Morality = $$$

           Of all the characters in Pygmalion I found Eliza’s father to be the most interesting. His presence throughout the play is miniscule, but the scenes he does have a part in do well explaining who he is and how he views the world. He knows he’s poor.  He even calls himself an “undeserving poor”. He also knows he has many vices, but because he is an “undeserving poor” he is not held to the high moral standards that the upper class is. To him morals are based off how much money one has in their bank account. He is poor so it is expected that so are his morals. I would venture to say that Mr. Doolittle’s opinion of morals would coincide with many other people of that time period, as well as our present day. To me this belief is a fallacy because I can think of many cash rich people with terrible morals and many cash poor people with impeccable morals.

            Now it wasn’t Mr. Doolittle’s view on morals that interested me so much as what he says on his second visit to Mr. Higgins. In this scene he goes to Mr. Higgins furious that he has inherited a large sum of money, entirely because of a letter of recommendation that Mr. Higgins writes. In my experience few people would be furious after winning the lottery, which is what is so shocking about how he reacts. If we take a closer look though we understand that he isn’t angry about being rich, but instead is angry about the higher standards that he is now expected to exhibit. His days of boozing are over and he is now being forced by the morality that middle class money brings to clean up his act. Although I differed in my beliefs on morality from Mr. Doolittle, I respected how honest he was with himself and the other characters in the play.