Pygmalion characters

Appears from the start

A young London flower seller whose strong working-class accent marks her social position to everyone she meets. Eliza is poor and has little formal education, but she is observant, determined, and unwilling to be treated as an object of charity. She wants speech lessons so she can qualify for steadier work in a flower shop.

Appears from the start

A London professor of phonetics who can identify where a person comes from by listening closely to speech. Higgins is brilliant, energetic, and confident that training can overcome class prejudice about accent. He is also domineering, careless of manners, and inclined to treat people as material for his experiments.

Appears from the start

A courteous retired colonel and scholar of Indian dialects who meets Higgins at Covent Garden. Pickering admires Higgins's work and accepts a wager over Eliza's education. His consistent politeness toward Eliza contrasts with Higgins's treatment of her.

Appears from the start

A pleasant young man sent into the rain to find a taxi for his mother and sister. His chance collision with Eliza at Covent Garden brings their families briefly together before they know one another's names.

Appears from the start

Freddy and Clara's mother, a genteel woman with limited means who tries to maintain the manners expected of her class. She meets Eliza while sheltering from the rain at Covent Garden.

Appears from the start

Freddy's socially ambitious sister. Clara is eager to appear modern and sophisticated, but her judgment is strongly shaped by fashionable standards of rank and behavior.

First appears in chapter 2

Higgins's housekeeper, who manages the practical consequences of his disorderly habits. Mrs Pearce insists that Eliza's welfare and reputation be considered before the proposed experiment begins.

First appears in chapter 2

Eliza's father, a dustman who arrives at Higgins's house after hearing that his daughter is there. Doolittle is an inventive speaker who distrusts respectable middle-class morality and openly seeks whatever immediate advantage the situation may offer him.

First appears in chapter 3

Higgins's composed and perceptive mother. She understands social behavior better than her son and quickly sees that his experiment raises a question he has ignored: what life will be available to Eliza after he has changed how she speaks and presents herself.