pygmalion social structure

The roles of males and females in Victorian England were mainly based upon their social status, but there was certainly a masculine majority in jobs and professions. Both men and women in the working class performed physical labour. In the middle class only men performed the mental or ‘clean’ work. Both males and females did not work in the upper class as their income came from their inheritance and investments. There was the ubiquitous ideology of separate fields for each gender. Men belonged to the public world of politics and business, while women fit into the private life of the family home – away from the world of work. Also, when married, women had no independent legal status – she had no right to money, could not buy property, had no claim to her children, and had to move with husband wherever he went.

In the play ‘Pygmalion’ by Bernard Shaw, these societal expectations are both reflected and challenged. We are presented with these social mores in the opening scenes of the play when an upper class mother buys the flower-girl’s (Eliza Doolittle’s) flowers, and her daughter believes this to be ‘sixpence thrown away’. This presents the attitudes of some of the well off citizens towards the lower class workers, and the persistence of Eliza to sell her flowers shows how desperate her economic life is. The play challenges these norms through the clever storyline. Shaw confronts the reader by creating a character of the lowest class and having her rise up in status to a position never thought possible for one of her origins. Contrasting their opinion of her at the opening of the play, the upper class mother and her daughter perceive Eliza as a lady of equal merit when she learns how to speak properly. The daughter (Clara) thinks their encounter ‘delightful and quite innocent’ which contradicts their previous encounter with her. Shaw has successfully challenged the nature of class structure, by bringing an underdog to an ‘acceptable’ position.

The roles of males and females in Pygmalion support that of Victorian England times. Higgins and Pickering are both male professionals with wealthy business lives. The main female characters in the play all have roles which represent those female ideals. Eliza is a poor flower-girl who works physically for her income. Mrs. Pearce is a little higher, but still vulnerable as a working class citizen under Higgins. Clara and her mother are typical members of the upper class, as they do not work and they dress accordingly. Mrs. Higgins is in this same class but appears to use her motherly presence to guide Higgins as much as she can. She is by no means a submissive female figure in the play, confronting Higgins on many occasions, such as when Higgins ‘invited [Eliza] to [her own] at-home day’. Also, Pickering and Higgins’ male characters are empowered by being the one to hold Eliza’s social status in his hands. Higgins has control over what is to happen with the ‘squashed cabbage leaf’, and affects most female characters in the play somehow.

This supremacy of male characters supports the Victorian England social mores, and the rising of a lower classed citizen confronts them. Shaw has both supported and challenged the class structure and roles of males and females in his play.