Higgins represents Pygmalion, a Greek sculptor who lived alone because he hated women. Of all Shaw's plays, Pygmalion has the most references to Greek and Roman mythology. She declares that she was less degraded as a flower-seller than as a "genteel" lady trying to make an appropriate marriage-because as a flower-seller, at least, she wasn't selling her body. Ironically, while her father expresses no regrets when he is led to believe that Liza will take up this profession, it is she who denounces it.
From his unusual standpoint of being committed to a celibate marriage, Shaw apparently feels free to denounce marriage as an exchange of sexuality for money similar to prostitution (even though this was not happening in his own marriage). These institutions are very much related in Shaw's plays, especially in Mrs.
It is a poignant moment at the end of Pygmalion when Liza thanks Pickering for teaching her manners and pointedly comments that otherwise she would have had no way of learning them. Yet, Higgins's pattern of treating everyone like dirt-while just as democratic as Pickering's of treating everyone like a duke or duchess-is less satisfactory than Pickering's. Shaw's position on manners is somewhat unclear as a socialist, one would think that he would have no time for them because they are a marker of class divisions. Good manners (or any manners at all) were mostly associated with the upper class at this time. British class and identity are very much tied up in their land and their birthplace, so it becomes hard to be socially mobile if your accent marks you as coming from a certain location. The issue of language is tied up in class quite closely the fact that Higgins is able to identify where people were born by their accents is telling. The general sense is that class structures are rigid and should not be tampered with, so the example of Liza's class mobility is most shocking. Pearce) to the middle class (Doolittle after his inheritance) to the genteel poor (the Eynsford Hills) to the upper class (Pickering and the Higginses).
Shaw includes members of all social classes from the lowest ( Liza) to the servant class ( Mrs. The social hierarchy is an unavoidable reality in Britain, and it is interesting to watch it play out in the work of a socialist playwright.
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