Pygmalion Journal Entries

Hallie Walther

Entry 1:

In the beginning of Pygmalion Clara is being very mean to Eliza and does not want to give her fair pay for her flowers. Clara also rudely ordered her brother to go fetch a taxi for her and her mother. When I read this passage I was amazed about how rude Clara was. I don’t think that people today are as rude as she was then. Then of what the equivalent to a flower girl would be in the 21^st century. The first thing that came to mind was a street vendor in New York or some other major city. When I drew this parallel I realized that people are very rude to street vendors and it allowed me to relate this story to modern day times which helped me to understand the story more easily.

The next thing in the play that I was confused about was the fact that Higgins would allow a person he had only met once who he knew nothing about come live in his house for six months. I know that my parents would never let a person that they had recently met come live with us. This led me to wonder why Higgins would want Eliza to live with him. I think it was because he wanted a challenge and Eliza seemed like a great opportunity for one. I think that once Higgins made his mind that he wanted Eliza to live with them there was nothing that anyone could do to change his mind.

Another thing that surprised me in the play was that Mr. Doolittle sold his daughter for a very small amount of money. This is hard for me to understand not only because it is illegal to sell humans in the United States today, but I can never imagine my father doing such a thing to me. Even though selling your daughter is a bad thing I think that it ended up being a good thing for Eliza. She had the opportunity to learn how to speak properly and learn how to be a lady. This opened up many doors for her like being able to get a legitimate, well-paying job.