On the other hand, Eliza Dolittle, the main character, is self-confident and ambitious, which is twisted to make the play a comedy with the fact that she is from the lower class and that she does not know how to behave properly. Some may say that it is cruel to laugh at someone who is only funny because of the way she had grown up. However I do not think so because although she is concious of her financial situations, and likes to be treated conventionally, she is confident as shown by her repetition of "I’m a good girl I am".
Other characters are also comical such as the Eynsfords the innocent mother and the children who are struggling to stay in their original status and busy following the trend, and Alfred Dolittle, Eliza’s father, who enjoys being the "undeserving" poor.
In this story, money also illustrates the characters’ personalities.
For example, when the flowergirl was trying to sell bunches of flowers to the Mrs Eynsford, the daughter, Clara, says: “Do nothing of the sort, mother. The idea!” …… “Sixpence thrown away! Really, mamma, you might have spared Freddy that.” (p.9) which clearly shows her attitude towards the flowergirl who is obviously poorer than her. She is behaving like a snob and has no thought to spare for the poor, and when she meets Eliza again at Mrs Higgins’ at-home, she pays her full-respect to her because she thinks Eliza is one of the “upper-class” people.
After Clara meets Eliza for the first time, Eliza goes to Higgins’ house and offers to pay a shilling for a lesson. He explains how much she is prepared to pay him compared to a millionaire. “She offers me 2/5 of her day’s income for a lesson. 2/5 of a millionaire’s income would be somewhere about £60. It’s handsome. By George, it’s enormous!” (p.25) I think this demonstrates how Eliza is ambitious and determined to speak properly to be a florist, that she is willing to pay as much as possible. On the contrast, Higgins, having being offered a shilling for a lesson, compares it to the amount she is offering to pay if she was a millionaire and calling it a large amount, he is not so concerned about the money, but he likes making a big deal out of everything she says.
The money in this story, as well as being used to demonstrate some of the characters’ attitude towards money and other people, and their characters, it is also a very important factor to make this play an interesting one along with some issued about social classes, because everyone is going to be familiar to these matters, and although we supposedly don’t have social classes in 21st century, still there are some problems arousing and I think this is one of the reasons why this play has been a long-hit seller.
Another main reason for this is that it is made entertaining with the simple main storyline so the audience can easily follow the story. Eliza, the flowergirl at Covent Garden, is being transformed by Dr Higgins to pass as a duchess in six months. Although simple, it appeals to everyone and the audience would want to know what happens as the idea seems impossible. However, in other words, it is about Eliza trying to buy her way to the upper-social class. As we can see in the book, apart from Higgins who is rude to anyone whether in a higher or lower social class and Pickering who is in contrast, polite to anyone despite the class, many characters are rude towards a certain group of people because of the social class and may be the author was trying to point out that snobbery was wrong, by making fun of these characters and writing in the style of comedy to make this subtle.
To conclude, I think the play has been everyone’s favourite for such a long time because of the comical characters which catches everyone’s attention and the themes which many people will be familiar to and issued. I also think that by combining these factors with the simple main story plot, Bernard Shaw managed to exemplify problems of social classes in Britain in the 19th century. This is the way in which "pigmalion" is both an entertaining and interesting play.