Victorian Society In Pygmalion

That’s why the importance of learning and propagating of this language| | |was paid attention by the President of the Republic of Uzbekistan I. A. Karimov. In his| | |speech in Samarkand on November 12, 2010 he pointed out the importance of learning and | | |teaching English and gave priority to the learning of it. It is not for nothing. Today | | |it is well known that knowing this language may bring only favour and not harm. | |English language developed in the course of time in its birthplace – England and later | | |in such countries as the USA, Australia, New Zealand.

The development of a language is | | |determined by the development of literature. All the positive (and negative) features | | |of a language can find their reflection in literature.Thus language is influencing the| | |literature. In this point we can say that literature and language are intertwined and | | |the learning of one demands the learning of the other one. | | |English literature has passed great and complicated way of development.

It gave to the | | |treasure of world literature such great names as Shakespeare, Chaucer, Byron, Shaw, | | |Hemingway, Twain and so many others. | |The theme of my course paper sounds as following: “Literary analysis of the play | | |Pygmalion by George Bernard Shaw”. In this work, I investigated life and creative | | |activity of George Bernard Shaw and especially his famous play Pygmalion: the | | |characters of the play and their spiritual philosophy, conflict and social background | | |of the play, writing style of Pygmalion and the origin of its title. | |Bernard Shaw occupies a conspicuous place in the historical development of the English | | |and the world literature.

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In his books Shaw could realistically describe the social | | |life of people. He considered language a lot and tried to reform English and make it | | |easier to read and to learn. This point of Shaw’s creative activity determines the | | |actuality of my course paper. | |Shaw entered drama area as the original innovator. He established a new type of a drama| | |at the English theatre – an intellectual drama in which the basic place belongs neither| | |to an intrigue, nor to a fascinating plot but to those intense disputes, witty verbal | | |duels which are conducted by its heroes.Shaw called his plays “plays-discussions”. | | |They grasped the depth of problems, the extraordinary form of their resolution; they | | |excited consciousness of the spectator, forced him to reflect tensely over an event and| | |to laugh together with the playwright at the absurd of existing laws, orders and | | |customs.In this assignment I intend to analyze the play «Pygmalion» of Bernard Shaw | | |and show its peculiarities to the reader. | | |  | | | | | |  | | |1.Social conditions in England in the beginning of the 20th century | | |The Edwardian era or Edwardian period in the United Kingdom is the period covering the | | |reign of King Edward VII, 1901 to 1910. | | |The death of Queen Victoria in January 1901 and the succession of her son, Edward, | | |marked the start of a new century and the end of the Victorian era.While Victoria had | | |shunned society, Edward was the leader of fashionable elite which set a style | | |influenced by the art and fashions of continental Europe—perhaps because of the King’s | | |fondness for travel. The era was marked by significant shifts in politics as sections | | |of society which had been largely excluded from wielding power in the past, such as | | |common labourers and women, became increasingly politicised. | |The Edwardian period is frequently extended beyond Edward’s death in 1910 to include | | |the years up to the sinking of the RMS Titanic in 1912, the start of World War I in | | |1914, the end of hostilities with Germany on November 11, 1918, or the signing of the | | |Treaty of Versailles on June 28, 1919. By the end of the war, the Edwardian way of | | |life, with its inherent imbalance of wealth and power, had ecome increasingly | | |anachronistic in the eyes of a population who had suffered in the face of war and who | | |were exposed to elements of new mass media which decried the injustice of class | | |division. | | |Socially, the Edwardian era was a period during which the British class system was very| | |rigid.It is seen, as the last period of the English country house. Economic and social| | |changes created an environment in which there was more social mobility. Such changes | | |included rising interest in socialism, attention to the plight of the poor and the | | |status of women, including the issue of women’s suffrage, together with increased | | |economic opportunities as a result of rapid industrialization.These changes were to be| | |hastened in the aftermath of the First World War. | | |The society of that time can be divided into three categories: the upper class, the | | |middle class and the working class. | | |The Edwardian Upper Class consisted of the King and the Queen, Aristocrats, Nobles, | | |Dukes, Viscounts and other wealthy families working in the Victorian courts.A | | |distinguishing factor of the Upper Class was that the nature of their work was such | | |that it held them in a powerful position giving authority, better living conditions and| | |other facilities which was out of the reach of the other two classes.Due to the | | |changing nature of the basic standard of living of the people, the traditional | | |aristocratic class was now slowing disappearing and instead a new combination of nobles| | |and the steadily growing wealthy class comprised of the Upper section of the society. | |The Upper Class was by inheritance a Royal Class which was completely different from | | |the Middle class or the Working Class. Thus, they were never short of money. In terms | | |of education also those belonging to the rich families got the best tutors to provide | | |education.The fact that they represented the royal class gave these people an | | |advantage at everything. They could buy expensive clothes imported from Europe, or | | |afford other riches of life that was beyond the scope of others. | | |Middle class was the next in social ranking as many of them only lacked in title of | | |being a duke or other royals.Most of the professionals like doctors or teachers | | |comprised of the middle class. | | |Middle class people also owned and managed vast business empires and were very rich. At| | |times, the rich were equated with the middle class if they had nothing to promote their| | |royalty and richness. Thus, those having their own businesses were regarded as rich and| | |wealthy. | | | | | The Lower/ Working Class: the lowest among the social hierarchy were those who | | |belonged to this section of the society. Like the middle class, those belonging to this| | |class very large in number. The working class remained aloof to the political progress | | |of the country and was hostile to the other two classes.For some working families the | | |living conditions were so pathetic that they required their children to work in order | | |to bring home some extra home to survive. The death of their father meant that there is| | |no income to the family and they eventually were forced to live on streets or some | | |public housing. | | |All these conditions had a negative impact on their lives.Many of them lost out | | |opportunity to get education and better their living status as their entire life right | | |from the age of five or six years was spent on working in a factory. They thus ended up| | |doing dangerous and dirty jobs. Another class that existed was the paupers. They were | | |ranked below the working class since they lived in abject poverty. | |Surveys showed that at the beginning of the 20th century 25% of the population were | | |living in poverty. They found that at least 15% were living at subsistence level. They | | |had just enough money for food, rent, fuel and clothes. They could not afford | | |’luxuries’ such as newspapers or public transport.About 10% were living in below | | |subsistence level and could not afford an adequate diet. | | |The main cause of poverty was low wages. The main cause of extreme poverty was the loss| | |of the main breadwinner. If father was dead, ill or unemployed it was a disaster. | | |Mother might get a job but women were paid much lower wages than men. | |The children of the poor were expected to help towards the family budget, often working| | |long hours in dangerous jobs for low wages. Agile boys were employed by the chimney | | |sweeps; small children were employed to scramble under machinery to retrieve cotton | | |bobbins; and children were also employed to work in coal mines, crawling through | | |tunnels too narrow and low for adults.Children also worked as errand boys, crossing | | |sweepers, or shoe blacks, or selling matches, flowers, and other cheap goods. Some | | |children undertook work as apprentices to respectable trades, such as building, or as | | |domestic servants (there were over 120,000 domestic servants in London in the mid 18th | | |century).Working hours were long: builders might work 64 hours a week in summer and 52| | |in winter, while domestic servants worked 80 hour weeks. Many young people worked as | | |prostitutes. | | | | | |  | | |2.Shaw’s biography and his place in the development of the English literature | | |George Bernard Shaw (26 July 1856 – 2 November 1950) was an Irish playwright and a | | |co-founder of the London School of Economics. Although his first profitable writing was| | |music and literary criticism, in which capacity he wrote many highly articulate pieces | | |of journalism, his main talent was for drama, and he wrote more than 60 plays.Nearly | | |all his writings deal sternly with prevailing social problems, but have a vein of | | |comedy to make their stark themes more palatable. Shaw examined education, marriage, | | |religion, government, health care, and class privilege. | | |He was most angered by what he perceived as the exploitation of the working class, and | | |most of his writings censure that abuse.An ardent socialist, Shaw wrote many brochures| | |and speeches for the Fabian Society. He became an accomplished orator in the | | |furtherance of its causes, which included gaining equal rights for men and women, | | |alleviating abuses of the working class, rescinding private ownership of productive | | |land, and promoting healthy lifestyles. | |George Bernard Shaw ranks next to Shakespeare among English playwrights, and yet he did| | |not begin to write drama until he was middle-aged. He made up for lost time with an | | |amazing output of more than 60 plays during a creative life that spanned the Victorian | | |and modern eras.A brilliant and opinionated man, Shaw was essentially self-educated, | | |and he did a splendid job of teaching himself what he needed to know. Above all else, | | |he was always vigorously engaged with the world around him; his long, productive life | | |bristled with vitality, intelligence, and a consuming passion for ideas. | | |2. Early life and family | | |George Bernard Shaw was born in Synge Street, Dublin in 1856 to George Carr Shaw | | |(1814–85), an unsuccessful grain merchant and sometime civil servant, and Lucinda | | |Elizabeth Shaw, nee Gurly (1830–1913), a professional singer.Shaw briefly attended the| | |Wesleyan Connexional School, a grammar school operated by the Methodist New Connexion, | | |before moving to a private school near Dalkey and then transferring to Dublin’s Central| | |Model School. He ended his formal education at the Dublin English Scientific and | | |Commercial Day School.He harboured a lifelong animosity toward schools and teachers, | | |saying: “Schools and schoolmasters, as we have them today, are not popular as places of| | |education and teachers, but rather prisons and turnkeys in which children are kept to | | |prevent them disturbing and chaperoning their parents”. In the astringent prologue to | | |Cashel Byron’s Profession young Byron’s educational xperience is a fictionalized | | |description of Shaw’s own schooldays. Later, he painstakingly detailed the reasons for | | |his aversion to formal education in his Treatise on Parents and Children. In brief, he | | |considered the standardized curricula useless, deadening to the spirit and stifling to | | |the intellect.He particularly deplored the use of corporal punishment, which was | | |prevalent in his time. | | |When his mother left home and followed her voice teacher, George Vandeleur Lee, to | | |London, Shaw was almost sixteen years old. His sisters accompanied their mother but | | |Shaw remained in Dublin with his father, first as a reluctant pupil, then as a clerk in| | |an estate office.He worked efficiently, albeit discontentedly, for several years. In | | |1876, Shaw joined his mother’s London household. She, Vandeleur Lee, and his sister | | |Lucy, provided him with a pound a week while he frequented public libraries and the | | |British Museum reading room where he studied earnestly and began writing novels.He | | |earned his allowance by ghostwriting Vandeleur Lee’s music column, which appeared in | | |the London Hornet. His novels were rejected, however, so his literary earnings remained| | |negligible until 1885, when he became self-supporting as a critic of the arts. | | |2. Personal life and political activism | | |Influenced by his reading, he became a dedicated Socialist and a charter member of the | | |Fabian Society, a middle class organization established in 1884 to promote the gradual | | |spread of socialism by peaceful means. In the course of his political activities he met| | |Charlotte Payne-Townshend, an Irish heiress and fellow Fabian; they married n 1898. In| | |1906 the Shaws moved into a house, now called Shaw’s Corner, in Ayot St. Lawrence, a | | |small village in Hertfordshire, England; it was to be their home for the remainder of | | |their lives, although they also maintained a residence at 29 Fitzroy Square in London. | | |Shaw’s plays were first performed in the 1890s. By the end of the decade he was an | | |established playwright.He wrote sixty-three plays and his output as novelist, critic, | | |pamphleteer, essayist and private correspondent was prodigious. He is known to have | | |written more than 250,000 letters. Along with Fabian Society members Sidney and | | |Beatrice Webb and Graham Wallas, Shaw founded the London School of Economics and | | |Political Science in 1895 with funding provided by private philanthropy, including a | | |bequest of ? 0,000 from Henry Hunt Hutchinson to the Fabian Society. One of the | | |libraries at the LSE is named in Shaw’s honor; it contains collections of his papers | | |and photographs. | | |During his later years, Shaw enjoyed attending to the grounds at Shaw’s Corner. He died| | |at the age of 94, of renal failure precipitated by injuries incurred by falling while | | |pruning a tree.His ashes, mixed with those of his wife, Charlotte Payne-Townshend, | | |were scattered along footpaths and around the statue of Saint Joan in their garden. | | |2. 3 Literary activity and criticism | | |Shaw became a critic of the arts when, sponsored by William Archer, he joined the | | |reviewing staff of the Pall Mall Gazette in 1885.There he wrote under the pseudonym | | |”Corno di Bassetto” (“basset horn”)—chosen because it sounded European and nobody knew | | |what a corno di bassetto was. In a miscellany of other periodicals, including Dramatic | | |Review (1885–86), Our Corner (1885–86), and the Pall Mall Gazette (1885–88) his byline | | |was “GBS”.From 1895 to 1898, Shaw was the drama critic for Frank Harris’ Saturday | | |Review, in which position he campaigned brilliantly to displace the artificialities and| | |hypocrisies of the Victorian stage with a theatre of actuality and thought. His | | |earnings as a critic made him self-supporting as an author and his articles for the | | |Saturday Review made his name well-known. | |Much of Shaw’s music criticism, ranging from short comments to the book-length essay | | |The Perfect Wagnerite, extols the work of the German composer Richard Wagner. Wagner | | |worked 25 years composing Der Ring des Nibelungen, a massive four-part musical | | |dramatization drawn from the Teutonic mythology of gods, giants, dwarves and Rhine | | |maidens; Shaw considered it a work of genius and reviewed it in detail.Beyond the | | |music, he saw it as an allegory of social evolution where workers, driven by “the | | |invisible whip of hunger”, seek freedom from their wealthy masters. Wagner did have | | |socialistic sympathies, as Shaw carefully points out, but made no such claim about his | | |opus.Conversely, Shaw disparaged Brahms, deriding A German Requiem by saying “it could| | |only have come from the establishment of a first-class undertaker”. Although he found | | |Brahms lacking in intellect, he praised his musicality, saying “… nobody can listen to| | |Brahms’ natural utterance of the richest absolute music, especially in his chamber | | |compositions, without ejoicing in his natural gift”. In the 1920s, he recanted, | | |calling his earlier animosity towards Brahms “my only mistake”. Shaw’s writings about | | |music gained great popularity because they were understandable to the average well-read| | |audience member of the day, thus contrasting starkly with the dourly pretentious | | |pedantry of most critiques in that era.All of his music critiques have been collected | | |in Shaw’s Music. As a drama critic for the Saturday Review, a post he held from 1895 to| | |1898, Shaw championed Henrik Ibsen whose realistic plays scandalized the Victorian | | |public. His influential Quintessence of Ibsenism was written in 1891. | | |Shaw wrote five unsuccessful novels at the start of his career between 1879 and 1883. | |Eventually all were published. | | |The first to be printed was Cashel Byron’s Profession (1886), which was written in | | |1882. Its eponymous character, Cashel, a rebellious schoolboy with an unsympathetic | | |mother, runs away to Australia where he becomes a famed prizefighter. He returns to | | |England for a boxing match, and falls in love with erudite and wealthy Lydia Carew. | |Lydia, drawn by sheer animal magnetism, eventually consents to marry despite the | | |disparity of their social positions. This breach of propriety is nullified by the | | |unpresaged discovery that Cashel is of noble lineage and heir to a fortune comparable | | |to Lydia’s. With those barriers to happiness removed, the couple settles down to | | |prosaic family life with Lydia dominant; Cashel attains a seat in Parliament.In this | | |novel Shaw first expresses his conviction that productive land and all other natural | | |resources should belong to everyone in common, rather than being owned and exploited | | |privately. The book was written in the year when Shaw first heard the lectures of Henry| | |George who advocated such reforms. | | |Written in 1883, An Unsocial Socialist was published in 1887.The tale begins with a | | |hilarious description of student antics at a girl’s school then changes focus to a | | |seemingly uncouth laborer who, it soon develops, is really a wealthy gentleman in | | |hiding from his overly affectionate wife. He needs the freedom gained by matrimonial | | |truancy to promote the socialistic cause, to which he is an active convert.Once the | | |subject of socialism emerges, it dominates the story, allowing only space enough in the| | |final chapters to excoriate the idle upper class and allow the erstwhile schoolgirls, | | |in their earliest maturity, to marry suitably. | | |Love Among the Artists was published in the United States in 1900 and in England in | | |1914, but it was written in 1881.In the ambiance of chit-chat and frivolity among | | |members of Victorian polite society a youthful Shaw describes his views on the arts, | | |romantic love and the practicalities of matrimony. Dilettantes, he thinks, can love and| | |settle down to marriage, but artists with real genius are too consumed by their work to| | |fit that pattern.The dominant figure in the novel is Owen Jack, a musical genius, | | |somewhat mad and quite bereft of social graces. From an abysmal beginning he rises to | | |great fame and is lionized by socialites despite his unremitting crudity. | | |The Irrational Knot was written in 1880 and published in 1905. Within a framework of | | |leisure class preoccupations and frivolities Shaw disdains hereditary tatus and | | |proclaims the nobility of workers. Marriage, as the knot in question, is exemplified by| | |the union of Marian Lind, a lady of the upper class, to Edward Conolly, always a | | |workman but now a magnate, thanks to his invention of an electric motor that makes | | |steam engines obsolete.The marriage soon deteriorates, primarily because Marian fails | | |to rise above the preconceptions and limitations of her social class and is, therefore,| | |unable to share her husband’s interests. Eventually she runs away with a man who is her| | |social peer, but he proves himself a scoundrel and abandons her in desperate | | |circumstances.Her husband rescues her and offers to take her back, but she pridefully | | |refuses, convinced she is unworthy and certain that she faces life as a pariah to her | | |family and friends. The preface, written when Shaw was 49, expresses gratitude to his | | |parents for their support during the lean years while he learned to write and includes | | |details of his early life in London. | |Shaw’s first novel, Immaturity, was written in 1879 but was the last one to be printed | | |in 1931. It relates tepid romances, minor misfortunes and subdued successes in the | | |developing career of Robert Smith, an energetic young Londoner and outspoken agnostic. | | |Condemnation of alcoholic behavior is the prime message in the book, and derives from | | |Shaw’s familial memories.This is made clear in the book’s preface, which was written | | |by the mature Shaw at the time of its belated publication. The preface is a valuable | | |resource because it provides autobiographical details not otherwise available. | | |After writing his influential essay “Quintessence of Ibsenism”, Shaw began to try his | | |own hand at writing plays. The result, Widowers’ Houses (1892), proved to be the first | | |of many plays to come in the years ahead. | |Shaw’s plays, like those of Oscar Wilde, were fraught with incisive humor, which was | | |exceptional among playwrights of the Victorian era; both authors are remembered for | | |their comedy. However, Shaw’s wittiness should not obscure his important role in | | |revolutionizing British drama. In the Victorian Era, the London stage had been regarded| | |as a place for frothy, sentimental entertainment.Shaw made it a forum for considering | | |moral, political and economic issues, possibly his most lasting and important | | |contribution to dramatic art. | | |As Shaw’s experience and popularity increased, his plays and prefaces became more | | |voluble about reforms he advocated, without diminishing their success as | | |entertainments.Such works, including Caesar and Cleopatra (1898), Man and Superman | | |(1903), Major Barbara (1905) and The Doctor’s Dilemma (1906), display Shaw’s matured | | |views, for he was approaching 50 when he wrote them. From 1904 to 1907, several of his | | |plays had their London premieres in notable productions at the Court Theatre, managed | | |by Harley Granville-Barker and J. E. Vedrenne.The first of his new plays to be | | |performed at the Court Theatre, John Bull’s Other Island (1904), while not especially | | |popular today, made his reputation in London when King Edward VII laughed so hard | | |during a command performance that he broke his chair. | | |For the most part, Shaw’s plays are comedies of ideas, works that present complex and | | |often ontroversial themes within the framework of entertaining plots, appealing and | | |unpredictable characters, and witty dialogue. Shaw’s works are insistently rational, | | |coolly ridiculing the conventions and prejudices of his time. | | |biographical show pygmalion literary | | | | | |3.Pygmalion – one of the best works of George Bernard Shaw | | |3. 1 Plot of the play | | |Act One | | |Portico of Saint Paul’s Church (not Wren’s Cathedral but Inigo Jones Church in Covent | | |Garden vegetable market) – 11. 15p. m. A group of people are sheltering from the rain. | |Amongst them are the Eynsford-Hills, superficial social climbers eking out a living in | | |”genteel poverty”, consisting initially of Mrs. Eynsford-Hill and her daughter Clara. | | |Clara’s brother Freddy enters having earlier been dispatched to secure them a cab | | |(which they can ill afford), but being rather timid and faint-hearted he has failed to | | |do so.As he goes off once again to find a cab, he bumps into a flower girl, Eliza. Her| | |flowers drop into the mud of Covent Garden, the flowers she needs to survive in her | | |poverty-stricken world. Shortly they are joined by a gentleman, Colonel Pickering. | | |While Eliza tries to sell flowers to the Colonel, a bystander informs her that a man is| | |writing down everything she says.The man is Henry Higgins, a professor of phonetics. | | |Eliza worries that Higgins is a police officer and will not calm down until Higgins | | |introduces himself. It soon becomes apparent that he and Colonel Pickering have a | | |shared interest in phonetics; indeed, Pickering has come from India to meet Higgins, | | |and Higgins was planning to go to India to meet Pickering.Higgins tells Pickering that| | |he could pass off the flower girl as a duchess merely by teaching her to speak | | |properly. These words of bravado spark an interest in Eliza, who would love to make | | |changes in her life and become more mannerly, even though, to her, it only means | | |working in a flower shop.At the end of the act, Freddy returns after finding a taxi, | | |only to find that his mother and sister have gone and left him with the cab. The | | |streetwise Eliza takes the cab from him, using the money that Higgins tossed to her, | | |leaving him on his own. When she reaches home she does not pay the taxi fare because | | |she thinks that a shilling for two minutes is very much. | | | | |Act Two | | |Higgins’ – Next Day. As Higgins demonstrates his phonetics to Pickering, the | | |housekeeper, Mrs. Pearce, tells him that a young girl wants to see him.Eliza has shown| | |up, and she tells Higgins that she will pay for lessons. He shows no interest in her, | | |but she reminds him of his boast the previous day, so she can talk like a lady in a | | |flower shop. Higgins claimed that he could pass her for a duchess. Pickering makes a | | |bet with him on his claim, and says that he will pay for her lessons if Higgins | | |succeeds.She is sent off to have a bath. Mrs. Pearce tells Higgins that he must behave| | |himself in the young girl’s presence. He must stop swearing, and improve his table | | |manners. He is at a loss to understand why she should find fault with him. Then Alfred | | |Doolittle, Eliza’s father, appears with the sole purpose of getting money out of | | |Higgins.He has no interest in his daughter in a paternal way. He sees himself as | | |member of the undeserving poor, and means to go on being undeserving. He has an | | |eccentric view of life, brought about by a lack of education and an intelligent brain. | | |He is also aggressive, and when Eliza, on her return, sticks her tongue out at him, he | | |goes to hit her, but is prevented by Pickering.The scene ends with Higgins telling | | |Pickering that they really have got a difficult job on their hands. | | |  | | |Act Three | | |Mrs. Higgins’ drawing room.Higgins bursts in and tells his mother he has picked up a | | |”common flower girl” whom he has been teaching. Mrs. Higgins is not very impressed with| | |her son’s attempts to win her approval because it is her ‘at home’ day and she is | | |entertaining visitors. The visitors are the Eynsford-Hills. Higgins is rude to them on | | |their arrival.Eliza enters and soon falls into talking about the weather and her | | |family. Whilst she is now able to speak in beautifully modulated tones, the substance | | |of what she says remains unchanged from the gutter. She confides her suspicions that | | |aunt was killed by relatives, and mentions that gin had been “mother’s milk” to this | | |aunt, and that Eliza’s own father was always more cheerful after a good amount of gin. | |Higgins passes off her remarks as “the new small talk”, and Freddy is enraptured. When | | |she is leaving, he asks her if she is going to walk across the park, to which she | | |replies, “Walk? Not bloody likely! ” (This is the most famous line from the play, and, | | |for many years after the play’s debut, use of the word ‘bloody’ was known, as a | | |Pygmalion; Mrs.Campbell was considered to have risked her career by speaking the line | | |on stage. ) After she and the Eynsford-Hills leave, Henry asks for his mother’s opinion. | | |She says the girl is not presentable and is very concerned about what will happen to | | |her, but neither Higgins nor Pickering understand her thoughts of Eliza’s future, and | | |leave feeling confident and excited about how Eliza will get on.This leaves Mrs. | | |Higgins feeling exasperated, and exclaiming, “Men! Men!! Men!!! ” | | |However, the six months are not yet up, and just in time for the Embassy Ball Eliza | | |learns to behave properly as well as to speak properly.The challenge she faces is | | |increased, however, by the presence at the Ball of Nepommuck, a former pupil of | | |Higgins’ who speaks 32 languages and is acting as an interpreter for a “Greek | | |diplomatist” who was in fact born the son of a Clerkenwell watchmaker and “speaks | | |English so villainously that he dare not utter a word of it lest he betray his origin. | | |Nepommuck charges him handsomely for helping keep up the pretence. Pickering worries | | |that Nepommuck will see through Eliza’s disguise; nonetheless, Eliza is presented to | | |the Ball’s hosts, who, impressed by this vision of whom they know nothing, despatch | | |Nepommuck to find out about her.Meanwhile Higgins, the interesting work done, rapidly | | |loses interest in proceedings as he sees that no-one will see through Eliza. Indeed, | | |Nepommuck returns to his hosts to report that he has detected that Eliza is not | | |English, as she speaks it too perfectly (“only those who have been taught to speak it | | |speak it well”), and that she is, in fact, Hungarian, and of Royal blood.When asked, | | |Higgins responds with the truth – and no-one believes him. | | |Act Four | | |Higgins’ home – The time is midnight, and Higgins, Pickering, and Eliza have returned | | |from the ball.A tired Eliza sits unnoticed, brooding and silent, while Pickering | | |congratulates Higgins on winning the bet. Higgins scoffs and declares the evening a | | |”silly tomfoolery”, thanking God it’s over and saying that he had been sick of the | | |whole thing for the last two months. Still barely acknowledging Eliza beyond asking her| | |to leave a note for Mrs.Pearce regarding coffee, the two retire to bed. Higgins | | |returns to the room, looking for his slippers, and Eliza throws them at him. Higgins is| | |taken aback, and is at first completely unable to understand Eliza’s preoccupation, | | |which aside from being ignored after her triumph is the question of what she is to do | | |now.When Higgins does understand he makes light of it, saying she could get married, | | |but Eliza interprets this as selling herself like a prostitute. “We were above that at | | |the corner of Tottenham Court Road. ” Finally she returns her jewelry to Higgins, | | |including the ring he had given her, which he throws into the fireplace with a violence| | |that scares Eliza.Furious with himself for losing his temper, he damns Mrs. Pearce, | | |the coffee and then Eliza, and finally himself, for “lavishing” his knowledge and his | | |”regard and intimacy” on a “heartless guttersnipe”, and retires in great dudgeon. | | |Act Five | | |Mrs. Higgins’ drawing room, the next morning.Higgins and Pickering, perturbed by the | | |discovery that Eliza has walked out on them, call on Mrs. Higgins to phone the police. | | |Higgins is particularly distracted, since Eliza had assumed the responsibility of | | |maintaining his diary and keeping track of his possessions, which causes Mrs. Higgins | | |to decry their calling the police as though Eliza were “a lost umb