Character Sketch of Eliza Doolittle

Pygmalion as a Problem Play
Best Quotes
Mingling of Genres in Pygmalion

Character Sketch of Henry Higgins

Colonialism

History of English Language

Eliza Doolittle, the daughter of Mr. Alfred Doolittle is one of the chief protagonists of the play Pygmalion written by G.B.Shaw around which all the events revolve.

As the play opens Eliza is presented before us as a poor, ignorant and rustic flower girl. After three months of training when she appears in the drawing room of Mrs. Higgins, she produces such remarkable impression that everyone rises from their seat. Finally, at the Ambassador’s Party everyone was charmed by her looks and behavior and took her to be princess. The radical changes can be noticed not only in her speech but also in her appearance. She turned to be a pretty and graceful young lady under the training she received from Higgins and Pickering’s treatment of morality. However, this was not entirely Higgins’s achievement. Without Eliza’s self-discipline and commitment to learning, she could not become a lady she was at the end.

Eliza is highly ambitious and confident. She wants to get the knowledge and power of the upper class. She wants to become a lady in a fashionable flower shop. It is her desire that led her to Higgins to get the training for which even she is ready to pay. When she enters Higgins’s house and he does not treat her respectfully she administers a mild rebuke to him. She tells him,

Well, if you was a gentleman, you might ask me to sit down, I think.

This brings forth her confidence and consciousness for self-respect. At the end of the play, her confidence multiplies and is not afraid to argue her point, defending own rights. This can be observed when she confronts Higgins on the matter of his insensitivity, stating that she is not dirt under his feet.

Analyzing the play deeply, we find the play falls into two parts. In the first part, a duchess is made out of a flower girl and in the second a woman out of a duchess. From the point of view of Higgins, Eliza is a statue in the 1^st Act, a diligent student in the 2^nd, a doll of his own making in the 3^rd , a rebel in the 4^th and a consort battleship in the 5^th Act.

To an extent Eliza also represents the Shavian Life and moderate kind of Feminism. We have already seen how assertive she is and how she refuses to be treated as dirt under anyone’s feet. She is also impelled by the driving energy that leads life upwards. She has the will and ambition to go up in the world and she learns things with an astonishing rapidity. Moreover, Eliza is not willing to accept the humble subservient position that a woman is normally assigned in the human society. As has been observed Shaw denies the view that women love to be mastered and bullied, even beaten. Eliza prefers the weaker Freddy, who adores her and whom she can dominate to the masterful Higgins when it comes to marriage. On that fateful night after the party, once she refuses to carry Higgins’s slippers and act as his personal secretary, his own attitude towards her changes. Now he encourages her to play the assertive role. He may not sound very convincing when he says,

I think a woman fetching a man’s slippers is a disgusting sight…I think a good deal more of you for throwing them in my face…who cares for a slave?

Nevertheless everything changes that night and Eliza seldom reverts to the earlier situation. Later,

He storms and bullies and derides but she stands up to him so ruthlessly…

So, in a way Eliza’s determination to fight for her rights against Higgins represents a feminist angle in her role.

Therefore, Shaw shows us that inside the rough and ignorant flower girl there was a fine, sensitive and confident woman who appears in all her brightness as a result of her training in speech and manners. Every flower girl cannot become a duchess. Eliza is able to break this social barrier by the force of her personality, her hard-work, her common sense and her strong will power.