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This test consists of 5 short answer questions, 10 short essay questions, and 1 (of 3) essay topics.

Short Answer Questions

1. In the last part of Act 3, Higgins and Pickering take Liza for her final test. Where does this "test" take place?

2. What does Liza plan to do for money?

3. What does Liza throw at Higgins when they return home after the party?

4. What does Freddy tell the officer?

5. Why is Doolittle dressed up at the end of the play?

Short Essay Questions

1. Describe Neppomuck. Who is he, and what does Higgins think of him?

2. What does Higgins think Liza should do with her future? Does he really give it any thought?

3. What does Liza say about marriage in Act 4? What does her statement reveal about her morals?

4. What do Neppomuck and the ambassador's wife conclude about Liza? What does it suggest about class differences and about high society that Liza is so easily able to fool everyone at the party?

5. Does Higgins really not care about Liza? How can you tell? What comments and reactions on Higgins's part show that he is growing fond of Eliza?

6. What does Pickering think about the evening? How do his feelings differ from Higgins's? How does he succeed in hurting Liza as well?

7. What does Higgins mean when he says that "my manners are exactly the same as Pickering's"? In what sense is he right? In what sense is he wrong?

8. What does Mrs. Higgins say when she learns the two men have phoned the police at the beginning of Act 5? What does Mrs. Higgins realize about Liza that the two men do not?

9. What does Liza ultimately think of the party and of her success at the end of Act 3?

10. Why doesn't Higgins want Liza to fetch his slippers for him and perform other like tasks?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Write an essay about the theme of language in Pygmalion. At the end of the play, Alfred Doolittle says that he expects now he's going to have to learn to speak middle-class English instead of the "proper English" he normally uses. What is ironic about his statement? Is there really one "proper" way to speak English, in your opinion? What do you think Shaw's opinion is? If everyone speaks Doolittle's low-class English, would it be just as well as if everyone speaks like duchesses?

Essay Topic 2

Write an essay examining the theme of manners in Pygmalion.

Part 1) Evaluate Higgins's statement from Act 5, "The secret is not having good manners or bad manners or any other particular sort of manners, but having the same manner for all human souls: in short, behaving as if you were in Heaven, where there are no third-class carriages, and one soul is as good as another." What does he mean by this? Do you agree with him?

Part 2) Do you think Shaw agrees with him on the subject of manners? For instance, is there something honest about the rude way Higgins behaves, and something hypocritical about the "polite" manners of other people in the play?

Part 3) Which characters in the play behave the same to everyone, and which characters treat people differently depending on the class they belong to? Explain.

Essay Topic 3

Write an essay about the idea of "small talk" and social hypocrisy in Pygmalion.

Part 1) In Act 3, Higgins talks about how ridiculous small talk is: "You see, we're all savages, more or less. We're supposed to be civilized and cultured--to know all about poetry and philosophy and art and science, and so on; but how many of us know even the meanings of these names?" Shortly afterward, Liza shocks everyone by speaking of taboo topics and using a curse word in polite conversation. Clara is delighted by this slap in the face of "late Victorian prudery."

Part 2) What specifically does Liza say to shock everyone? Do you think Shaw agrees that her talk is shocking and rude?

Part 3) What might their polite, "civilized and cultured" conversation have been like if Liza had not come?

Part 4) What do you think is Shaw's opinion of polite small talk, and of "late Victorian prudery" that governs what is and is not appropriate in small talk?

(see the answer keys)

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