Class Distinictions in Pygmalion

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Class Distinictions in Pygmalion Pygmalion, by George Bernard Shaw, is a thrilling drama in which a scientist of phonetics tries to transform a cockney speaking Covent Garden flower girl into a woman as poised and well-spoken as a duchess. The play considers some of the illusions of the class distinctions. This is represented by the characters, their situations, and their aphoristic comments. Eliza Doolittle starts out as a sassy, smart-mouthed flower girl with disgraceful English. See goes to see Professor Higgins to see if he will teach her to speak properly and act more like a lady. This also would require her to become a high-classed member of society. I want to be a lady in a flower shop stead of sellin at the corner of Tottenham Court Road. But they wont take me unless I can talk more genteel. He said he could teach me. Well, here I am ready to pay him–not asking any favor–and he treats me zif I was dirt. (1160) That was the flower girl, Eliza Doolittle, talking to Colonel Pickering about how she want to become a lady and how Mr. Higgins refused to help her because she belongs to the lower-classed section of society. Later she finally convinces Mr. Higgins to help her, but to him she is just an experiment of phonetics. Mr. Higgins is a high-classed professor of phonetics. He believes in concepts like visible speech, and used all manners of recording and photographic material to document his phonetic subjects. This reduces people and their dialects into what he sees as easily understandable units. However, he is also a very eccentric man. He goes in the opposite direction from the rest of society for most matters. He is also very impatient with high so... ... middle of paper ... ...g life means making trouble. Theres only one way of escaping trouble; and thats killing things. Cowards, you notice, are always shrieking to have troublesome people killed (1199). That was Mrs. Higgins talking to Liza. This comment that she made was definitely an aphorism. This is because she was making a wise observation on trouble in life. She is saying that all parts of life including all social classes have some trouble in them, but that is what makes it life. Without trouble life would be boring and pointless. The fact that Pygmalion contains illusions of class distinctions is clearly shown through the characters, their situations, and their aphoristic comments. In Eliza’s quest to become a lady she had to deal with many social class problems, however, she overcomes them with the help of Hr. Higgins and becomes a high class lady.

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