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Pygmalion, Act 2 summary

Act 2 of 5 · 37 min to read the act

In Act 2, Liza Doolittle asks Higgins for speech lessons so she can work in a flower shop, and Pickering offers to fund an experiment in changing her speech and social appearance. Higgins takes her into his household despite concerns about her treatment, while Alfred Doolittle obtains five pounds and leaves her there.

What happens

  1. Liza visits Higgins’s laboratory and offers a shilling for lessons that can help her secure flower shop work.
  2. Pickering offers to cover the experiment’s costs and challenges Higgins to prepare Liza for an ambassador’s garden party.
  3. Mrs. Pearce questions the arrangement, takes Liza to wash, and urges Higgins to improve his own language and habits.
  4. Alfred Doolittle arrives, asks for money, and defends his needs against judgments about deserving poverty.
  5. Higgins gives Doolittle five pounds, and Liza returns so clean and differently dressed that her father initially fails to recognize her.
  6. Doolittle leaves, Liza eagerly goes to try her new clothes, and both men acknowledge the difficulty of their task.

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In this act

ElizaHigginsPickeringMrs. HigginsMrs. PearceAlfred DoolittleTheme: Speech and classTheme: Responsibility and careTheme: Respectability and constraint

What to notice

Liza rejects Higgins’s dismissal of her emotional needs. Her demand for ordinary human respect challenges his treatment of her as material for instruction.

Quick check

Why does Doolittle refuse Higgins’s offer of ten pounds?

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