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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. What does Mrs. Higgins say Pickering and Higgins have done wrong?

2. What is Mrs. Higgins concerned about after meeting Liza at the social visit in Act 3?

3. Why is Liza's father, Doolittle, upset with Higgins?

4. Where is Liza at the beginning of Act 5?

5. What is the setting at the beginning of Act 3?

Short Essay Questions

1. What happens to Doolittle in Act 5? Explain how Higgins is responsible.

2. How does Higgins behave during the social visit? Explain. What does this "gentleman's" ungentlemanly behavior suggest about class differences?

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

4. Why is Doolittle unhappy with his new status? What is ironic about this?

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

6. Why is Liza so upset in Act 4? What does she want to know?

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 type of job does Liza propose to do in the final act? Why might she be better at this job than Higgins?

9. 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?

10. What does Higgins conclude about the evening and about their joint project at the beginning of Act 4? What does he say that hurts Liza's feelings?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Write an essay examining the attitudes toward love and marriage in the play.

Part 1) How does Shaw satirize, or make fun of, conventional attitudes toward love and marriage, for instance, through Higgins and Doolittle?

Part 2) What, according to Shaw in his Epilogue, is the balance of power men and women seek in marriage? What is an ideal marriage like?

Part 3) Why do some men never marry?

Essay Topic 2

Write an essay about the theme of nature versus nurture in the play Pygmalion.

Part 1) Henry Higgins transformsd Liza Doolittle. Does he really change her essential nature, or only the superficial aspects? Explain.

Part 2) Consider Pickering's statement, after the ambassador's party, that "Eliza was doing it so well. You see, lots of the real people cant do it at all: theyre such fools that they think style comes by nature to people in their position; and so they never learn." What does this say about Liza's natural sense of style?

Part 3) Consider how Liza was raised (reread Act 2 for her father's comments about how he raised her). Did Doolittle's nurture (or rather, lack of nurture) harm Liza? Is he to be blamed or credited for the way she is now?

Part 4) While Higgins changes Liza, is she able to do the same with him? Why, or why not?

Part 5) Consider this statement from Higgins: "I cant change my nature." Is this true? Can anyone really ever change his or her nature, or are all changes only superficial? Explain, using examples from the play.

Essay Topic 3

Write an essay examining satire in Pygmalion. Satire is a humorous writing that exposes the foolishness of certain customs, behaviors, and institutions of society. What conventional beliefs and attitudes of the English middle class does Shaw satirize? Examine in particular:

--The speeches of Alfred Doolittle about middle-class morality and marriage.

--The arrogance of Higgins, and what his mother and Mrs. Pearce think of him.

--Neppomuck's foolish pomposities at the Embassy party.

--The characters of the snobbish Clara and her mother Mrs. Eynsford Hill, who clings to her past.

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