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This test consists of 5 short answer questions, 10 short essay questions, and 1 (of 3) essay topics.

Short Answer Questions

1. What is Liza afraid will kill her?

2. How is Henry Higgins described?

3. What does Doolittle promise to do with the money?

4. How do the bystanders treat Liza when she becomes upset?

5. What does an upside-down e represent?

Short Essay Questions

1. Describe Higgins's laboratory. What does it reveal about his character?

2. What bet does Pickering make with Higgins? Why does Higgins accept?

3. Who is the Gentleman in the first act, and what do he and the note-taker have in common?

4. What does Higgins do for the Flower Girl? What prompts him to do so? What does this act suggest about Higgins?

5. Why does Liza's father come to see Higgins?

6. What are three methods of phonetic shorthand that Shaw mentions in Pygmalion, and what are they used for?

7. Why does Liza become upset when Mrs. Pearce takes her up for a bath? What does this incident show about Liza?

8. Who are Alexander Melville Bell, Alexander J. Ellis, Tito Pagliardini, and Henry Sweet, and why are they heroes to Shaw?

9. Describe Higgins.

10. Who is the note-taker, and what is he actually doing?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Write an essay examining the message about classism in the play.

Part 1) What does the play Pygmalion suggest about the relationships between the classes in England at the time of its writting (1916)?

Part 2) Which social classes are represented in the play, and how are they depicted?

Part 3) What makes Neppomuck, the ambassador, and others believe that Liza must be a princess, and what does that say about the artificiality of class distinctions?

Part 4) Who, according to the play, is a real lady, and who is a real gentleman? What makes a person a lady or a gentleman?

Part 5) What do you think Shaw ultimately wants to say about class divisions in society?

Essay Topic 2

Write an essay about the idea of "small talk" and social hypocrisy in Pygmalion.

Part 1) In Act 3, Higgins talks about how ridiculous small talk is: "You see, we're all savages, more or less. We're supposed to be civilized and cultured--to know all about poetry and philosophy and art and science, and so on; but how many of us know even the meanings of these names?" Shortly afterward, Liza shocks everyone by speaking of taboo topics and using a curse word in polite conversation. Clara is delighted by this slap in the face of "late Victorian prudery."

Part 2) What specifically does Liza say to shock everyone? Do you think Shaw agrees that her talk is shocking and rude?

Part 3) What might their polite, "civilized and cultured" conversation have been like if Liza had not come?

Part 4) What do you think is Shaw's opinion of polite small talk, and of "late Victorian prudery" that governs what is and is not appropriate in small talk?

Essay Topic 3

Write an essay examining satire in Pygmalion. Satire is a humorous writing that exposes the foolishness of certain customs, behaviors, and institutions of society. What conventional beliefs and attitudes of the English middle class does Shaw satirize? Examine in particular:

--The speeches of Alfred Doolittle about middle-class morality and marriage.

--The arrogance of Higgins, and what his mother and Mrs. Pearce think of him.

--Neppomuck's foolish pomposities at the Embassy party.

--The characters of the snobbish Clara and her mother Mrs. Eynsford Hill, who clings to her past.

(see the answer keys)

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