleep in the back kitchen among the black beetles, and be walloped by Mrs Pearce with a broomstick”.
- Another example from nearer the end of the play is after their visit to the Embassy. After continuous harassment from Higgins, Eliza had decided how to conduct herself in Higgins’s presence. When Higgins questioned where his slippers were Eliza got up and brought them to him silently even though she was not ordered or asked to do so. This was expressed through the stage directions in that section.
Eliza was strong willed and ambitious to do well in life. Her ambitions were what kept her from deciding to leave the Higgins household and live on her own. She put up with harsh treatment because she had been given an opportunity. Had Higgins not treated Eliza as he had then she would have been extremely thankful to Higgins. Higgins believed that he had the right to treat her as he pleased and she should have still been grateful to him. He treated her as an animal and as if he could do what he wanted with her and then send her back to where she came from when he was satisfied.
There were many possible reasons for Eliza’s delayed reaction to the harsh treatment to which she was subjected. The one I found most likely is that she was prepared to put up with some harsh treatment because it is to what she had become accustomed (Alfred Doolittle hinted that he had treated her similarly). She also began to like Higgins and wished to enter into an emotional relationship with him. When she felt that there was no chance that Higgins wanted to enter into such a relationship and he did not see her as a human being, she became upset and reacted as she did. This is shown in the way she said “I don’t matter I suppose” it was as if she was extemely hurt that Higgins did not care about her.
After further analyses of the text one can see that it is possible Higgins did have similar feelings towards Eliza but he was not able to express them in an appropriate and obvious way. A place where you can see this is when he said “youre [sic] not bad looking: it’s quite a pleasure to look at you sometimes” and “youre [sic] what I should call attractive”, therefore despite there being a mutual attraction between the two, a mutually desired relationship could not form because of both of their personalities. Eliza did not express to Higgins that she had affectionate feelings towards him because she feared that she would not receive similar affectionate gestures back. Higgins was not able to express how he felt towards Eliza because he had chosen to remain a bachelor before he began to feel this way. Higgins believed that if a man enters into a personal relationship with a woman then his work would have to be sacrificed as he expressed when he said “One wants to go north and the other south; and the result is that both have to go east, though they both hate the east wind. So here I am, a confirmed old bachelor, and likely to remain so.”
During Higgins’s and Eliza’s argument I feel that Higgins did make it apparent that he had feelings for her, however, at that particular moment Eliza was too angry to realize what he was implying. Eliza was very upset and she wanted to find a way to get revenge. Unconsciously she realised that Higgins was vulnerable at this point and found a way to make him lose his temper. When she left the situation it is probable that she realised what Higgins had implied but she also had to face the fact that it was too late to make amends to the damage she had done. I believe she did not really have feelings for Freddy but had unsatisfied desires to be filled and took advantage of Freddy’s love for her. If this was the case then her behaviour was unethical.
I believe there is no possibility of romance between the two because they both would believe that the other no longer feels as they did and have moved on. Neither of them would make the first move because of the fear of embarrassment and the fact that once they do make the move then they cannot go back. It is quite sad to see this. Neither Higgins nor Eliza was entirely responsible for this turn of events but they had to pay the full consequences for their joint behaviour.
