Blog 11

Mrs. Higgins: "She's a triumph of your art and of her dressmaker's; but if you suppose for a moment that she doesn't give herself away in every sentence she utters, you must be perfectly cracked about her." (page 64)

This passage is said by Mrs. Higgins and suggests that Mr. Higgins cannot fully change Liza. It is not how she looks or speaks; it is the things she says that give her away. Higgins was successful in making her look like a duchess, but he cannot truly make her become one. He taught her how to speak perfectly, but this is only an external quality. A common theme of the play is how Higgins gets obsessed with his “art” and forgets that Eliza is actually a real person. She is not an inanimate object; it is much more difficult to change how and what someone thinks than it is to change their appearance. He also admits to Mrs. Higgins that he is “inventing new Elizas” (65). He is molding her into whoever he wants her to be, and this diminishes her identity. Because it takes a lot of time to train someone’s brain to think in a different way, deep down she will still be Eliza Dolittle the flower girl. Liza can look and speak like a duchess, but Higgins cannot change her past. This play shows that appearance can be used to hide the truth and that what we see can deceive us. Similarly, Higgins is sometimes blind to the fact that what he is creating is not real, but artificial. The fact that even Higgins is fooled by is own creation emphasizes the power of external appearances in society.