Thursday, February 6, 2014

The "famous" Professor Higgins. - Reflection part 1

Professor Higgins acts as he is above all and he is the most genuine human being on the planet, or at least in his town. He treats the poor Ms. Doolittle like she is his personal puppet, and he has no remorse towards her or even acknowledges that she is even a real live human being with such so-called feelings. Not that she doesn't have any feelings at all, we all do, but Mr. Higgins looks past that and just sees Eliza as being an experiment that will do anything he says.

All comments aside, who is he to judge someone that never had the opportunity to have a proper education? It is not necessarily a choice then it is priorities, and by priorities- I mean its the 1900s people, things weren't exactly like how they are now. Education was always based on class, from my understanding, if your family had money then the kids would have the opportunity to have the education and expand to college and explore the world to get more knowledge. However, if your family was poor, well then this is where the priority comes in, unlike the rich who doesn't really have any priority, the poor mainly had to set their kids to work to help the parents earn wages. Now in Eliza's case, her dad was a drunk and used any income they receive to waste his life away on beer and he remarried different women, which I am guessing since Eliza mentioned in Act II, that her sixth stepmother kicked her out; she could be exaggerating?

Higgins acts like he has the right to judge her and her knowledge of language, he seems to be taking advantage of her thinking "well, here is a girl who doesn't really understand our concept of what we are up to, so let's pretend we want to help her, but instead it is a mockery that we are making out of her." I could be wrong, but again who is to say what's wrong or right. Poor Eliza Doolittle seems she is lost and that she is in the right hand, but Professor Higgins just seems like a stuck up person who cares only about himself and has no respect or manners towards anyone.

 My thinking is everywhere, but this is what is on my mind about the "famous" Professor Higgins; or should it be infamous? Hmm, well either way, there are so many things to say about the Professor good and bad and we all need to come to terms at this point in the book, is he the good guy or the bad guy? He could be both, because he helps her to become a duchess and sure he seems rough around the edges or outside, but inside I think he has a kind heart and only means well. After all, how can you make such drastic changes on someone in six months if you are always too kind and let them think they can get away with not even trying to collaborate with you. My relationship with Professor Higgins seems like a love/hate relationship, but I just hate that he takes advantages of Eliza in the beginning all for a bet. She came to him willing to pay for lessons, instead he turns it around like he found her (technically he did) and tries to make it into benefiting him more than her; she is getting something out of it though by learning how to speak properly.

Welcome to the mess of my minds' thought process on the book Pygmalion.

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