Monday, December 17, 2012

In act 4, describe the men's attitudes? Pygmalion by George Bernard Shaw

After the
embassy ball in which Eliza has performed so well that everyone is convinced that she is a lady,
she and Professor Higgins and Colonel Pickering return to the Wimpole Street laboratory at
midnight.

With completely supercilious attitudes, the two men talk about
Eliza as though she is not capable of understanding them, or so insignificant that they are
indifferent to whether she does understand or not. For, when she flinches violently at Higgins's
comment, "Thank God it's over!" they take no notice of her.  In fact, they speak as
though she is not present,

[Pickering] "Were you
nervous at the graden party?  I was. Eliza didn't seem a bit nervous."


[Higgins] "Oh, she wasn't nervous.  I knew she'd be all right.  No: it's the
strain of putting the job through all these months that has told on me...."


Ignoring the presence of Eliza, Higgins continues to only speak to
Pickering.  Then, he gives Eliza instructions as though she is a servant, "Put out the
lights, Eliza; and tell Mrs. Pearce not to make coffee."  But, when Eliza throws his
slippers at him when he cannot find them, Higgins is astounded at her behavior.  His obtuseness
indicates his self-focus and lack of concern for Eliza. It is as though she is a mere lab animal
that he looks in wonder at her:

[Higgins] "The
creature is nervous, after all."

Then, as Eliza asks
what is to become of her, Higgins replies without concern, "What does it matter what
becomes of you?"  Lacking any understanding, Higgins simply reacts to Eliza's despair with
merely condescending words to what he considers a trivial subject.  Nevertheless, while
belittling her feelings, it is not without kindness that he says,


"I shouldn't bother about it if I were you. I should imagine you son't have much
difficulty in settling yourself somewhere or other, though I hadn't quite realized that you were
going away....You go to bed and have a good nice rest; and then get up and look at yourself in
the glass; and you won't feel so cheap."

Without
intending to be so, Higgins is selfish and inconsiderate. For instance, while Eliza is having a
crisis of identity, he merely remarks, "I'm devilish sleepy."  Then, as Eliza asks if
her clothes still belong to her, he is baffled at what he considers the irrationality of the
question, "What the devil use would they be to Pickering?"  Further, he subjectively
accuses Eliza of being ungrateful and of having wounded him, and he becomes angry,leaving the
room and slamming the door:

...damn my own folly in having
lavished my hard-earned knowledge and the treasure of my regard and intimacy on a heartless
guttersnipe.

For all her education, Eliza is not of the
upperclass as she is so painfully reminded by the supercilious attitudes of Higgins and
Pickering. 

 

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