Slide 1

Questions PYGMALION

Slide 2

ACT 1 QUESTIONS

Slide 3

All types and levels of society are force to huddle to avoid the rain. 1. WHAT PURPOSE DOES THE RAIN SHOWER SERVE?

Slide 4

2. THE NOTE TAKER IS ASSUMED TO BE OF WHAT PROFESSION? WHAT ACTUALLY IS HIS PROFESSION? He is assumed to be a policeman or a spy for the police. He is actually a student of phonetics. His name is Professor Higgins. His profession is teaching wealthy people who aspire to climb the social ladder to speak properly.

Slide 5

Higgins constantly tells her to cease making these "detestable" noises. 3. WHAT DOES THE NOTE TAKER SAY ABOUT A WOMAN WHO UTTERS SUCH DEPRESSING AND DISGUSTING SOUNDS?

Slide 6

He brags that "in three months I could pass that girl off as a duchess at an ambassador's garden party." THE NOTE TAKER BRAGS ABOUT WHAT HE COULD DO FOR THE FLOWER GIRL WITHIN THREE MONTHS. WHAT DOES HE CLAIM?

Slide 7

Eliza, thanks to the sudden windfall of money from Higgins, engages the cab to take her home. 5. WHO TAKES THE CAB FREDDY BRINGS? WHY?

Slide 8

It turns out that Pickering came to England to meet Higgins, and that Higgins was about to embark on a journey to India to meet Pickering. They both study dialects. 6. WHAT DO HIGGINS AND PICKERING HAVE IN COMMON?

Slide 9

ACT 2 QUESTIONS

Slide 10

When Higgins recognizes her, he orders her away because he has already recorded enough of her type of "Lisson Grove lingo." 1. WHEN HIGGINS RECOGNIZES THE FLOWER GIRL, WHAT IS HIS REACTION?

Slide 11

She wants to obtain a job as a lady in a flower shop, but she won't be hired unless she can speak in a genteel, ladylike fashion; thus, she has come to take speech lessons from Higgins because last night, he bragged about his ability to teach proper speech to anyone. 2. WHAT DOES ELIZA DOOLITTLE WANT?

Slide 12

Higgins continues to be rude and insulting towards Eliza. She is even willing to pay as much as a shilling an hour (about twenty-five cents an hour, an absurdly ridiculous sum so absurdly low, in fact, that it appeals to Higgins' imagination). Higgins calculates that Eliza's offer is a certain proportion of her daily income, and therefore represents, for her, a large payment. 3. EVEN AFTER HE AGREES TO TEACH HER, WHAT IS HIGGINS ATTITUDE TOWARDS ELIZA?

Slide 13

Mrs. Pearce is a housekeeper. She's also, like Pickering and Mrs. Higgins, a voice of reason. Mrs. Pearce watches out for Eliza from the very beginning; like Mrs. Higgins, she's used to dealing with Henry Higgins, and she knows he can get carried away with his little projects. After she shows Eliza to the bathroom, she tells Higgins in no uncertain terms: this scheme is ridiculous. She wants to make sure Eliza doesn't get hurt. 4. DESCRIBE MRS. PEARCES ROLE.

Slide 14

Higgins tempts her with some chocolates and with the thought of some young man wanting to marry her. 5. ELIZA DETERMINES TO LEAVE RATHER THAN TO BE FURTHER INSULTED. HOW DOES HIGGINS PERSUADE HER TO STAY?

Slide 15

The bath scene shows how Eliza has always lived. 6. WHAT IS THE POINT OF THE BATH SCENE?

Slide 16

She asks Higgins to watch his behaviour around the young girl; that is, he should try to cease swearing, use better table manners and try to act more like a gentleman. 7. MRS. PEARCE MAKES SOME SUGGESTIONS TO HIGGINS. WHAT ARE THEY?

Slide 17

He wants his daughter. We however realise that he might be there to extort money. 8. WHY DID ALFRED DOOLITTLE COME TO SEE PROFESSOR HIGGINS?

Slide 18

Doolittle proclaims himself to be a member of the "undeserving poor"; there has been too much attention paid to the deserving poor, he says, and it is time for the likes of him, who are undeserving, to reap some of the benefits of money. "Undeserving Poverty" is his motto, and if Higgins and Pickering give him five pounds, he promises that he will not save it; by Monday, he will have spent the entire five pounds on one single drunken spree with his "missus." 9. DOOLITTLE SAYS, IM UNDESERVING, AND I MEAN TO GO ON BEING UNDESERVING. WHY DOES HE NOT WANT TO BETTER HIMSELF?

Slide 19

Doolittle demurs, saying that ten pounds might cause him to feel prudent, whereas five pounds is just enough for a spree. 10. WHY DOES DOOLITTLE WANT ONLY FIVE POUNDS INSTEAD OF THE TEN HE IS OFFERED?

Slide 20

ACT 3

Slide 21

They are the mother and daughter from the rainstorm in Act One. They're a mother/daughter team of reasonably wealthy ladies. They start the plot going when they ask Eliza if and how she knows Freddy. They represent everything that Eliza is not: they're clean, well-dressed, and well-spoken 1. WHO ARE MRS. AND MISS EYNSFORD HILL?

Slide 22

He is rude to everyonenot just to Liza. He thinks only of his work and himself. 2. HENRY SAYS, WE WANT TWO OR THREE PEOPLE. YOULL DO AS WELL AS ANYBODY ELSE. WHAT DOES THE FACT THAT HE SAYS THAT TELL US?

Slide 23

She speaks perfectly but tells an odd story of her aunts death using vulgar, though well pronounced, language. 3. WHAT DOES LIZA DO WRONG AT MRS. HIGGINS HOME?

Slide 24

Clara is very taken with Eliza. She wants to use Lizas new small-talk and to imitate her. 4. WHAT DOES CLARA THINK OF ELIZA?

Slide 25

He is a guest at the ambassadors reception, fluent in many languages, and says he is an expert. He claims Eliza is a fraud, that she is really a princess. 5. WHO IS NEPOMMUCK?

Slide 26

Yes, she is very successful. 6. IS ELIZA SUCCESSFUL AT THE AMBASSADORS RECEPTION?

Slide 27

ACT 4

Slide 28

Higgins and Pickering had just carried on a whole conversation as if she werent in the room. They were rude and inconsiderate and treated her unfeelingly. In talking about the lessons with her, Higgins said, The whole thing has been a bore. The whole thing has been simple purgatory. After ignoring her through the whole conversation, Higgins has the nerve to ask her to turn out the lights as he leaves the room. When he comes back looking for his slippers, she throws them at him in her anger. 1. WHY DID ELIZA THROW HIGGINS SLIPPERS AT HIM?

Slide 29

2. What is Higgins advice to Liza when he realises she is upset (although he cannot understand why she is upset)? Its only imagination. Low spirits and nothing else. Nobodys hurting you. Nothings wrong. You go to bed like a good girl and sleep it off. Have a little cry and say your prayers: that will make you feel comfortable.

Slide 30

3. Why does Liza wish Higgins had left her where he had found her? [At the corner of Trottenham Court] I sold flowers. I didnt sell myself. Now youve made a lady of me Im not fit to sell anything else.

Slide 31

4. Why does Liza tell Freddy, Dont you call me Miss Doolittle [] Liza is good enough for me. She feels like in many ways Liza in her old ways was a better person than Miss Doolittle.

Slide 32

5. What was Freddy doing below Elizas window? He has fallen in love with her and hangs around the outside of the house hoping to get a glimpse of her.

Slide 33

ACT 5

Slide 34

1. Why is Henry Higgins concerned about Lizas being gone? Her absence has affected him personally. He misses her services; he cant find anything and doesn't know when his appointments are.

Slide 35

2. Why is Alfred Doolittle upset? He has unwillingly come into money and now has the responsibilities of being middle class instead of being undeserving poor.

Slide 36

3. Higgins says, She behaved in the most outrageous way. I never gave her the slightest provocation. Is he lying or not? No; he genuinely believes that he did nothing. Higgins is blind to his own insensitivities.

Slide 37

4. What becomes of Eliza? She marries Freddy, stays friends with Pickering, tolerates Higgins, and runs her own flower shop.