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Characters

Alfred Doolittle

Alfred is Liza’s father, whom Shaw describes as “an elderly but vigorous dustman. . . . He has
well marked and rather interesting features, and seems equally free from fear or conscience. He
has a remarkably expressive voice, the result of a habit of giving vent to his feelings without
reserve.” Doolittle describes himself as the “undeserving poor,” who need just as much as the
deserving but never get anything because of the disapproval of middle-class morality.
Nevertheless, he is a skilled moocher who is capable of finessing loans from the most miserly of
people. He is miserable when he comes into money during the course of the play, however,
because people then come with hopes of borrowing money.

Eliza Doolittle

A cockney flower girl of around 18 or 20 years of age, Eliza is streetwise and energetic. She is not
educated by traditional standards, but she is intelligent and a quick learner. As she presents
herself in her “shoddy coat” at Higgins’s laboratory, Shaw describes the “pathos of this
deplorable figure, with its innocent vanity and consequential air.” She learns a genteel accent
from Higgins and, washed and dressed exquisitely, passes in society for a Duchess. In this
transformed state, she is shown to be capable of inspiring awe in the observer. While she wins
Higgins’s wager for him, she is shocked to find him lose interest in her once the experiment is
complete; she cannot believe that he’s given no thought to her future well-being. Pickering, by
having been polite to her from the very beginning, provides a contrast, from which Liza is able to
realize that “the difference between a lady and a flower girl is not how she behaves, but how
she’s treated.” She learns from Higgins’s behavior an even deeper truth, that social graces and
class are not the true measure of a person’s worth.

Henry Higgins

Henry Higgins is an expert in phonetics and the author of “Higgins’s Universal Alphabet.” Shaw
describes him as “a robust, vital, appetizing sort of man of forty or thereabouts. . . .He is of the
energetic, scientific type, heartily, even violently interested in everything that can be studied as a
scientific subject, and careless about himself and other people, including their feelings. . . . His
manner varies from genial bullying. . . to stormy petulance. . . but he is so entirely frank and void
of malice that he remains likeable even in his least reasonable moments.” In his book Shaw: The
Plays, Desmond MacCarthy observed that “Higgins is called a professor of phonetics, but he is
really an artist — that is the interesting thing about him, and his character is a study of the
creative temperament.”

For many, this temperament is a difficult one. His housekeeper, Mrs. Pearce, observes of Higgins
that “when you get what you called interested in people’s accents, you never think of what may
happen to them or you.” Certainly, Higgins gives no thought to Liza’s future after his experiment,
and when he gradually loses interest in it, he seems, at least from her perspective, to have
disposed of her as well. He is shaken by the independence Liza demonstrates and thus by the
end of the play is able to show a kind of respect to her. It is on such terms and presented in such
a way, however, that a romantic ending between himself and Liza is never really feasible.

Mrs. Higgins

Henry’s mother, a generous and gracious woman. She is frequently exasperated by her son’s
lack of manners and completely sympathizes with Liza when the girl leaves Higgins and takes
shelter with her. She is perceptive and intelligent, and capable of putting Henry in his place. It is
indicative of Mrs. Higgins’s character that after the conflict between her son and Liza, both
characters choose to come to her for guidance.

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POETRY FIRST TERM FIRST YEAR www.elsaidhafiz126@yahoo.com 0124527307
Frederick Eynsford Hill

Freddy is an upper-class young man of around 20, somewhat weak although eager and good-
natured. Proper and upstanding, he is infatuated with Liza and thoroughly devoted to her both
before and after she takes shelter with him in an all-night cab after leaving Higgins. Liza claims to
be going back to him at the end of the play, an idea which Higgins finds preposterous. Freddy
does not have the money to support them both (and from Liza’s perspective seems unfit for
difficult work), which prompts her idea to earn a living by teaching phonetics.

Miss Clara Eynsford Hill

A pampered socialite of around 20, she is somewhat gullible and easily disgusted. Shaw writes
that she “has acquired a gay air of being very much at home in society; the bravado of genteel
poverty.” Her social position is not secured, however, and this anxiety drives much of her
behavior.

Mrs. Eynsford Hill

The middle-aged mother of Freddy and Clara, whom Shaw describes as “well-bred, quiet” and
having “the habitual anxiety of straitened means.” She is acutely aware of social decorum and
highly invested in finding proper spouses for her two children.

Mrs. Pearce

Higgins’s middle-class housekeeper. Very practical, she can be severe and is not afraid of
reproaching Higgins for his lack of social graces. She is conscious of proper behavior and of her
position, and quite proud. She is taken aback by the seeming impropriety of Liza coming into the
Higgins household but quickly develops a bond with the girl, often defending her from Higgins.

Colonel Pickering

A phonetics expert like Higgins, this “elderly gentleman of the amiable military type,” meets the
latter in a rainstorm at the St. Paul’s Church. The “author of Spoken Sanskrit,” Pickering excels
in the Indian dialects because of his experience in the British colonies there. Courteous and
generous, as well as practical and sensible, he never views Liza as just a flower girl and treats
her with the respect due a lady of society.“I assure you,” he responds to a challenge by Mrs.
Higgins, “we take Eliza very seriously.” Open-hearted, he finds it easy to sympathize with others
and, decidedly unlike Higgins, is conscience-stricken when he fears he’s hurt Liza.