My Fair Lady Analysis
Heather Austin
Comp 3
Drama Analysis
B2
George Bernard Shaw’s My Fair Lady is the story of a lady, by the name of Eliza, who lives and works on the street. Eliza sells flowers daily to make a living. Eliza hears a phonetics professor say he can take Eliza and pass her at an Embassy Ball in six months or less, just after he puts her down by saying, “Yes, you squashed cabbage leaf! You disgrace to the noble architecture of these columns” (650)! Eliza over hearing the professor’s address makes her way to his front door. Eliza makes sure that Higgins is aware that she arrives in a taxi; she feels this would be a nice impression. When Eliza arrives she soon finds that Professor Higgins is ruder than she remembers him whenever he calls her baggage. As Eliza agrees to stay with Higgins for six months, relationships that were never thought to be develop rather quickly. While Eliza stays with Higgins she is transformed to a completely different person. By the end of the play it is clear that Eliza’s speech changes her attitude and the way people treat her. People that Eliza would have never encountered before treat her beautifully because of the way she speaks.
Elisa begins the play as a poorly speaking lady walking around trying to sell flowers with no respect at all for the professor that will not buy her flowers. As she is walking around later she hears Higgins’s voice in her head saying “You see this creature with her kerbstone English: the English that will keep her in the gutter to the end of her days. In six months I could pass that girl off as a duchess at an embassy ball. I could even get her a job as a lady's maid or a shop assistant, which requires better English” (650). This goes hand in hand with her solo “All I want is a room somewhere, far away from the cold night air. With one enormous chair, aow, wouldn't it be loverly? Lots of choc'lates for me to eat, lots of coal makin' lots of 'eat. Warm face, warm 'ands, warm feet”
Comp 3
Drama Analysis
B2
George Bernard Shaw’s My Fair Lady is the story of a lady, by the name of Eliza, who lives and works on the street. Eliza sells flowers daily to make a living. Eliza hears a phonetics professor say he can take Eliza and pass her at an Embassy Ball in six months or less, just after he puts her down by saying, “Yes, you squashed cabbage leaf! You disgrace to the noble architecture of these columns” (650)! Eliza over hearing the professor’s address makes her way to his front door. Eliza makes sure that Higgins is aware that she arrives in a taxi; she feels this would be a nice impression. When Eliza arrives she soon finds that Professor Higgins is ruder than she remembers him whenever he calls her baggage. As Eliza agrees to stay with Higgins for six months, relationships that were never thought to be develop rather quickly. While Eliza stays with Higgins she is transformed to a completely different person. By the end of the play it is clear that Eliza’s speech changes her attitude and the way people treat her. People that Eliza would have never encountered before treat her beautifully because of the way she speaks.
Elisa begins the play as a poorly speaking lady walking around trying to sell flowers with no respect at all for the professor that will not buy her flowers. As she is walking around later she hears Higgins’s voice in her head saying “You see this creature with her kerbstone English: the English that will keep her in the gutter to the end of her days. In six months I could pass that girl off as a duchess at an embassy ball. I could even get her a job as a lady's maid or a shop assistant, which requires better English” (650). This goes hand in hand with her solo “All I want is a room somewhere, far away from the cold night air. With one enormous chair, aow, wouldn't it be loverly? Lots of choc'lates for me to eat, lots of coal makin' lots of 'eat. Warm face, warm 'ands, warm feet”