On the Basis of a Close look at act four consider where your Sympathies may reside for the two Main Characters

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Sunil Obhrai        October 2006

On the Basis of a Close look at act four consider where your Sympathies may reside for the two Main Characters

        

Act 4 is a bad tempered emotional roller coaster between the two main characters, Higgins and Eliza. The reader feels sympathetic to both Eliza and Higgins at different parts of the act. At first empathy is felt towards Eliza but as the act progresses it is slowly turned towards Higgins. In this act the reader must try and understand the hidden relationship between Eliza and Higgins.

        The act starts of with Higgins and Pickering engaged in a conversation. Eliza walks into the room and Higgins is cursing for his slippers,

        “I wonder where the devil my slippers are!”

Eliza after hearing this leaves the room. She is barely noticed,

        “Higgins yawns again and resumes his song.”

Even when Eliza has accomplished this great achievement, Higgins and even the gentleman Pickering ignore her completely. This portrays Higgins and Pickering as cold, senseless men. Eliza later returns to the room,

        “…with a pair of large down-at-heel slippers. She places on the carpet before Higgins, and sits as before without a word.”

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Higgins and Pickering arrogantly carry on their conversation,

        “Oh lord! What and evening! What a crew... […and catches sight of the slippers looking at them as if they had appeared their out of their own accord.] Oh! They’re there are they?”

Even though Eliza approached Higgins he still took no notice of her, showing his selfishness. Throughout the play Pickering has always been the gentleman who never forgot his manners. In this particular incident they slipped and he became, what seemed to be, like Higgins.

        “Well I feel a bit tired. It’s been a long day. The garden party, the ...

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