Analysis

Pygmalion as Socialist Play

The story shows the charactersโ€™ interplay from various classes and positions in society. The hierarchy is represented in the form of upper class like Higgins, a middle class like Freddy, working-class like Mrs.

Pearce and the dependent lower class like the Doolittles. The range of social conditions of people from these different classes in manifested in their accents, language, priorities, and values. In a way, through the grooming of Eliza, the author tries to display a level of mobility in terms of different classes.

Socialism as an ideology accepts the arrangement of people in various classes and explains their interactions and intercourse as well as conflicts. The writer was a well known socialist and tries to present this worldview through the tales of his characters.

Pygmalion as Romance Play

The story of the play is based on realism and depiction of real-life struggles and aspirations. The fixation of society with pretense and superficial appearances is highlighted by the play. The insistence of moral standards and class differences in Victorian England is quite visible in the play.ย 

The hypocrisy of the rich and the constraints of the poor are contrasted much like the existing inequality even in present-day and age. Romanticism celebrates and narrates such real and pressing issues and thus Pygmalion falls under the same genre.