Class Distinctions 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 considerssome of the illusions of the class distinctions. This isrepresented by the characters, their situations, and theiraphoristic comments. Eliza Doolittle starts out as a sassy, smart-mouthedflower girl with disgraceful English. See goes to seeProfessor Higgins to see if he will teach her to speakproperly and act more like a lady. This also would requireher 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 himnot asking any favorand he treats me zif I was dirt. (1160)That was the flower girl, Eliza Doolittle, talking toColonel Pickering about how she want to become a lady andhow Mr. Higgins refused to help her because she belongs tothe lower-classed section of society. Later she finallyconvinces Mr. Higgins to help her, but to him she is just anexperiment of phonetics.Mr. Higgins is a high-classed professor of phonetics. He believes in concepts like visible speech, and used allmanners of recording and photographic material to documenthis phonetic subjects. This reduces people and theirdialects into what he sees as easily understandable units. However, he is also a very eccentric man. He goes in theopposite direction from the rest of society for mostmatters. He is also very impatient with high society, eventhough he is a member of it. But even more then the highsociety, he treats the lower end of society with even lessrespect. Pickering: shall we ask this baggage to sit down,or shall we throw her out of the window (1160). That wasMr. Higgins tal...
