PYGMALION STUDY GUIDE
Shavian (Shaw's) Style: It will help if you have a general understanding of Shaw's style.
1. stage direction --economical exposition and suggestive of social background;
2. prefatory essay--used to express his doctrines;
3. discussion in the play. Sometimes Shaw calls his own plays Problem Play, Discussion Drama, Play of Ideas. He also claims that "[p]rimarily, [his plays] are not plays: they are tracts in dramatic forms." He regards social criticism as the most important function of all art.
Act 1
1. What tensions already show in the relations between the Mother (later named as Mrs. Eynsford Hill), the Daughter (later named as Clara), and the son, Freddy?
2. Shaw's Preface indicates enthusiasm for phonetics, but what "dark side" might we infer from the opening scene in which everyone misconstrues Henry Higgins' motives for taking down Eliza the Flower Girl's speech?
3. What coincidences in the first act seem likely to structure the rest of the play?
4. The stage directions at the beginning of act I, discuss the setting. What is the setting? This setting brings together what two places? Are these two places symbolic? What issues about money, class and spirituality are raised in this act?
5. How do the divisions of social classes become an issue in this act? How are class differences embodied in the people's different treatments of the flower girl. How is language related to class divisions?
6. In what ways are the issue of appearance and reality raised?
Act 2
1. Describe the setting in Act II. How is Higgins' room a contrast to Eliza's, which we see at the end of Act I? What does the room as well as its decorations suggest about Higgins' personality and life? How do the stage direction characterize Higgins?
· note: "Piranesis" (from the first stage direction) -- Piranesi, Giovanni Battista (1720-1778), "Italian graphic artist, famous for his engravings and etchings. . . . Piranesi's collection of engravings entitled Carceri d'Invenzione (Imaginary Prisons, 1745) greatly influenced 19th-century romanticism and also played a role in the development of 20th-century surrealism. (from Ecarta bio) Why does Eliza want to improve her speaking skills and lose her accent? What does she expect to gain?
2. What concerns do Colonel Pickering and Mrs. Pearce (Higgins' housekeeper) raise about Higgins' scheme to educate Eliza? How does he respond to their concerns?
3. How does Higgins treat Eliza and her desire for education? Discuss a few instances--what assumptions does he make about her, and why do you think he makes them?
4. How would you sum up the creed of Eliza's father, the dustman Alfred Doolittle? What does he have against "middle-class morality," and why?
Themes
5. Like Act I, money and religion are brought up again several times in this act. How do the characters (Higgins, Eliza and Mr. Doolittle) of different classes express different views about money? Religion, likewise, is mentioned to reveal the characters' sense of value. For instance, why does Higgins think of his pupils as "sacred" ("teaching would be impossible unless pupils were sacred") at the same time he calls Eliza as "that thing," as well as "insect" and "squashed cabbage leave"? What does Mr. Doolittle think about clergymen as a career , when Higgins thinks that the former has the eloquence of a priest or a politician?
6. This is a play about education, and more specifically, learning English and learning to be a lady. What are Eliza's lessons like? In their first lesson what is Higgins like as a teacher? Is Eliza as a student? In terms of learning to be a lady, what does she feel about being a lady in this act (e.g. being clean, having fashionable dresses)?
Act 3
Characters: Act III is composed of the two tests of the results of Eliza's education in the two upper-class party scenes--Mrs. Higgins' at-home and the ambassador's garden party. Pay attention to the social norms and manners shown in these two parties, and how the uppe-class guests in these parties are targets of Shaw's critique.
1. Shaw offers, rather full stage descriptions and directions, a long explanation about Henry Higgins' personality. What do you think he is up to by all the references to William Morris decorations? And why provide an account of a character's personality when, in most plays at least, we get a sense of that from the events and dialogue of the play?
2. How does Clara take Eliza's incredible attempt to "talk proper" during an accidental meeting with the Hills at Mrs. Higgins' "at home" social occasion? How do Freddy and Mrs. Eynsford Hill interpret Eliza's performance?
3. What do you think of Higgins' relationship with his mother, as it is developed in this third act? And how does she view her son's scientific experiment with Eliza?
4. What do you think of Higgin's own attitude towards his experiment with Eliza, up to this point in the play? What does he reveal towards the end of the third act?
Act 4
1. In the 1930's film production we watched, we actually see Eliza dazzle the audience at a big party, and pass herself off as royalty. In the play, we don't see her performance. What difference does the change make, if any?
2. What does Higgins say he has accomplished when Eliza succeeds? What does Pickering apparently think has been accomplished?
3. Why is Eliza so distraught at after the party? What cogent criticism of Higgins and his ideas about class and language does she offer in this fourth act?
4. How would you characterize Eliza's relationship with Freddy at the end of this act? How does her relationship with Freddy differ from her relationship with Higgins? Does Freddy provide something that Higgins does not? What does Freddy not have?
Act 5
1. Higgins boasted earlier in the play that he would be able to transform Eliza's very being and make her anything he wanted. Judging from this fifth act, would you say he was right or wrong? Is Eliza still the "Eliza" we met at the beginning, or is she another person altogether? Explain.
2. How does Alfred Doolittle's transformation into a married gentleman reflect on the exploration of class and linguistic variety we find in Pygmalion as a whole? What lesson are we supposed to learn from what happens to him?
Sequel/ Postscript
1. Before reading the sequel that follows Act 5, see if you can guess what Shaw is going to spin out as a future for some of the characters. Set down your guesses as a response. Then check to see if he agrees with you.
2. General questions: Shaw says in his Preface before Act 1 that good art is always didactic. What is the ultimate "lesson" he probably wanted us to take away from Pygmalion?
3. Do you agree with Shaw that art should be didactic (i.e. that it should drive home some moral point, take a stand on current issues, etc.)? In your response, don't ignore the other side of the question--consider argument/s against didacticism and argument/s in favor of it.
Endings
Do you prefer the more open ending of Act V or the endings Shaw presents in the postscript? At the end of Act V we see Eliza's self-contradictory attitudes toward Higgins. Do you see similar contradictions in this postscript? How do you explain the various amorous implications (e.g. Eilza's jealousy of other women; her secret wish to be alone on a "desert island" with Higgins)?
Romance
How does Shaw define romance here, to be distinguished from the current trend of sentimental melodrama?
What are the reasons (about Eliza's freedom, Mr. Higgins' love for his mother and his unchangeability, and about the strong's need of the weak) he offers here to justify Eliza's marrying Freddy? Are you convinced?
Does Eliza live "happily ever after" with Freddy?
Education
Of all the characters Clara Einsford-Hills seems to be the most snobbish as well as pitiable. How is she changed in this the postscript? How does Life "start to move with her"?
The Play as a Whole
1. The structure of the play:
o The usual structure of Shaw's Discussion play is: exposition, complication and discussion. Do you find this structure in the play?
2. The theme of Education/Creation:
o The five acts of the play can be divided into three parts: Act 1--a general introduction, Acts 2-3 -- the bet and its fulfillment, and Acts 4-5 -- Eliza's "independence" from Higgins. What does Eliza achieve at each stage?
o How do the other characters (except Mrs. Higgins and Pickering) get educated in the play? How is Mr. Doolittle's similar to and different from Eliza's?
3. Social Structure and Class Differences -- This play has characters mostly from the working class and the upper class (except that Mr. Doolittle, at the end, takes on "middle-class morality"). How are these two classes presented? Be specific about the differences in the people of the same class: for instance, between Mr. Doolittle, Mrs. Pearce and Eilza, and between the poor genteel (the Eynsford Hills) and the rich (Mrs. Pearce) and the rich intellectual ( Higgins and Pickering).
4. The title of the play: After finishing the play, you must know that Pymalion is very different from the original myth. How are the functions of using this myth, then? In other words, why does the play want us to remember mythic, fairy-tale and legendary figures such as Pygmalion, Cinderella and Frankenstein's monster?
5. The discussions in the play: what do you think about the discussions in the play? Are they boring or witty and enlightening? Do they come naturally out of the development of the plot, or are they distracting and digressive?
[For your reference: A critic Eric Bentley thinks that the play is a "personal play" (as opposed to discussion play, another type of Shavian plays), in which discussion is "an emanation of conflict between persons," or an integral part of the plot development (Bloom p. 13).