Pygmalion

64 pages • 2 hours read

Pygmalion

Fiction | Play | Adult | Published in 1913

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Introduction

Before Reading

During Reading

After Reading

During Reading

Reading Questions & Paired Texts

Reading Check and Short Answer Questions on key points are designed for guided reading assignments, in-class review, formative assessment, quizzes, and more.

ACT I

Reading Check

1. Why are there so many people gathered beneath the portico of St. Paul’s Church?

2. What is Colonel Pickering’s area of expertise?

3. Why is Higgins initially mistaken for a police officer?

Short Answer

Answer each question in at least 1 complete sentence. Incorporate details from the text to support your response.

1. How does Higgins demonstrate his expertise as a linguist?

2. How does Higgins plan to pass the flower girl off as a duchess?

3. Why is the flower girl so troubled by Higgins’s note-taking?

Paired Resource

“Lexical Variation in the BBC Voices Recordings” by Jonnie Robinson

This article delves into the findings of the BBC Voices project and explores the many dialects in use across the UK.
Connects to the theme of Language and Phonetics.
How can dialects and accents affect one’s cultural identity?

ACT II

Reading Check

1. Who is Mrs. Pearce?

2. Why does Eliza want Higgins to teach her how to talk like a lady?

3. How is Alfred Doolittle related to Eliza?

Short Answer

Answer each question in at least 1 complete sentence. Incorporate details from the text to support your response.

1. How does Pickering convince Higgins to teach Eliza?

2. Why is Mrs. Pearce worried about Higgins’s bet with Pickering?

3. Why does Alfred Doolittle refuse to accept more than five pounds from Higgins?

Paired Resource

The Rise and Fall of Class in Britain

This book by David Cannadine discusses the history of the class system in the United Kingdom; the introduction can be read online.
This introduction connects to the theme of Formal Education.
How are social class and class consciousness in the UK connected to education and upbringing? How is social class performative?

ACT III

Reading Check

1. What is the setting for the first scene of Act III?

2. Who are Mrs. Higgins’s guests?

3. Who becomes smitten with Eliza at Mrs. Higgins’s house?

Short Answer

Answer each question in at least 1 complete sentence. Incorporate details from the text to support your response.

1. Why doesn’t Mrs. Higgins want her son around her guests?

2. Why does Higgins bring Eliza to his mother’s house?

3. Why does Mrs. Higgins conclude that Eliza is not yet presentable?

4. Why is Mrs. Higgins concerned about the bet?

Paired Resource

“What Does it Mean to be a British Duchess Today?”

An informative video documentary describing the position and responsibilities of a duchess in the modern UK. Though this is a 58-minute video, stopping at 8:14 is recommended for a shorter viewing.
This video connects to the themes of Formal Education and Women’s Identity.
How have ideas surrounding social class and nobility in the UK transformed over time?

ACT IV

Reading Check

1. When does Higgins realize that Eliza is angry at him?

2. What does Higgins suggest Eliza do now that the experiment is over?

3. Whom does Eliza run into when she leaves Higgins’s house?

Short Answer

Answer each question in at least 1 complete sentence. Incorporate details from the text to support your response.

1. Why is Eliza so angry at Higgins and Pickering?

2. Who does Higgins say is responsible for Eliza’s success? What does this reveal about his character?

Paired Resource

Votes for Women by Jessica Brain

This article from Historic UK details the push for women’s suffrage in the years leading up to the writing of Pygmalion and explains how World War I drastically changed the public’s perception of allowing women to vote.
This article connects to the theme of Women’s Identity.
What were women’s roles in early 20th-century England? How does Eliza’s insistence on being heard embody and or subvert these roles?

ACT V

Reading Check

1. Where do Higgins and Pickering find Eliza?

2. Where do Eliza, Pickering, and Mrs. Higgins go at the end of the play?

3. Whom does Eliza claim she wants to marry?

Short Answer

Answer each question in at least 1 complete sentence. Incorporate details from the text to support your response.

1. Why is Alfred Doolittle upset about his new wealth?

2. Eliza claims that it is Pickering’s example that inspired her to be a lady. What does she mean by this?

3. Why does Eliza insist that she will not return to Higgins’s house?

Recommended Next Reads

Major Barbara by George Bernard Shaw

This satirical play that premiered in 1905 tells the story of a privileged young woman who learns the demeaning way that the wealthy treat underprivileged individuals.
Shared themes include Formal Education and Women’s Identity.
Major Barbara on SuperSummary

The Importance of Being Earnest by Oscar Wilde

Oscar Wilde’s final play and a classic comedy of manners, The Importance of Being Earnest, was first staged in 1895 and has never lost its popularity.
Shared themes include Formal Education and Women’s Identity.
The Importance of Being Earnest on SuperSummary

Reading Questions Answer Key

ACT I

Reading Check

1. They are sheltering from the rain. (Act I)

2. Indian dialects (Act I)

3. He is writing down everything the people in the crowd are saying. (Act I)

Short Answer

1. Higgins demonstrates his expertise by using his knowledge to identify the dialects and birthplaces of many of the people in the crowd at St. Paul’s Church. (Act I)

2. Higgins boasts that he can pass the flower girl off as a duchess by teaching her how to change the way she speaks. (Act I)

3. The flower girl is initially worried that Higgins is a police officer, but even when it is revealed that he is a linguistics professor she is still upset by his note-taking, interpreting his behavior as an attempt to “take away [her] character.” (Act I)

ACT II

Reading Check

1. Higgins’s housekeeper (Act II)

2. So that she can get a job at a flower shop (Act II)

3. He is her father. (Act II)

Short Answer

1. Pickering promises to pay for Eliza’s lessons and cover all costs associated with teaching and housing her if Higgins succeeds in passing Elisa off as a duchess. (Act II)

2. Mrs. Pearce is worried that Higgins, who is often abrasive and inconsiderate, will unintentionally harm Eliza. She tells Higgins that “when you get what you call interested in people’s accents, you never think or care what may happen to them or you.” (Act II)

3. Doolittle does not want to accept too much money because he is afraid that having too much money will force him to change his ways, and he is content with remaining the way he is. (Act II)

ACT III

Reading Check

1. Mrs. Higgins’s house (Act III)

2. Mrs. Eynsford Hill and her children Clara and Freddy (Act III)

3. Freddy Eynsford Hill (Act III)

Short Answer

1. Mrs. Higgins explains to her son that she finds his manners rude and embarrassing. She does not want him to put off her guests. (Act III)

2. Higgins wants his mother to help him evaluate Eliza’s progress. He wants his mother to tell him whether she thinks Eliza can pass as a duchess. (Act III)

3. Mrs. Higgins explains that despite Eliza’s improved diction she still lapses into discussing crude subjects, and is sometimes blunt and rude. (Act III

4. Mrs. Higgins is concerned about what will happen to Eliza after Higgins and Pickering are finished with Eliza, especially as this is something that neither Higgins nor Pickering has thought about. (Act III)

ACT IV

Reading Check

1. When she throws his slippers at him (Act IV)

2. Find a husband (Act IV)

3. Freddy Eynsford Hill (Act IV)

Short Answer

1. Eliza becomes angry when Higgins and Pickering congratulate each other on the success of their experiment while hardly acknowledging her, even complaining that the experiment had started to grow boring. Eliza is worried about what she should do now that the experiment is over. (Act IV)

2. Higgins gives himself the credit for Eliza’s success since it was he who taught her. This underscores Higgins’s arrogance and his belief that he is superior to Eliza. (Act IV)

ACT V

Reading Check

1. At Mrs. Higgins’s house (Act V)

2. Alfred Doolittle’s wedding (Act V)

3. Freddy (Act V)

Short Answer

1. Doolittle feels that he must now join the middle class and comply with middle-class morality. This sense of middle-class morality forces Doolittle to do things he does not want to do, like provide financial assistance to his family and marry his common-law wife. (Act V)

2. Eliza explains that Pickering always treated her like a lady, even when she was only a flower girl. This gave Eliza the self-respect she needed to adopt the mannerisms of a lady. (Act V)

3. Eliza explains that she desires empathy and understanding, which the arrogant Higgins refuses to show her. (Act V)