Pygmalion. It is the desire to obtain an education, or at least the appearance of one that takes Eliza to Dr. Henry Higgins house

by mfishersf (student)

University Degree Linguistics, Classics and related subjects

Matthew Fisher

Instructor Scrafford

Essay One

Final Draft

September 9, 2012

“Eliza Doolittle and Dreams of The Manner Born”

One of the great social satirist of his time, George Bernard Shaw often wrote of the social and class issues that plagued Great Britain in the years before World War One. It was during those years, under the reign of Queen Victoria, which saw Great Britain expand her empire to all the corners of the globe. With this expansion, came great wealth for many, as well as hardening of the lines of class distinction. These lines, or barriers, made it very difficult for a member of the middle class to join the ranks of the upper. And if it was difficult for the middle class to move upwards, it was nearly impossible for the lower class to move up to the middle class. Already greatly marginalized by rigid social barriers, the lower class struggled to survive in slums concentrated in London. Among those already marginalized, was a group of those even more marginalized: the lower class woman. Faced with a life of great hardship, brought on by a lack of means and most importantly the lack of an education, the lower class woman in Victorian England faced a life of grim prospects. With nearly no help from the government, in the form of such social programs that exist now, she had few avenues open to her, not just to move upwards or forwards, but to merely exist. George Bernard Shaw in his play Pygmalion (1912), tells the story of impoverished flower girl under the tutelage of an older upper-middle class man, and

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with a touch of much needed humor, puts forth the plight of the .lower class woman. With his character of Eliza, the flower girl, Shaw presents the audience with a character who struggles to gain respectability due to her lack of education

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In Victorian England, women, even among those of the upper class, faced a great disparity in education when compared to their male counterparts and among women in the lower class an education was almost unheard of. It was not until 1870 with the passage of The Foster Act, in which Great Britain became the last of the European countries to offer a compulsory public education (Auerbach 64), that the thought of an education among the lower class was even possible. However, in Eliza’s situation an education as a child was not feasible, for with a mother no longer in the picture and a drunkard as a father, she found herself put out onto the streets by her father who “never brought her up at all” (Shaw 2) as soon as she was “old enough to earn her own living” (Shaw 2). It is the desire to obtain an education, or at least the appearance of one that takes Eliza to Dr. Henry Higgins house. Just as much then as it is now, an education is the first step to success in life. While Eliza, who grew up in the Lisson Grove slums of London, may not have had an education, she has the smarts enough to know that she will need one in order to survive.

Moreover, while the education offered to most women in Victorian England taught little more than the knowledge of how to “maintain order inside the home and provide a safe haven” (Langlinans 76) for their families, it imparted upon women several years of elocution studies. For the study of elocution was so popular during the Victorian era that it allowed men, such as Higgins, to devote their lives to the study and teaching of it and speech itself became a sign of

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one’s education. Eliza realizes that she will never attain the position of a shop-girl in a flower shop and gain middle class respectability if she continues with her many “aw-ah-ah-ow-oo-o”(Shaw 1) and other phonetics that signify her lack of education.

Furthermore, in having the desire to be educated, or at least have the appearance of having had such, Eliza allows herself to be subjugated by Higgins. Shaw presents Higgins not as a teacher or savior, but as a domineering man attempting to subjugate a woman due to her lack of schooling. For it is Eliza’s lack of an education that brings her to Higgins flat and allows Higgins to be a “superman attempting to transform a subhuman into a human” (Matlaw 58) who threatens Eliza with acts of brutality and denotes her status as a member of the lower class by repeated name calling and disregard for her feelings. When Higgins states that Eliza does “not have any feelings that we need worry about” (Shaw 2) he is showing the contempt, which he and the middle class holds for the lower class. However, the desire felt by Eliza to become a respectful member of society, one who is not of the lower class, drives her to commit herself to becoming a subject in Higgins controlled experiment and overlook the barbs and slights from Higgins that she receives due to her lack of education.

“I sold flowers. I did not sell myself” (Shaw 4) declares Eliza to Higgins as her tutelage comes to an end and she realizes that she is no better off than she was when she had started. In one of Shaw’s other major plays, Mrs. Warren’s Profession, he equates prostitution with capitalism and it’s damning effect on society. Here Shaw makes the connection between prostitution, the lack of an education , and the life of a poor flower girl. While Eliza may or not end up with the respectability she craves so desperately and the education she so desires, she

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leaves the audience with the knowledge that she will “…always have her character, something that can’t be taken away” (Shaw 2). For it is the strength of Eliza’s character, hardened and created by years of abuse as a lower class woman, which allows her to survive her ordeal with Higgins with her dignity intact.

Works Cited

Auerbach, Sascha. "“A Right Sort of Man”: Gender, Class Identity, and Social Reform in Late-Victorian Britain." Journal of Policy History 22.01 (2010): 64-75. Print.

Langlinais, Chantel. "Framing The Victorian Heroine: Representations Of The Ideal Woman In Art And Fiction." Interdisciplinary Humanaties 22.2 (2005): 73-93. EBSCO. Web. 6 Sept. 2012.

Matlaw, Myron. "The Denouement of Pygmalion." Modern Drama 55.1 (1958): 29. Gale. Web. 5 Sept. 2012.

Shaw, Bernard. Pygmalion. New York: Dover Publications, 1994. Print.