My Fair Lady

A linguistics professor, Henry Higgins is wholly dedicated to the study of language and describes himself as a confirmed bachelor. He takes a misogynistic view of women, seeing them as “nuisances” who take away a man’s free will to enjoy what he loves. In this aspect, Higgins is like Pygmalion, who despised real women, although he enjoyed carving fantasy women in ivory (See: Background).

Higgins takes on Eliza as not only a student, but a full-time ward, living in his house and filling his time. Higgins is motivated by vainglory and not charity, only seeing in Eliza an opportunity to prove The Links Between Language and Social Class. He treats Eliza like a child or an object, directing his housekeeper to beat her if necessary, and regards himself as her owner instead of her mentor.

Higgins is training Eliza to become a respectable lady in high society, but he has little respect for the aristocracy, much to his mother’s irritation. He shows up to Ascot improperly dressed, and his mother is unhappy to see him, knowing that he will only be rude to her friends. His arrogance is also mixed with social awkwardness: He doesn’t know how to speak to women, and he doesn’t know what to do with the warm feelings that he develops for Eliza.

Higgins sing-speaks throughout the majority of the musical, as if he is distancing himself from the romanticization that often comes from melody, especially in musical theater. When he does sing a ballad, “I’ve Grown Accustomed to Her Face,” words are failing him for the first time, as the song is a roundabout way to describe his growing affection. Although he demands his slippers from Eliza at the musical’s close, he is listening to Eliza speak in her Cockney accent on a recording, suggesting that he has in fact changed, and he now finds her voice pleasing and has realized her importance in his life.

Colonel Pickering is an older Englishman and a linguistics scholar who has been residing in colonized India and traveled to London in hopes of meeting Professor Henry Higgins, whose scholarship he greatly admires.

Pickering is also a confirmed bachelor, but he isn’t misogynistic like Higgins. He is always kind to Eliza, who tells Higgins later that Pickering treats everyone like a princess while Higgins treats everyone like a servant. Pickering makes the wager with Higgins, but he immediately asserts that Eliza must not be taken advantage of, ensuring that Higgins can be trusted with her. Although Pickering only wins the bet if Higgins and Eliza fail, he is just as invested in her success as Higgins, suggesting a more selfless streak to his character.

Pickering is wealthy, seemingly wealthier than Higgins, and he dances with excitement when Eliza has a breakthrough. Before the ball, he is more anxious than Higgins, wondering if they ought to cancel. After, he sings “We Did It” with Higgins. Pickering sometimes serves as comic relief, as when he accidentally speaks in Eliza’s accent or when he doesn’t know Eliza’s hair and eye color while calling the police. Pickering is thus a gentler, more agreeable foil to Higgins’s more irascible temper.

Freddy Eynsford-Hill is a young gentleman who is entirely cowed by his mother’s demands. At the beginning of the musical, he bumps into Eliza and knocks her flowers into the mud. Despite Eliza’s harsh admonishment and criticism of his character for walking away without paying, he obeys his mother and goes off to hail a taxi. He seems to be living with his mother and surviving on her wealth, but he has no prospects of his own or skills to find work and become self-sufficient. Freddy thus represents the foibles of the idle aristocracy.

Unlike Higgins, Freddy is not a snob: He falls hopelessly in love with Eliza after her faux pas at Ascot, enjoying her genuineness, and he subsequently spends all his free time on her street in hope of spotting her. Freddy’s infatuation comes on suddenly, and he is full of romantic words and poetry—the opposite of Higgins, who doesn’t know what to do with emotions. Eliza would have to work to support both herself and Freddy if they married, and she states toward the musical’s end that this is her preferred course of action. In Shaw’s addendum to Pygmalion (See: Background), he states that they do marry and struggle financially until Pickering helps them to open a flower shop. However, at My Fair Lady’s end, the implication is that Eliza’s future may lie in a match with Higgins instead.

Henry’s mother, Mrs. Higgins, is an intelligent woman with a sharp wit who fits into aristocratic society but hasn’t been sheltered from understanding how the world works. At first, she expresses dislike for the idea of a common flower girl showing up to watch the Ascot opening day races in her private box. She expresses even more distaste for the surprise that her son will be coming. Mrs. Higgins loves her son, but she sees him for the anti-social, often rude and dismissive man that he is.

Although Eliza ends up shocking everyone at the races with her language, Mrs. Higgins grows to care about her. She sees that her son and Pickering are treating Eliza like a doll rather than a person, but she is rooting for Eliza to succeed because she genuinely likes her. When Eliza seeks out her advice after leaving Higgins’s house, she is happy to receive her as a guest for tea. After Eliza says a polite and permanent goodbye to Higgins, Mrs. Higgins says, “Bravo, Eliza!” (128), recognizing that Eliza has challenged her stubborn, anti-emotional, and set-in-his-ways son.

Eliza’s father, Alfred Doolittle, is a shameless opportunist and a carouser. He depends on Eliza for money, which he spends on alcohol. Doolittle sees skirting by in life with enough luck to scrounge the change to buy his next drink as the ideal existence. He calls his current partner Eliza’s “stepmother,” although Eliza points out that he hasn’t married her, just as he never married her mother. Eliza’s exchanges with her father hint at the troubles Eliza has faced since her childhood, leading her to become the self-sufficient person she is.

Doolittle shows up at Higgins’s door to demand five pounds as payment for Eliza’s time, showing that he, too, treats Eliza like a commodity instead of a person. Higgins, on a whim, plays a joke that later unexpectedly endows Doolittle with an inheritance from an American millionaire. Suddenly, Doolittle’s girlfriend wants him to marry her, and Doolittle ends the musical confused and unhappy with his newfound status, blaming Higgins for pushing him into the middle class.