Here are my thoughts about the final two acts of this
clever and witty little play.
Up until this
point I was wondering the relevance of the title to the play. Pygmalion was an
old Greek myth about a creator falling in love with his creation. Reading the
first three acts, I assumed that Higgins will fall in love with Eliza and that
will be all. But I was thoroughly wrong and completely impressed and amazed at
how the events took a different turn.
The conflict of
the play is supposed to be whether Eliza becomes a lady or not. But apparently
that is not the case as the acts continue even after her success at some lavish
party. The play shows several conflicts such as, the differences of economic
classes, commercialism, the good and the evil of wealth, the idea of nobility
and freedom. The part of Eliza’s training and whether she is successful or not
is just a subplot to the play giving it more depth and helps it proceed.
The fourth act
begins with the trio entering Higgins’ lab after a tiresome evening party where
apparently Eliza performs a good work at presenting herself as a lady with her
impeccable speech and mannerism. But Higgins’ indifference to Eliza’s success
and calling her hard work a boring challenge is not only rude to Eliza but also
the audience because at this point, we grow fond of Eliza’s character and her
maturity. So Higgins’ inconsiderate attitude provokes our dislike towards him.
Shaw is clever in depicting what the audience feel through Eliza as she,
finally succumbing to her rage, throws slippers at his face, much to the
amusement and satisfaction of the audience.
An argument ensues
where Higgins continues to insult Eliza using different slangs and she retorts
back. As a woman myself, I can clearly relate to what she must have been
feeling – being rejected of her hard work and perseverance by her loved ones. I
sympathize with her and even though she throws a raging fit and an unladylike
tantrum, we certainly notice justification in it. I bet this is what Shaw intended
to do in the first place. By portraying Higgins as the villain and Eliza as the
damsel in distress, the two main characters, he prepares us for the final plot
twist in the next act.
In the fifth and
final act of the play, we see Higgins very tensed about Eliza’s apparent
disappearance. He hides his concern about Eliza’s safety under the mask of his
anxiety about her debauchery. This is proved by the fact that he has called the
police in hopes of finding Eliza safely though he claims that she might be
equivalent to a thief. This action alone softens the audience’s dislike towards
him by some degree even though we still continue to loathe him and his choice
of sentences.
Here, the sudden
intrusion of the character Alfred Doolittle gives the audience some time to
recover the rage over Higgins and also changes the tensed atmosphere of the
situation. Shaw uses Doolittle’s charismatic nature to divert the audience’s
attention and at the same time preaches about the inconsistencies of the middle
class. He uses the allusion of another popular Greek myth about Scylla and
Charybdis to explain the helplessness of the middle class. He also states the
attitude of man towards wealth.
After a moderate
amount of diversion (after calming the audience quite a bit), Shaw introduces
Eliza to the act again; this time, more calm and poised. Long story short, she
uses sarcasm and wit to backlash Higgins’ unjustified and immoral behavior,
making him to cuss her more. Eliza uses here what I like call “a silent
treatment” – ignoring the person completely while making remarks about him
right in front of him and acting as if nothing really happened. Eliza also
shows her maturity by stating “Yes: things that shewed you thought and felt
about me as if I were something better than a scullery-maid; though of course I
know you would have been just the same to a scullery-maid if she had been let
in the drawing-room. You never took off your boots in the dining room when I
was there.” Such dialogues show that she has not only learnt about phonetics
but also about self-esteem and nobility.
It is quite
amazing to see that Shaw actually manages to justify Higgins’ brash behavior by
having him make statements on modern terms such as feminism and equality
irrespective of class, gender etc. He says “If you come back I shall treat you
just as I have always treated you. I can’t change my nature; and I don’t intend
to change my manners. My manners are exactly the same as Colonel Pickering's …
And I treat a duchess as if she was a flower girl.” and shows that he is just
like Pickering in terms of manner but their mode is just different.
Higgins also
states that a person should be treated by his own actions. If Eliza continues
to act like a slave and keep on bringing his slippers, she should expect to be
treated like a slave. According to him, if Eliza wants to be treated equally,
she must have a mind of her own, do what she thinks is right and stay aloof
from doing everything she is ordered to do. She must learn to make her own
decisions. Otherwise, she will be continued to be treated like a slave. Even
though Higgins still sound like some bully using his charisma to convince
people according to his wishes, we cannot but agree with his rational idea.
The ending of the
play is quite abrupt and ironic as we see Higgins ordering Eliza to do stuff
for him. But Eliza, finally able to make her own decision due to grudge,
decides to say “no”. This is ironic in the sense that even though she denies to
do his bidding, she does listen to advice of making her own decision.
Now, where does
Pygmalion come in all of these? Well, even though Higgins is the Pygmalion of
the play (he states that he actually started to care for her), he is also the
Aphrodite/Venus of the myth who brings the statue of Eliza to life. He instills
the sense of self-esteem into her head. He tells her to rise above the social
norms and make her own decisions rather than doing what she is told to do like
a mindless creature, an inanimate object. She does learn to do; thus confirming
Higgins’ ultimate success to the challenge.
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