What is the form of the play according to drama theory, and what is the dramatic development in each act of Pygmalion? How does the humor contribute to...

Christopher Jerde

is considered a dramatic comedy in a realist style. While there
is a great deal of wordplay and comedic situations, the action is not treated as light , with
much emphasis on the way the lower classes are exploited and kept down by society. The play's
themes of social inequality and the changing place of women in the twentieth centuryparticularly
in the anguish of Eliza in her crisis of identityalso lend it dramatic weight.

In terms of how the drama develops in each act, Shaw mainly focuses on how Eliza
changes from act to act. In the first act, she is an uncouth flower-girl, but she is shown to
have some appreciation for beauty and a sense of ambition as well during the scene where she
gets ready for bed. In the second act, Eliza goes to Higgins for speech lessons, and by the end
of the act, she is scrubbed clean and wearing a kimono, a sign of some upward
mobility.

In the third act, Eliza undergoes Higgins's exhausting lessons
until she is...

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