tation, Shaw portrays Eliza as an intelligent duchess whose manners and dress brought out her individuality. Her creator remains rude and continues to treat her as a guinea pig. Shaw forces his audience to sympathize with Eliza, whose character is intrinsically better than Higgins '. But how could this artificial creation, which has been intensely programmed to substitute morals for manners surpass her creator, the rude professor of phonetics? Eliza was a duchess before she ever met Higgins or Pickering. She was simply a slave to her poverty and only appeared to be simpleminded. Living with two "elite" men, she learned the best from each of them, bringing out her individuality. From Higgins, she learned how to speak correctly, and from the respect granted to her by Pickering, she learned to respect herself. Even her "creator" admits at the very end, she was "like a millstone around [his] neck, [n] ow [she] is a tower of strength, a consort battleship." Self respect makes the image of a flower girl off the street to evolve into an image of a duchess, nevertheless, the fact that she surpasses her "creator" proves that Eliza always remains the same person on the inside. Pygmalion (the sculptor) resembles Higgins only on the surface, he builds the perfect woman, while Higgins simply gives a poor duchess an opportunity to change her image. Similarly, all Shaw's characters in "Pygmalion," change only on the surface (if at all); they remain the same people on the inside regardless of circumstances. As an unknown ancient writer wrote: "Popularity is an accident, money takes wings, those who cheer you today may defame you tomorrow, the only thing that endures is character." p align="justify"> Characters Professor Henry Higgins
Henry Higgins, forty years old, is a bundle of paradoxes. In spite of his brilliant intellectual achievements, his manners are usually those of the worst sort of petulant, whining child. He is a combination of loveable eccentricities, brilliant achievements, and devoted dedication to improving the human race. Yet he is completely socially inept; his manners are so bad that his own mother does not want him in her house when she has company, and his manners are so offensive that she will not attend the same church at the same time. Since manners have always been the subject matter of comedies from the time of Aristophanes, Higgins 'view of manners differs greatly from his own actions. His use of phonetics to make a flower girl into a duchess does not mean that the play is about phonetics; the play concerns different definitions of manners, and thus Higgins 'actions must be taken fully into account.Higgins is a confirmed bachelor, and this fact alone should rule out all popularizes who would create a romantic entanglement between Higgins and Eliza. In addition, he is so set in his ways that he announces to Eliza that if someone doesn't want to get run over, they had ...
