REVIEW   OF A BOOK

PYGMALION

                                                                                                     BERNARD SHAW

About the author

Bernard Shaw was born in Dublin in 1856. His father’s family had been small landowners in Ireland since the late seventeenth century and they had intermarried with the Irish. His father , after employment at the law courts, became in middle life a grain merchant. His mother was the daughter of an Irish country gentleman. He was, indeed, left to a great extent to find his own way, and he spoke of his early years as, “rich only in dreams”. Religiously the family background was protestant, but Shaw early rejected the Christain faith.

  His works

Immaturity  ,The Irrational Knot  ,Love Among the Artists ,Cashel  Byrons’s Profession

PLAYS

Pleasant and Unpleasant ,Man and Superman ,The Apple Cart ,Millionaire ,Geneva , In Good King Charles’s Golden Days

REVIEW OF THE PLAY

“Pygmalion” narrates the story of a poor flower – girl who is transformed by Henry Higgins, Prof. of Phonetics, into a lady of rand and status y teaching her to speak and pronounce correctly.

The two come together on a rainy night when a number of passers-by are obliged to seek shelter from the rain in the portico of St.   Paul’s Church.  One of them is the flower –girl , Eliza Doolittle , and the other is Prof.Higgins who is standing there and noting the peculiarities of different London dialects spoken by the people gathered there. There is also a military looking gentleman. He is Colonel Pickering. He is also interested in the study of Phonetics and has come all the way from India to meet Professor Higgins, the celebrated scholar of phonetics, Mrs. Eynsford Hill, her daughter Miss Clara Hill, and her son Freddy Hill , are the three other people who are present there and who have their own role to play in the story of Eliza, the poor  flower –girl.

No cabs and taxis are available as the theatre show was just over, and all available vehicles had already been hired by the audience coming out of the theatre. Freddy is sent to try to obtain a taxi, for his sister Clara is feeling extremely cold, and is eager to reach her home at the earliest, However, the rain soon                              stops, and Clara and her mother leave for the bus stand without waiting for return of Freddy. He soon returns with a taxi and is much disappointed to find that his mother and sister have already left, However ,the flower –girl hires the taxi and goes to her home in a London slum called Druruy Lane.  

The fact is that she has been paid liberally by Prof, Higgins, and so is in a position to pay the hire of the taxi, Prof, Higgins had been busy talking notes, and he was suspected by the people to be a spy, and the flower-girls warned by the people to be more careful, for whatever she said was being noted down and she may be taken to be a prostitute or street-walker.  She begins to weep and sob , and more so as her flower-basket has been upset by Freddy rushing out to get a taxi ,and her flowers have been crushed and spoiled. She had already begged Colonel Pickering to buy some ,weeping and crying all the time. Much annoyed , he throws in her basket all the coins he has in his pocket. As Prof. Higgins invites Colonel Pickering  to come next morning to his residence in Wimpole street and be his guest during his stay in London , Eliza comes to know of his address. Prof. Higgins , who has heard much of what the flower-girl has been speaking says that in three months time, he can so train that he would be able to pass her off as a duchess at an ambassador’s garden party.

The scene now shifts from the corner of Convent Garden to the residence –cum- laboratory of Higgins in Wimpole Street, London. Higgins and Pickering have been together for sometime, and Higgins has already demonstrated his methods of teaching pronunciation and conducting experiments. The flower girl arrives and tells Higgins that she wishes to engage him to give her lessons in speaking  English and that she wishes to learn to speak proper English so that she may be able to take up a job in a regular flower- shop instead of having to sell flowers at the corner of  Tottenham Court Road.   

Pickering challenges Higgins to take up this assignment. He further reminds Higgins of the latter’s assertion made on the previous night that he could pass off this girl as a duchess at an ambassador’s garden party after training her in English pronunciation and accent for six months or so, Higgins takes up the challenge and it is agreed that Pickering would pay all the expenses of Higgins’s experiment including fees for the lessons which Higgins would have to give to the girl, but that he would pay the expenses only if Higgins can really pass off the girl as a duchess at a gathering of aristocratic .

Higgins begins the education of Eliza without wasting any time. He instructs his house- keeper ,  Mrs,                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                   Pearce, to  wash , scrub and clean the girl , and if she objects, he should be beaten and set right. New dresses are also to be ordered for her. During the time that she is being washed and cleaned, Alfred Doolittle, a dustman and Eliza’s father, arrives, and extorts five pounds from Higgins for agreeing to his daughter’s staying with him. He is himself an ‘undeserving poor’ and thinks that both  Prof, Higgins and Colonel Pickering also have no morals like that of him. As he prepares to leave, Eliza is brought in by Mrs Pearce, and  Doolittleis much amazed to see the transformation she has undergone. The scene ends, with the dramatist giving us a peep into the way in which Eliza is educated. Higgins’s task is very tough ‘indeed, because Eliza at this stage does not even know how to pronounce A ,B ,C, D, etc., correctly. However, Higgins finds that Eliza has a receptive ear and would make speedy progress. For Eliza,    taking lessons is an even bigger ordeal than for Higgins to give the lessons.  

The scene now shifts to the residence of Mrs Higgins ,the mother of Prof, Higgins, in Chelsea Embankment, London. It is her, “at-home day “ and she is expecting the arrival of her friends. However, Prof, Higgins come to tell his mother that he has invited Eliza to her residence, as he has been giving her lessons in phonetics fort the last few months, and now he wants to see if she can pass off as a lady in high society. Mrs Hill, Miss Clara Hill, and Freddy Hill, and Pickering soon arrive, followed by Eliza who is well-dressed and looks every inch to be a lady of rand and status, She conducts herself with perfect ease and self- confidence, but she swears dreadfully. All are shocked at her use of the word ‘bloody’, though Clara is all in favour of such swear- words, and she herself uses the word. It is clear that it would take some more time for her to be able to pass of as a duchess at an ambassador’s garden party.  

However ,she is quick to learn and her education is soon complete. We next meet her at an ambassador’s garden party. She creates quite a sensation by her beauty , by her poise and self- confidence, by her lady-like manners , and by her correct pronunciation and speech. One of the people present there is Nepommuck, one of the old pupils of Higgins, and also known as the Hairy Faced Dick. He works as a translator and boasts that he can “place a man anywhere in Europe”. But he ,too, is deceived by Eliza and takes her to be a Hungarian with royal blood in her veins. This means that has won the bet for Prof. Higgins with a vengeance. She has been able to pass off not only as a Duchess but as a Princess.

The three-Higgins , Pickering and Eliza- return home at about 11.30P.M.,bored and exhausted. Higgins is enormously pleased with the success of his experiment but the excitement for him has completely ended and he days in a tone of fatigue that the evening’s experience at the embassy was just “silly tomfoolery”. Both of them talk and express their satisfaction at the success of their experiment. Poor Eliza, who tool, is extremely tires and for whom also it has been an ordeal, is entirely ignored.

She is indignant and resentful and when after Pickering has gone up to his bedroom, Prof, Higgins asks for his slippers, Eliza gets an opportunity of expressing her indignation. She picks up his slippers and throws them in his face. Higgins is simply amazed and shocked by this action of Eliza’s. When he asks her indignantly why she has behaved in this manner, she calls him a “selfish brute” and asks what is to become of her and what she is to now that his experiment has come to an end. Higgins treats the matter lightly and gives no satisfactory reply to her question. Eliza is very much annoyed, takes off her jewellery and hand it over to Higgins lest she be accused of theft the next day . Infuriated by her words and actions, Higgins retires for the house. She meets Freddy , the two embrace and kiss each other, and decide to pass the night together. They hire a taxi and drive away to Wimbledon Common.

Early next morning , she collects her luggage from Wimpole Street  (where Prof. Higgins lives),drives straight to the residence of Mrs Higgins (the mother of Prof. Higgins), narrates to her the story of her ordeal ,and seeks shelter with her which is granted. When Higgins and Pickering do not find out Eliza at home ,they come to Mrs Higgins and telephone the police to search out Eliza. In the opinion of Mrs Higgins, they behave like children and show no signs of maturity. They ignores Eliza and said not a word of thanks to her, though it had all been as much an ordeal to her as to Prof. Higgins. She resented being passed over and so threw the slippers in his face. She also discloses to them that at the moment she was with her in a room at the  upper storey.

However , before she could be sent for, Alfred Doolittle ,the dustman arrives, He is completely transformed and is fashionably and richly dressed, almost like a bridegroom. He complains that all his happiness has been ruined. It is all the doing of Prof. Higgins;. He wrote a letter to an American Millionaire telling him that, “he was the most original moralist at present in England “, and this remark has ruined all his happiness. The American has left to him a large legacy , he has now been raised to the middle class status, and has to follow the code of middle class morality.

He relates his woes in the following words: “Who asked him to make a gentleman of me? I was happy. I was free . I touched pretty nigh everybody for money when I wanted it, same as I touched you , Enry Iggins. Now I am worried; tied neck and heels; and everybody touches me for money, It ‘s a fine thing for you, says my solicitor. Is it? Says I. you mean it’s a good thing for you, I says. When I was a poor man and had a solicitor once when they found a as quick as he could, Same with the doctors: used to shove me out of the hospital before I could hardly stand on my legs, and nothing to pay. Now they finds out that I’m not a healthy man and can’t live unless thy looks after me twice a day. In the house  I’m not not let do a hand’s turn for myself: somebody else must do it and touch me for it. A year ago I hadn’t a relative in the world except two or three that wouldn’t speak to me. Now I’ve fifty, and not a decent week’s wages among the lot of them. I have to live for others and not for myself: that’s middle  class morality. You told of losing Eliza. Don’t you be anxious: I bet flowers if I wasn’t respectable. And the next one to touch me will be you, Enry Iggins,    I’ll have to learn to speak middle class language from you, instead of speaking proper English. That is where you’ll come in; and I daresay that’s what you done it for.”

He has not the courage to decline to accept the legacy for it is only this legacy that can save him from the work- house in his old age. But he must now follow the middle class “coed of morality” and that is why he has decided to marry   his mistress, for marriage with her would make him more respectable, though it will put an end to their happiness. He invites everybody to come with him to the church, and they all, including Eliza who had already been called in ,agree to do so.

As the others to out, Eliza and Higgins are together for a few moments. Eliza infuriates him by telling him that she proposes to marry Freddy, who really loves her, and as he has not been brought up to earn his own living, she would work to support them (herself and Freddy). Higgins is infuriated at the very idea of Eliza marrying that fool Freddy, Eliza further infuriates him when she tells him that she would work at first as assistant to the Hairy Faced Dick (Nepommuck ), his former pupil, and then herself give lessons in Phonetics, and in this way earn enough to support themselves.

The play ends as all, except Higgins ,go off for the wedding. However, the story of Eliza is not complete. Shaw has added a sort of prose Epilogue to complete her story. The various courses open to her are analysed and it is shown that her decision to marry Freddy was the only right course open to her. She does marry Freddy, with the help of Colonel Pickering , sets up a flower-shop of her own, and is comfortably settled  in life.

Conclusion

Shaw’s plays ,as a whole , give the impression of his creative powers working in a spontaneous unity. His dramatic output forms a coherent whole. In his dramatic career, more than twice the length of Shakespeare’s, Shaw displayed the many- sidedness of his genius in a great variety of ways. The title of the play is apt and suggestive because Higgins ‘creates’ a new woman, a duchess out of a shabby flower- girl, just as in the Pygmalion legend. In short , the play is built on paradox, and Shaw has exploded many of the accepted values , and shown what they are worth for in real life. Many of the normally accepted notions have been turned upside down. Indeed, such topsy-turvydom contributes much to the entertainment value of the play. It also shows that Shaw is an original thinker, who states truths which are hard to contradict.