In Act 2, Doolittle Makes a Speech on Middle-Class-Morality Explain What Other Comments on Class and Social Standing Shaw Makes.
George Bernard Shaw’s play Pygmalion is the story of Henry Higgins, a master phonetician, and his mischievous plot to pass a common flower girl, Eliza Doolittle, off as a duchess at the Embassy Ball. In order achieve his goal, Higgins must teach Eliza how to speak properly and how to act in upper-class society. The play pokes fun at “middle class morality” and upper-class superficiality, reflects the social ills of nineteenth century England, and attests that all people, regardless of class background, are worthy of respect and dignity.
Pygmalion pokes fun at middle class morality through the characterization of Mr. Doolittle, Eliza’s father. Mr. Doolittle is a “common dustman," an insolent man who spends his time drinking alcohol at the local pub. He is not too proud to beg for money, even from Eliza. Moreover, he lives with a woman to whom he is not married. When Henry Higgins writes to a politician and refers to him as the best moralist speaker in London, Mr. Doolittle is forced into the middle class, and thus he must adhere to “middle-class” morality. This means he is expected go to church, marry his live-in girlfriend, give up alcohol, refrain from picking up women, and give money to his impoverished relatives, ‘Middle class morality claims its victim.’. This is in contradiction with his upbringing as a working class man whom society had no moral expectations of. His behaviour only seemed inappropriate when he was forced into the middle class.
