Pygmalion recap

Phonetics expert Henry Higgins boasts that he can transform the speech of Eliza Doolittle, a poor London flower seller, so completely that society will accept her as a duchess. Eliza hires him because she wants work in a flower shop, while Colonel Pickering backs the experiment. Higgins teaches her pronunciation and manners, first testing her awkwardly at his mother's home and later passing her successfully in elite society. After the triumph, Higgins and Pickering congratulate themselves and ignore Eliza, who realizes that their game has left her without a secure identity or livelihood. She leaves and confronts Higgins at Mrs Higgins's house. Meanwhile her father Alfred, accidentally made wealthy through Higgins's recommendation, complains that respectability has trapped him in new obligations. Eliza credits Pickering's kindness, not simply Higgins's instruction, with making her a lady. She rejects Higgins's assumption that she will return, asserts that she can teach and marry Freddy, and leaves for her father's wedding. Higgins laughs, but the play does not give him possession of her future.

After a London theatre empties into heavy rain, strangers crowd under the portico at Covent Garden. Eliza Doolittle, a flower seller, collides with Freddy Eynsford Hill and tries to sell flowers to his waiting family. Bystanders warn her that a man is writing down everything she says. The note-taker is Henry Higgins, a phonetics expert who can place speakers by their accents and demonstrates his skill on the crowd. Eliza fears he is a policeman, but he is interested in her speech rather than her trade. Another gentleman proves to be Colonel Pickering, an authority on Indian languages whom Higgins has long wanted to meet. Higgins boasts that by changing Eliza's pronunciation he could make her acceptable in the highest society. The claim turns accent into a visible barrier between classes. He and Pickering leave together. Higgins tosses Eliza enough money to take a taxi home, giving her a brief experience of the status she wants.

Eliza arrives at Higgins's laboratory the next morning, washed and dressed as carefully as she can manage. She offers to pay for speech lessons because she wants a job in a flower shop. Higgins first treats her proposal as amusing material for an experiment, but Pickering offers to cover the costs if Higgins can pass her off as a duchess. Mrs Pearce forces them to confront basic questions about Eliza's clothing, lodging, payment, and future. Higgins accepts the challenge and begins reorganizing Eliza's life around it. Her father, Alfred Doolittle, then appears. Rather than rescue his daughter, he uses Higgins's assumptions about morality to ask for money and accepts five pounds. Higgins admires his unembarrassed rhetoric and expressive command of language. Eliza remains in the house to begin an intensive program of pronunciation and social training, while the men focus more on the wager than on what the transformation will mean for her.

After months of training, Higgins takes Eliza to his mother's home for a trial among polite visitors. Mrs Higgins warns that using her guests as test subjects is irresponsible. Eliza's pronunciation and appearance are impressive, but Higgins has limited her conversational topics without teaching her how ordinary society handles them. She therefore delivers a vivid account of illness, drinking, and suspicion around an aunt's death in perfectly formed speech. Clara mistakes Eliza's language for the latest fashionable style, while Freddy is captivated by her. Once the visitors leave, Higgins and Pickering discuss the technical result as though Eliza were absent from the problem. Mrs Higgins points out that they have given no serious thought to what will happen after the experiment, when Eliza's old work may no longer suit her and her new manners will not supply an income. The men remain confident that the immediate social challenge can be solved.

Eliza succeeds at the decisive society event, convincing observers that she belongs among the elite. Back at Higgins's house late that night, Higgins and Pickering celebrate the end of a tiring experiment and congratulate each other. Neither acknowledges Eliza's work or notices her distress. Their triumph has made her old livelihood difficult without creating a new one. When Pickering leaves, Eliza throws Higgins's slippers at him and asks what is to become of her now. Higgins suggests marriage or money for a flower shop, unable to understand why she sees the end of the wager as a personal crisis. Their quarrel exposes the difference between teaching her to perform a social identity and giving her control over her life. Eliza returns a ring Higgins gave her, provoking him further. After he goes to bed, she leaves the house. Freddy is waiting outside, and their affection gives her an immediate ally, though not yet a settled solution to her future.

Higgins and Pickering go to Mrs Higgins after discovering that Eliza has left. She is already there. Alfred Doolittle arrives in formal clothes and blames Higgins for recommending him to a wealthy moral reformer, whose bequest has forced him into middle-class income, relatives, and obligations. He is about to marry Eliza's stepmother. Eliza calmly thanks Pickering for always addressing and treating her with respect; that conduct, she says, taught her to regard herself as a lady. Higgins's indiscriminate bluntness did not. Higgins argues that he treats everyone alike and invites her to return as an independent companion rather than a dependent. Eliza refuses to accept his definition of independence. She says she can marry Freddy, support herself, and even use her knowledge of phonetics professionally. Their confrontation shows that Higgins's successful experiment has produced a person able to oppose him. Eliza leaves to attend Doolittle's wedding, while Higgins laughs at her plans and assumes she will still carry out his errands. Her future remains her own unresolved choice rather than his finished creation.

After Eliza leaves Higgins's house, he and Pickering find her with Mrs Higgins. Alfred Doolittle also arrives, transformed by an inheritance into a reluctant member of the respectable middle class and about to marry Eliza's stepmother. Eliza explains that Pickering's consistent courtesy taught her to think of herself as a lady, whereas Higgins's training alone changed only her speech. She no longer accepts Higgins's claim that his equal rudeness to everyone excuses his treatment of her. Higgins offers a future in which Eliza returns and lives on his terms as one of three independent companions. Eliza instead insists that she can work, teach phonetics, and marry Freddy if she chooses. As she leaves for Doolittle's wedding, Higgins gives her errands and laughs at the idea of her marrying Freddy, confident that their contest has made her an equal capable of resisting him. The play ends without a romantic union between Higgins and Eliza or a final confirmation of her practical future.