Pygmalion Act IV & V by George Bernard Shaw

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 Iove 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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