Forceful Error

Most writers show the flaws of society causally or gently. Some try to cover them up. Others drag the errors of life out kicking and screaming and expose them to the world. George Bernard Shaw was one of the writers who forced a flaw to show its ugly head to the audience. In his play Pygmalion, he makes Professor Higgins a subject of observation. The audience sees Higgins transform Eliza from a poor flower girl to a duchess. But after that, he still sees her as garbage for him to throw away when he is finished. Also, Higgins seems disrespectful to women because of his mother and how she treated him. Shaw makes the professor not to be a bad person but a tool to teach the audience.

The first lesson that is taught in the play is not to treat others like useless parts to life once you have helped them. This is what Higgins did to Eliza after he made her into a lady in act four. The professor keeps saying again and again, “Thank God it’s over!” To him, all she is good for is reminding him of important dates, giving messages to the maid, Mrs. Pearce, and fetching his slippers. But Eliza wants more than that. Overwhelmed with despair, she falls into a crying fit. “What is to become of me?” she asks in misery in Act 4. What does Higgins say to her? “How the devil do I know what’s to become of you? What does it matter what becomes of you?” To the audience, that is insensitive of a teacher to say to their pupil. To make this sense show that he was tactless to Eliza, he even says to her after she claimed that she won his bet for him in Act 4, “You won my bet! You! Presumptuous insect! I won it. What did you throw those slippers at me for?” Higgins talks to Eliza as if she was nothing more than just a servant to him.

Higgins’s second problem is his disrespect to women. He is a proud bachelor and prefers to stay that way. Higgins scared Eliza into whining and stating over and over that she was a good girl. The professor sometimes takes Mrs. Pearce for granted. One line proves this when Pickering is concerned about leaving his things lying around in Act 4, “Oh, chuck them over the banisters into the hall. She’ll find them there in the morning and put them away all right. She’ll think we were drunk.” One has to feel sorry for Mrs. Pearce when she comes in and has to put away all of their belongings. The professor tunes out his maid when she gives him advice on watching his habits around the house when transforming Eliza into a lady. The professor ends her lecture by agreeing to do so half-heartedly. He said this one line in the play to his student intensively in Act 4, “You see, Eliza, all men are not confirmed old bachelors like me and the Colonel. Most men are the marrying sort (poor devils!)…” To the audience that seems like he almost looks down on the guy that want a wife and family. But don’t chastise the professor too harshly. His reason, though weak, of mistreating women is a clear one. His mother tries to belittle him. The woman is one of those strict Victorian angels in the Victorian age. Mrs. Higgins tries to make her son proper and is embarrassed by him at times. She tries to send him away when he comes to visit and says Higgins offends all of her friends. His mother wants him to get married and start a family. “Well, you never fall in love with anyone under forty-five. When will you discover that there are some rather nice-looking young women about?” she asks in Act 3. Higgins says he does have time to look for a woman. Mrs. Higgins doesn’t like her son’s job with vowels and dialects of different people. “No use, dear. I’m sorry; but I can’t get around your vowels; and though I like to get pretty postcards in your patent shorthand, I always have to read the copies in ordinary writing you so thoughtfully send me.” she says in Act 3. One can’t really blame the professor for being bitter around women.