CliffsNotes HMHco. Shakespeare Central 2. Teacher Resources 3. Shakespeare Manga 4. Test Prep Center 5. Biology Quizzes 6. Mobile Apps Top 10 LitNotes 1. To Kill a Mockingbird 2. A Tale of Two Cities 3. Animal Farm 4. Catching Fire 5. Of Mice and Men 6. Eliza is able to change her identity simply by learning to talk differently.
In particular, Pygmalion continually displays the connections between language and social class. In the opening scene, we see people from different social strata speaking in vastly different dialects, and Mrs. Eysnford Hill is confused when Eliza calls her son Freddy, not realizing that this is merely a kind of lower-class slang. And most importantly, by changing her habits of speech, Eliza is able to fool people into thinking that she is from an upper-class background.
Upper-class characters in the play lay claim to proper or correct English. Higgins, for example, shames Eliza for speaking a poor version of the language of the great writers Shakespeare and Milton. But is there anything inherently correct about one particular version of English? At Mrs. Higgins' home, Mrs. Eynsford Hill mistakenly believes that Eliza's lower-class slang is a new, fashionable form of small talk. There is thus nothing naturally wrong or improper about Eliza's original way of speaking.
Rather, language, accents, and slang are all simply habits that people learn to associate with different backgrounds and social classes. The wealthier social classes simply claim that theirs is the right way to speak. While this oppresses and disadvantages lower-class people, the play shows how this system also opens up possibilities for those clever enough to exploit this connection between speech and class.
Eliza, Pickering, and Higgins are, after all, able to use this to their advantage, fooling high society and successfully passing Eliza off as a noble lady. And how are all your people down at Selsey? Who told you my people come from Selsey? A woman who utters such depressing and disgusting sounds has no right to be anywhere—no right to live. Remember that you are a human being with a soul and the divine gift of articulate speech: that your native language is the language of Shakespeare and Milton and The Bible; and don't sit there crooning like a bilious pigeon.
You see this creature with her kerbstone English: the English that will keep her in the gutter to the end of her days. Well, sir, in three months I could pass that girl off as a duchess at an ambassador's garden party.
Is this reasonable? Is it fairity to take advantage of a man like this? By using incorrect English, by rebelling against the standards of English grammar, Eliza is able to rebel against Higgins as well. I can't. I could have done it once; but now I can't go back to it.
Last night, when I was wandering about, a girl spoke to me; and I tried to get back into the old way with her; but it was no use. You told me, you know, that when a child is brought to a foreign country, it picks up the language in a few weeks, and forgets its own.
Well, I am a child in your country. I have forgotten my own language, and can speak nothing but yours. That's the real break-off with the corner of Tottenham Court Road. Leaving Wimpole Street finishes it.
Throughout Pygmalion , "correct" language is portrayed as a unifying force. Here, Eliza demonstrates that it can also be divisive. Parents Home Homeschool College Resources. Study Guide. By George Bernard Shaw. Previous Next. Alfred Doolittle Colonel Pickering Mrs. Higgins Mrs. Pearce Mrs. Why didn't you leave me where you picked me out of—in the gutter? You thank God it's all over, and that now you can throw me back again there, do you? 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, Henry Higgins. Now I am worrited; tied neck and heels; and everybody touches me for money. It's a fine thing for you, says my solicitor. Is 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.
But do you know what began my real education? That was the beginning of self-respect for me. Liza: Freddy loves me: that makes him king enough for me. I don't want him to work: he wasn't brought up to it as I was. I'll go and be a teacher. Higgins: What'll you teach, in heaven's name? Liza: What you taught me. I'll teach phonetics.
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