Pygmalion - Character Analysis
The main characters in George Bernard Shaw's play Pygmalion undergo sharp transformations and highlight social class differences.
Eliza
Doolittle
Role:
The protagonist and central figure of the experiment.
Initial State:
A poor, dirty Cockney flower girl with rough speech and low social status.
Transformation:
She learns phonetics to speak like a duchess, but her true growth is emotional.
Personality:
Intelligent, ambitious, and fiercely honest. She ultimately demands
self-respect and independence from her mentors.
Professor
Henry Higgins
Role:
A renowned phonetician and Eliza's teacher.
Traits:
Brilliant, energetic, arrogant, and emotionally detached.
Function:
He treats Eliza as a scientific experiment rather than a human being, lacking
basic manners or empathy, yet he inspires her transformation.
Colonel
Pickering
Role:
Higgins's friend and a fellow linguistics expert.
Traits:
Polite, kind, and generous.
Function:
He contrasts Higgins by treating Eliza with constant courtesy and respect
throughout the social experiment .
Alfred
Doolittle
Role:
Eliza's father and a dustman.
Traits:
Unconventional, witty, and unapologetically lower-class.
Function:
He represents the "undeserving poor". He comically inherits a
middle-class fortune through a joke-like bequest, which destroys his carefree
lifestyle.
Mrs.
Higgins
Role:
Henry Higgins's refined mother.
Traits:
Perceptive, intelligent, and socially proper.
Function:
She acts as a voice of reason, scolding her son for treating Eliza like an
inanimate object .
Freddy
Eynsford Hill
Role:
A young, impoverished upper-class man.
Traits:
Good-natured, romantic, and devoted.
Function:
He falls deeply in love with Eliza and accepts her for who she is, offering a
potential future based on affection .
Mrs.
Pearce
Role:
Higgins’s practical housekeeper.
Traits:
Sensible, maternal, and strict about morality.
Function:
She protects Eliza and constantly pushes Higgins to consider the social
consequences of his actions .
No comments:
Post a Comment