Higgins takes notes on how Eliza is talking on the street. Eliza, among others thinks Higgins is a policeman. ‘ I aint done anything wrong by speaking to the gentleman. Ive a right to sell flowers if I keep off the kerb.’ The people around Eliza agree with her, but a man notices Higgins boots. ‘ Its aw rawt: e’s a gentleman: look at his be-oots…She thought you was a coppers nark, sir.’ Eliza realises that he isn’t a policeman and finds out why he was taking notes on the way she spoke.
Eliza visits Higgins a couple of days later, Offering him some money to make her talk respectably. ‘ I want to be a lady in a flower shop stead of sellin at the corner of Tottenham Court Road. But they wont take me unless I talk a little more genteel.’ Higgins accepts her offer.
Eliza tries to speak posh towards Higgins, but sounds silly. She also uses slang words and pronounces her alphabet wrong. Pickering, Higgins’s friend makes a bet with Higgins that he can make Eliza into a Duchess for a gathering sometime in the future.
Eliza fits in with the society because she has built up a good reputation for herself. Higgins treats Eliza like a slave, but Mrs. Pearce (Higgins maid) takes good care of Eliza and makes sure Higgins isn’t to mean towards her.
Mrs. Pearce takes off Eliza’s clothes and burns them at Higgins’s command. Eliza is then taken to the bath. ‘ You expect me to get in that and wet myself all over! Not me. I should catch my death. I knew a women that did it every Saturday night and she died of it.’ Eliza proceeds into the bath and later comes out looking glamorous.
Eliza doesn’t fit in because she becomes stuck in between classes, Still being a lower class girl but sounding more and more like a Duchess. This could be a big problem for Eliza, If she ends up not marrying she will be ‘lost’ in life.
Higgins is in a way like Cinderella’s step sisters in the way that he makes Eliza do a lot of things for him. Treats her like a servant, but he does provide a roof over her head and food on the table. Which would be pretty luxury for Eliza considering her background. Eliza tries to stand up for herself and normally gets the support of Mrs. Pearce and sometimes Pickering’s.
All of these points back up my opinion of Eliza being similar to Cinderella. Like Eliza Cinderella was of a low social rank, Didn’t have many clothes, washed very rarely and worked hard for what she earned. Cinderella turned to her ‘Fairy Godmother’ For advice and so she could marry a prince and go the ball like her step-sisters, this is like Eliza asking Higgins to make her talk like a Duchess.
In conclusion I feel that there is a similarity between the two.
