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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 upsets Higgins now that Liza is gone?

2. What does Liza do when she looks into the mirror?

3. What does Higgins say about the experiment with Liza?

4. Where is Liza at the beginning of Act 5?

5. For whom or what does Pickering say the evening has been a real triumph?

Short Essay Questions

1. Why is Liza so upset in Act 4? What does she want to know?

2. What does Liza ultimately think of the party and of her success at the end of Act 3?

3. What does Higgins mean when he says that people are really "savages"?

4. What does Higgins think Liza should do with her future? Does he really give it any thought?

5. What does Higgins conclude about the evening and about their joint project at the beginning of Act 4? What does he say that hurts Liza's feelings?

6. Why is Pickering just as important to Liza's transformation as Higgins, if not more so? What is he able to teach her that Higgins could not?

7. What does Pickering think about the evening? How do his feelings differ from Higgins's? How does he succeed in hurting Liza as well?

8. How does Freddy feel about Liza and what does he want from her? How is he different from Higgins?

9. Why is Doolittle unhappy with his new status? What is ironic about this?

10. What type of job does Liza propose to do in the final act? Why might she be better at this job than Higgins?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Write an essay about the theme of nature versus nurture in the play Pygmalion.

Part 1) Henry Higgins transformsd Liza Doolittle. Does he really change her essential nature, or only the superficial aspects? Explain.

Part 2) Consider Pickering's statement, after the ambassador's party, that "Eliza was doing it so well. You see, lots of the real people cant do it at all: theyre such fools that they think style comes by nature to people in their position; and so they never learn." What does this say about Liza's natural sense of style?

Part 3) Consider how Liza was raised (reread Act 2 for her father's comments about how he raised her). Did Doolittle's nurture (or rather, lack of nurture) harm Liza? Is he to be blamed or credited for the way she is now?

Part 4) While Higgins changes Liza, is she able to do the same with him? Why, or why not?

Part 5) Consider this statement from Higgins: "I cant change my nature." Is this true? Can anyone really ever change his or her nature, or are all changes only superficial? Explain, using examples from the play.

Essay Topic 2

Write an essay about the theme of language in Pygmalion. At the end of the play, Alfred Doolittle says that he expects now he's going to have to learn to speak middle-class English instead of the "proper English" he normally uses. What is ironic about his statement? Is there really one "proper" way to speak English, in your opinion? What do you think Shaw's opinion is? If everyone speaks Doolittle's low-class English, would it be just as well as if everyone speaks like duchesses?

Essay Topic 3

Write an essay examining the theme of manners in Pygmalion.

Part 1) Evaluate Higgins's statement from Act 5, "The secret is not having good manners or bad manners or any other particular sort of manners, but having the same manner for all human souls: in short, behaving as if you were in Heaven, where there are no third-class carriages, and one soul is as good as another." What does he mean by this? Do you agree with him?

Part 2) Do you think Shaw agrees with him on the subject of manners? For instance, is there something honest about the rude way Higgins behaves, and something hypocritical about the "polite" manners of other people in the play?

Part 3) Which characters in the play behave the same to everyone, and which characters treat people differently depending on the class they belong to? Explain.

(see the answer keys)

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