Pygmalion Act III | ISC Class 12 Modern English Literature Notes

This note covers George Bernard Shaw's Pygmalion, Act III, its author and dramatic form, the setting, the visit to Mrs Higgins, the characters, Eliza's speech, the comedy, themes, key quotations, vocabulary and the unresolved question of Eliza's future.

What should we know about the author and the text?

Shaw's interest in speech and society

George Bernard Shaw is the author of Pygmalion. In his preface, he connects the play with his interest in speech and the judgements people make when they hear someone speak. His central specialist, Professor Henry Higgins, teaches Eliza Doolittle to change her speech.

Phonetics is the study of speech sounds. Higgins's work involves listening closely to sounds and training their production. Shaw describes his play as deliberately didactic, meaning intended to teach. Its entertaining conversations also invite thought about language, education and social divisions.

The preface connects the shorthand postcards mentioned in Act III with postcards Shaw received from Henry Sweet, a specialist in speech. Shorthand means an abbreviated system of writing. Shaw nevertheless explicitly says that Higgins is not a portrait of Sweet, although the play contains touches of him.

A play built through speech and action

Drama presents its action through characters' speech and performance. Stage directions are the playwright's instructions about setting, movement, expression and delivery. In this act, they reveal the careful effort behind Eliza's entrance and the uncontrolled movements of her teacher.

Act III brings Eliza into Mrs Higgins's social gathering after months of instruction. Her changed pronunciation and appearance impress the visitors, but her conversation unsettles them. The act then turns from the immediate result of the experiment towards the consequences of changing her way of life.

This movement gives the act two connected concerns: whether Eliza can manage a fashionable visit, and whether her teachers have considered her future. The second concern remains open when the act ends. The conversation at Mrs Higgins's home does not complete the whole experiment.

How does the setting prepare the social test?

Mrs Higgins's room and visiting day

The action takes place in Mrs Higgins's drawing-room, a room for receiving visitors, in her flat on Chelsea embankment, beside the river. It is between four and five in the afternoon. It is her at-home day, a day set aside for receiving social callers.

The room's three windows face the river and open on to a balcony with potted flowers. Its decoration includes handsome fabrics and paintings, but it is not crowded with small tables and ornaments. The stage directions explicitly contrast it with her son's room in Wimpole Street.

These details suggest a hostess with settled taste and an orderly social world. That interpretation gains force when Henry enters violently with his hat on. His mother removes the hat and reminds him that his behaviour makes her friends stop visiting when they encounter him.

The teacher's own difficulty with manners

Small talk means light conversation used to make social contact. Higgins admits that he lacks it. His mother objects to more than conversational awkwardness: he offends visitors, fidgets and needs reminders about ordinary behaviour. His technical skill does not make him an ideal social example.

Higgins has invited Eliza without first securing his mother's invitation. He wants to test her progress before other people. His instructions limit her to the weather and everybody's health, topics he assumes will be safe. Mrs Higgins immediately questions that assumption about health.

The setting therefore provides more than a fashionable background. It places Eliza's trained behaviour beside Higgins's habitual rudeness. A room meant for sociable ease becomes the place where the expert's understanding of social conduct is tested alongside his pupil's performance.

Mrs Higgins's writing-table also frames the action. She is writing before Henry arrives and attempts to return to writing after the men leave. Their visit has disturbed both her room and her peace of mind, especially through their refusal to address Eliza's future.

What happens in Act III: a section-by-section summary?

Higgins explains his experiment

Higgins arrives despite having promised to avoid his mother's at-home day. After a conversation about his lack of interest in young women, he explains that he has invited a flower girl whom he has been teaching. His mother has not invited Eliza herself.

He describes a bet that he can pass Eliza off as a duchess within six months. A duchess is a woman holding a high aristocratic title. He says the training began some months earlier and praises Eliza's quick ear and progress.

Higgins nevertheless admits a difficulty: correct pronunciation does not settle what Eliza will say. He has restricted her conversation to weather and health. Before he can explain the difficulty fully, Mrs Eynsford Hill and her daughter arrive, followed by Colonel Pickering and Freddy Eynsford Hill.

The visitors and Eliza's entrance

Higgins responds awkwardly to the visitors and tries to place their familiar voices and faces. Clara, Mrs Eynsford Hill's daughter, favours frank conversation. Higgins argues that unrestricted honesty would disrupt society, then questions how much supposedly cultivated people really know.

Eliza's entrance makes a striking impression. Her beautiful clothing and carefully practised grace cause the others to rise in confusion. She greets Mrs Higgins with extremely correct pronunciation and a beautiful tone, gasping slightly as she makes sure she pronounces the initial sound in Higgins.

Mrs Eynsford Hill remembers Eliza's eyes. Freddy becomes infatuated, meaning intensely attracted, and Higgins suddenly recognises the connection with Covent Garden. His attempts to sit down then lead to awkward movement around the furniture, including a divan, a cushioned seat. A long, painful silence follows.

Weather gives way to an alarming family story

Mrs Higgins asks whether it will rain. Eliza answers in the formal manner of a weather report. She describes a shallow depression, an area of low atmospheric pressure, as likely to move slowly eastwards, with no indications of any great change in the pressure conditions.

Freddy laughs, but Eliza believes she has answered correctly. Mrs Eynsford Hill mentions influenza, an infectious illness commonly called flu. Eliza says her aunt reportedly died of it, then declares her belief that the people living with the aunt killed her.

Eliza supports her suspicion with her aunt's earlier recovery from diphtheria, a serious infectious illness, and the disappearance of a straw hat she expected to inherit. In her account, her father had poured gin, a strong alcoholic drink, down the aunt's throat during that earlier illness. This is Eliza's story, not medical advice.

The conversation then moves to her father's drinking. Eliza says she observed no harm to him, while qualifying that he did not drink continuously. She describes episodes of drinking and claims that he was always more agreeable after a drink. The visitors' expectations clash with her familiar experience.

Eliza leaves and Clara imitates her

Higgins calls Eliza's expressions the new small talk, suggesting that they are a fashionable conversational style. Freddy accepts this explanation with delight. When Eliza asks whether she has said anything wrong, Mrs Higgins reassures her, protecting her from open embarrassment.

Higgins checks his watch and clears his throat. Eliza takes the hint and rises to leave. Freddy asks whether she is walking across the park. Her emphatic refusal includes an expression the company finds startling, and she announces that she is taking a taxi.

After her departure, Clara defends the expression as modern and innocent. Her mother remains uncomfortable. Higgins encourages Clara to use the supposed new small talk at her remaining visits, and Clara repeats the offending word. Freddy eagerly welcomes the possibility of seeing Eliza again.

The visitors leave and the real problem emerges

Mrs Eynsford Hill privately explains that the family's poverty limits Clara's opportunities to attend parties. Mrs Higgins responds sympathetically. Once the visitors have left, Higgins asks whether Eliza is ready for society. His mother praises the training and dressmaking but rejects his conclusion.

Mrs Higgins asks about Eliza's position in the household. The men enthusiastically describe her progress, recordings, photographs, musical ability and talent for imitation. Mrs Higgins interrupts them and raises the neglected question of what will happen to Eliza afterwards.

She warns that a lady's habits without a lady's income may hinder independent earning. The men offer vague assurances about work, then leave planning another outing with Eliza. Mrs Higgins tries to resume writing but cannot settle, ending the act in exasperation with men.

What do the main characters reveal about themselves?

Eliza Doolittle

Eliza combines striking progress with uncertainty about the rules of the gathering. Her entrance and pronunciation show effort and learning. Her question about Freddy's laughter shows that she wants to understand what she has done wrong, rather than deliberately trying to shock the company.

Her family stories display confidence and force once she becomes comfortable. They also preserve the language and experience that her new clothing cannot erase. She can follow Higgins's signal to leave, yet does not realise the effect of her final expression about walking.

Henry Higgins

Higgins admires Eliza's quick ear and finds the work deeply absorbing. He believes new speech can bridge the divisions between classes and people. His enthusiasm is substantial, but he measures progress through the problems that interest him professionally.

His own conduct exposes a weakness in his authority. He swears, speaks bluntly to guests and handles furniture carelessly. When his mother asks about Eliza's future, he treats the advantages he has given her as enough. He offers no definite arrangement for her independent livelihood.

Mrs Higgins and Colonel Pickering

Mrs Higgins combines tact with direct criticism. She welcomes Eliza, smooths over awkward moments and comforts Mrs Eynsford Hill. In private, she tells the men that Eliza's future is their responsibility. She distinguishes impressive teaching from the wider care owed to a person.

Pickering is more conventionally courteous than Higgins. He discreetly withdraws when Mrs Eynsford Hill lowers her voice, and he tells her that she need not use slang she dislikes. Slang means informal expressions associated with particular groups or situations.

Pickering nevertheless shares the experiment's excitement and its blind spots. He praises Eliza's musical gifts and helps document her development, but dismisses Mrs Higgins's anxiety with reassurance. Courtesy in conversation does not prevent him from overlooking the practical consequences she identifies.

The Eynsford Hills

Clara wants to appear socially confident and modern. She readily accepts the claim that Eliza's expressions are fashionable. Her eagerness makes her vulnerable to copying language she would otherwise be expected to reject. Her mother's account of their limited social opportunities gives this behaviour a context.

Mrs Eynsford Hill is well bred but anxious about limited money. Her shock at Eliza's language coexists with affection for her children. Her private explanation of Clara's difficulties makes the family's position more sympathetic than Clara's display of confidence initially suggests.

Freddy is captivated by Eliza. He laughs at her remarks, follows her departure from the balcony and wants to meet her again. His admiration shows that a social response can depend on attraction as well as on a detached judgement of conversational correctness.

Why does correct pronunciation not guarantee social acceptance?

Sound, subject and situation

Pronunciation means the way words are sounded. Eliza's training has changed this impressively. Yet Higgins himself recognises the difference between how she pronounces and what she pronounces. Her visit makes that distinction visible through the weather report and the story about her aunt.

The weather answer is not presented as a failed speech exercise. Eliza delivers specialised information where a casual conversational response is expected. Register means a style of language suited to a particular purpose or situation. The mismatch here is between a formal report and friendly small talk.

The health topic causes a different difficulty. Eliza talks about suspected killing, gin and her father's drunkenness. These subjects and expressions unsettle her listeners even though her voice has been trained. Knowing a permitted topic does not guarantee knowing how the gathering expects it to be discussed.

Learning requires more than imitation

Eliza's slight gasp over the initial sound in Higgins also matters. Her success requires conscious effort. She is carefully performing what she has learnt, and the stage direction preserves that effort rather than presenting her new manner as completely unselfconscious.

The response is also uneven: Freddy is delighted, Clara is fascinated, and Mrs Eynsford Hill is shocked. Social acceptance, being received as belonging within a group, is therefore not a single judgement shared identically by every listener.

Mrs Higgins's later verdict holds both sides together. Eliza is a success in speech training and dress, but she is not yet ready to pass without revealing her background through conversation. Admiration for her progress need not mean claiming that the whole task has been completed.

How do comedy and dramatic techniques expose social pretensions?

Irony and the reversal of expectations

Irony involves a contrast between appearance and reality, or between expectation and result. Higgins trains Eliza for polite society while repeatedly failing to behave politely himself. His mother's reminders make the supposed instructor look like a child requiring supervision.

Dramatic irony occurs when the audience understands something that a character does not. The audience knows why Eliza is at the gathering and can recognise Higgins's explanation of her expressions as a rescue attempt. Clara instead accepts those expressions as evidence of fashion.

Clara's imitation reverses the expected direction of teaching. The girl being trained for society becomes a model for someone already anxious to appear at home in it. The scene questions the reliability of social standards when those standards depend on imitating whatever seems current.

Movement, pauses and competing voices

Physical comedy creates amusement through bodily movement and action. Higgins's stumbling around the fireplace equipment and his nearly damaging the divan make his lack of ease visible. These movements contrast with Eliza's practised grace and undermine a simple contrast between refined teacher and awkward pupil.

The long silence before the weather question creates discomfort. Eliza then answers with excessive formality, and Freddy laughs. The changing pace moves from stillness to lively, alarming conversation. The audience can notice how quickly a supposedly safe plan escapes the teacher's control.

Later, Higgins and Pickering speak simultaneously as they praise Eliza. Their overlapping speeches become so noisy that Mrs Higgins puts her fingers in her ears. Their inability to listen physically enacts the problem she is trying to address: professional excitement is crowding out serious attention.

Satire with a sympathetic dimension

Satire uses humour to expose faults in people or social practices. Clara's eagerness to repeat fashionable language makes social pretension look foolish. Yet Mrs Eynsford Hill's explanation of their poverty adds sympathy: Clara has few opportunities to gain the experience she pretends to possess.

The comedy thus works in more than one direction. Eliza's conversation is funny, but the polished social world also becomes an object of scrutiny. The act invites attention to the assumptions of listeners, the manners of teachers and the cost of trying to belong.

What themes and messages emerge from the visit?

Language and class

Class refers here to social divisions associated with status, manners and economic position. Higgins sees speech as a deep barrier between classes. Eliza's changed reception demonstrates the power of voice and appearance, while her conversation shows that social judgement extends beyond individual sounds.

A useful reading is that such boundaries depend partly on learnt conventions. Eliza can learn new speech, while Clara can mistake unfamiliar expressions for fashionable ones. The play makes the authority of these conventions look less secure than the characters sometimes assume.

Education and responsibility

Education can open possibilities while also changing a learner's expectations and habits. Higgins and Pickering celebrate the changes they can measure or enjoy. Mrs Higgins asks what those changes will mean when the experiment no longer supplies Eliza with attention and support.

The implied message is not that Eliza should remain uneducated. It is that teaching involves consequences for the learner's whole life. Mrs Higgins's criticism concerns the absence of planning, not a denial of Eliza's intelligence or of the success of her speech training.

Appearance and economic security

Economic security means having dependable means of meeting one's needs. A fine appearance does not provide this by itself. Mrs Eynsford Hill belongs to polite society yet struggles financially. Mrs Higgins uses her position to challenge the assumption that becoming ladylike automatically benefits Eliza in every way.

Her warning concerns habits that may obstruct earning without supplying an income. It connects manners with material circumstances. The danger she identifies is prospective: the act raises the risk to Eliza's livelihood but does not show that future harm already occurring.

Human individuality and control

Objectification means treating a person chiefly as an object to shape or use rather than attending to that person's own life. Mrs Higgins's comparison of Eliza to a living doll suggests this danger. The men speak excitedly about creating new versions of her.

Their admiration need not be dismissed as false. They describe real ability and hard work. The tension is that their genuine enthusiasm does not answer who Eliza is to become, how she will live, or what responsibilities remain when their project ends.

Fashion and conformity

Conformity means adapting behaviour to the expectations of a group. Clara claims freedom from old restrictions but fears appearing out of date. Her imitation of Eliza suggests that rejecting one convention can involve submitting just as eagerly to another.

The act therefore combines comedy with a demand for more thoughtful judgement. Speech, clothing and manners affect how people are received, but none of them settles a person's worth or guarantees a secure future. That is an interpretation supported by the contrasts within the visit.

What questions does the ending leave unanswered?

What will happen afterwards?

Mrs Higgins redirects attention from passing Eliza off as a lady to what is to be done with her afterwards. The men initially misunderstand her concern as another technical obstacle. She insists that the problem involves livelihood, the means by which a person supports herself.

Higgins says Eliza can go her own way with the advantages he has given her. Mrs Higgins challenges whether those advantages are sufficient. The example of the financially strained visitor connects her warning with someone the audience has just seen, making the concern concrete.

The men suggest light employment and promise to do what is right. These are assurances, expressions intended to reassure, rather than a definite plan. No particular job, income or lasting arrangement is established in this conversation. Their confidence does not resolve the question.

The significance of the final contrast

As they leave, Higgins and Pickering discuss taking Eliza to an exhibition and enjoying her remarks and imitations. Their attention returns to the pleasure of her company. Mrs Higgins remains behind, unable to settle to her writing and visibly angry at their response.

This contrast makes the ending more serious than the amusing social visit alone might suggest. It can be read as foreshadowing, a preparation for later difficulties, because it identifies a problem still awaiting an answer. It does not itself disclose or settle later events.

The act's final concern is therefore ethical as well as practical. Ethical responsibility means considering what one owes to other people through one's actions. The teachers have changed Eliza's circumstances; Mrs Higgins demands thought about what that change obliges them to consider next.

Which key quotations clarify the act?

Speech, fashion and the person behind the experiment

“not only how a girl pronounces, but what she pronounces”

Higgins, explaining the difficulty before the visitors interrupt.

Higgins, before the guests interrupt: this distinction identifies the weakness he already recognises in the experiment. Sound can be trained successfully while conversational content still creates difficulty.

“But it’s my belief they done the old woman in.”

Eliza, describing her suspicion about her aunt.

Eliza, discussing her aunt: the wording marks the allegation as her belief. It must not be converted into an established fact about the aunt's death.

“Walk! Not bloody likely.”

Eliza, refusing Freddy's suggestion as she leaves.

Eliza, responding to Freddy as she leaves: her forceful refusal shocks the gathering. Clara's subsequent defence turns the moment into a test of what people accept as fashionable.

“You certainly are a pretty pair of babies, playing with your live doll.”

Mrs Higgins, criticising the men's treatment of Eliza.

Mrs Higgins, questioning the men's treatment of Eliza: the comparison reverses their claim to mature authority. A living person cannot be adequately understood as a plaything or a technical achievement.

“the problem of what is to be done with her afterwards.”

Mrs Higgins, identifying her concern about Eliza's future.

Mrs Higgins, correcting the men's misunderstanding: the concern is Eliza's continuing life after the transformation, rather than the immediate success of passing her off as a lady.

“Oh, men! men!! men!!!”

Mrs Higgins, alone after the men leave.

Mrs Higgins, alone at the close: the repeated exclamation follows her failed attempt to resume writing. Her frustration confirms that the men's reassuring departure has not answered her objection.

Glossary

• Phonetics — The study of speech sounds, central to Higgins's training of Eliza's pronunciation.
• Didactic — Intended to teach or instruct, including through entertaining dramatic action and conversation.
• Stage directions — Instructions describing a play's setting, movement, delivery and other aspects of performance.
• At-home day — A day on which a hostess receives people making social visits.
• Small talk — Light social conversation intended to establish contact and keep a gathering comfortable.
• Register — A style of language associated with a particular purpose, audience or social situation.
• Dramatic irony — A situation in which the audience understands something that one or more characters do not.
• Satire — Humour that exposes or criticises faults in people, institutions or social practices.
• Conformity — Adjustment of behaviour to fit the expectations or accepted practices of a group.
• Objectification — Treating someone chiefly as an object to shape or use, overlooking that person's independent needs.
• Livelihood — The means of supporting oneself and obtaining the resources needed for everyday life.
• Foreshadowing — A dramatic suggestion that prepares an audience for possible later developments or difficulties.

Common errors and misconceptions

• Misconception: Act III completes Higgins's bet. Correct: The visit tests Eliza's progress, but Mrs Higgins rejects the claim that she is ready for society. The bet's successful completion is not shown here.
• Misconception: Eliza's aunt was certainly murdered. Correct: Eliza expresses a belief based on her aunt's earlier recovery and a missing hat. Her suspicion is not independently confirmed.
• Misconception: Eliza speaks badly throughout the visit. Correct: Her pronunciation and tone impress the company. The difficulties involve the suitability of her conversational style, subjects and expressions.
• Misconception: Higgins consistently models excellent manners. Correct: His mother repeatedly corrects him, and his language and movements expose his own social awkwardness.
• Misconception: Clara recognises the explanation of the new small talk as an excuse. Correct: She embraces the supposed fashion and imitates the expression that has shocked her mother.
• Misconception: Pickering's politeness means he answers Mrs Higgins's concerns. Correct: He behaves considerately on several occasions but joins Higgins in leaving Eliza's future without a concrete arrangement.
• Misconception: Mrs Higgins opposes Eliza's education. Correct: She recognises the achievement in training and appearance. Her central objection is the failure to consider the consequences for Eliza's independent life.

Exam-style questions with model answers

Q1. Higgins restricts Eliza's conversation to the weather and everybody's health because he considers these topics safe. State his restriction and its intended purpose. [2 marks]

1. He limits Eliza to conversation about the weather and everybody's health.
2. He expects this restriction to keep her conversation safe and prevent her from ranging over unsuitable subjects.

Q2. Eliza says her aunt reportedly died of influenza, but suspects she was killed. She cites the aunt's recovery from an earlier serious illness and the disappearance of a hat she expected to inherit. Explain the status of her claim and her two reasons. [3 marks]

1. The alleged killing is Eliza's suspicion, not a fact independently established by the scene; the reported cause of death is influenza.
2. She regards her aunt's recovery from an earlier serious illness as evidence of strength, making the later death seem suspicious to her.
3. The missing hat supplies a possible motive in her reasoning: she links the people she believes stole it with the suspected killing.

Q3. Eliza enters beautifully dressed and greets Mrs Higgins with careful, correct pronunciation. Asked about rain, she gives a formal weather report. Discussion of health leads her to speak about suspected killing and family drinking. Explain four ways these details distinguish speech training from social ease. [4 marks]

1. Her impressive clothing contributes to an appearance of distinction before the gathering hears the substance of her conversation.
2. Her careful greeting shows successful pronunciation training, although the effort remains visible rather than completely natural.
3. The weather report uses a formal register where the situation calls for light and sociable conversation.
4. Her family stories introduce alarming subjects, showing that improved speech sounds do not automatically teach the conventions governing conversational content.

Q4. Higgins teaches Eliza for polite society, yet enters his mother's room with his hat on, offends her guests, stumbles around the fireplace equipment and nearly damages the divan. His mother repeatedly corrects him. Explain how these supplied details create irony and physical comedy. [4 marks]

1. The irony lies in the contrast between Higgins's role as a teacher for polite society and his own disregard for social manners.
2. Entering with his hat on and offending guests expose failures in the ordinary behaviour his educational role might lead others to expect.
3. His stumbling and nearly damaging furniture produce physical comedy through visibly clumsy movement rather than through dialogue alone.
4. His mother's repeated corrections place the confident teacher in a childlike position, weakening his claim to unquestioned social authority.

Q5. Higgins labels Eliza's startling expressions the new small talk. Clara accepts them as fashionable, calls her mother old-fashioned and repeats the offending word. Mrs Eynsford Hill later explains that poverty gives Clara few opportunities to attend parties. Analyse the comedy and sympathy in this portrayal, using five points. [5 marks]

1. Clara accepts Higgins's label as evidence of fashion, showing how readily an apparently authoritative explanation can direct her social judgement.
2. Her eagerness to appear modern makes her defend language that has shocked her mother, creating a comic disagreement between their standards.
3. By repeating the offending word herself, Clara turns admiration into imitation; the person anxious to belong becomes easy to mislead.
4. Her criticism of her mother's old-fashioned attitude reveals pressure to seem socially current, rather than a fully independent assessment of the language.
5. The explanation of poverty adds sympathy because her limited opportunities help account for her uncertainty. The comedy exposes pretension while acknowledging the insecurity beneath it.

Q6. Mrs Higgins calls the men babies playing with a live doll. They praise Eliza's progress, but she asks what will happen afterwards, warning that a lady's habits without a lady's income can hinder earning. They offer vague promises of employment and leave planning an outing, while she remains upset. Explain the ending's significance in six points. [6 marks]

1. The comparison with babies challenges the men's maturity, despite their confidence in the importance and success of their educational work.
2. The living-doll image suggests that their pleasure in shaping Eliza risks overlooking her continuing needs as an independent person.
3. The question about afterwards shifts attention from immediate achievement to the lasting consequences of changing her habits and expectations.
4. The warning about income gives the problem a practical basis: adopting a lady's way of life does not supply the money to sustain it.
5. The vague promises of employment fail to establish a definite means of support, so the central practical question remains unresolved.
6. The planned outing contrasts with Mrs Higgins's continuing distress, showing that the men return to enjoyment without satisfying her demand for responsibility.

Key takeaways

• Act III places Eliza's developing speech and social behaviour before visitors at Mrs Higgins's afternoon gathering.
• Eliza's pronunciation and appearance impress the company, but her topics and expressions reveal the limits of her preparation.
• The story of the aunt's alleged killing remains Eliza's suspicion; it is not independently confirmed within the act.
• Higgins's own rudeness and awkward movements undermine his position as an unquestioned teacher of polite conduct.
• Clara's imitation of supposedly fashionable language exposes social insecurity, while her mother's explanation of poverty invites sympathy.
• Pickering's courtesy coexists with his failure to address the practical problem that Mrs Higgins identifies.
• Mrs Higgins connects education with responsibility, asking how Eliza will support herself when the experiment ends.
• The men's optimistic departure leaves Eliza's future unresolved, giving the act a serious ending beneath its comedy.

Test yourself

Mrs Higgins receives social callers on her at-home day. What does that expression mean?

It means a day set aside by a hostess for receiving people making social visits.

Eliza gives a formal weather report during light conversation. What mismatch does this illustrate?

Her register does not fit the situation: formally correct delivery can still be unsuitable for casual social conversation.

Eliza calls the killing of her aunt her belief. Why does that wording matter?

It presents the allegation as her interpretation, rather than establishing that the aunt was actually killed.

Clara imitates language after Higgins calls it fashionable. What weakness does this expose?

Her desire to appear modern makes her judgement dependent on what she takes to be social fashion.

Mrs Eynsford Hill says poverty gives Clara few parties. How does this affect our view of Clara?

It adds sympathy by explaining the limited social experience behind Clara's anxious display of confidence.

Mrs Higgins compares Eliza to a live doll. What criticism is contained in the comparison?

The men risk treating Eliza as something to shape and enjoy without adequately considering her own continuing needs.

The men promise light employment without naming a definite arrangement. Does this resolve Mrs Higgins's concern?

No. Their reassurance leaves unanswered how Eliza will actually support herself after the experiment.

Higgins teaches social behaviour but repeatedly needs correction from his mother. What makes this ironic?

The contrast between his teaching role and his own poor manners undermines his apparent authority over polite behaviour.