Why is eliza grateful to pickering

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First introduced as the flower-girl in Act One, and called variously Liza, Eliza, and Miss Doolittle, Eliza is the subject of Higgins and Pickering's experiment and bet.

While not formally well-educated, she is quick-witted and is a strong character, generally unafraid to stand up for herself. She is a quick learner, and under the teaching of Pickering and Higgins she easily learns to act like a lady and pass as a member of the upper class. It is unclear to what degree she really transforms by doing this, and to what degree she merely learns to play a role. In Act Five, she insists that she really has changed and cannot go back to her old way of behaving or speaking, though Higgins thinks otherwise.

Eliza desires independence but finds herself under the control of men like Pickering, Higgins, and her father. At the end of the play, she stands up to Higgins and leaves him, but he is confident that she will come back to him. The play thus leaves it somewhat ambiguous as to whether or not she ever really achieves some of the independence she wants. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:.

Act 1 Quotes. Related Themes: Language and Speech. Page Number and Citation : 18 Cite this Quote. Explanation and Analysis:. Act 2 Quotes.

Related Characters: Henry Higgins speaker , Mrs. Pearce speaker , Eliza Doolittle. Related Themes: Social Class and Manners. Page Number and Citation : 25 Cite this Quote.

Page Number and Citation : 28 Cite this Quote. Related Characters: Mrs. Pearce speaker , Eliza Doolittle , Henry Higgins. Related Themes: Education and Intelligence. Page Number and Citation : 30 Cite this Quote. Related Themes: Femininity and Gender Roles. Page Number and Citation : 37 Cite this Quote. Page Number and Citation : 42 Cite this Quote. Act 3 Quotes. Page Number and Citation : 55 Cite this Quote. Related Characters: Eliza Doolittle speaker , Mrs. Eynsford Hill speaker.

Page Number and Citation : 60 Cite this Quote. The new small talk. You do it so awfully well. Page Number and Citation : 61 Cite this Quote.

Act 4 Quotes. Related Themes: Appearance and Identity. Page Number and Citation : 74 Cite this Quote. Page Number and Citation : 75 Cite this Quote. Page Number and Citation : 76 Cite this Quote. Do my clothes belong to me or to Colonel Pickering? Related Symbols: Clothing.

Page Number and Citation : 79 Cite this Quote. Act 5 Quotes. Page Number and Citation : 90 Cite this Quote. Page Number and Citation : 91 Cite this Quote. Page Number and Citation : 94 Cite this Quote. Page Number and Citation : Cite this Quote. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.

Act 1. Freddy protests but then finally goes. As he leaves, he bumps into a flower girl , who calls him Freddy. The mother asks the lower-class flower girl how she knows The flower-girl says that she'll tell the mother in exchange for some money.

The mother agrees and The flower-girl asks the gentleman to buy a flower, but he says he doesn't have any change The flower-girl worries that she is in trouble but the man taking notes steps forward and asks One bystander says the man isn't a cop, but rather a "blooming busybody," and the The flower-girl tells the man to mind his own business, and the man gets angry with her, The note-taking man then says to the gentleman that the flower-girl 's accent and dialect will keep her in the lower class, but that he could teach Higgins and Pickering leave to get dinner together.

Higgins reluctantly gives the flower-girl some money. Freddy finally returns with a cab, only to find that his mother and Act 2. The girl enters and Higgins recognizes her as the flower-girl from the previous night.

But the flower-girl says that she has come for another reason. She offers to pay for speaking lessons The flower-girl says her name is Eliza Doolittle, and offers to pay a shilling for lessons. Amused by Eliza , Pickering offers to pay for her lessons and bets Higgins that he can't teach Eliza Higgins tells Mrs. Pearce to wash Eliza , throw out her dirty clothes, and get new ones. Eliza protests and Mrs. Pearce tells Higgins says that when he is done teaching her, Eliza will have countless men courting her.

Eliza thinks Higgins is mad and says she won't Higgins says that Eliza is "no use to anybody but me," and tells Mrs. Pearce that she can treat Eliza is upset and prepares to leave, but Higgins gives her a chocolate and promises her Higgins sends for Eliza, who has been upstairs all along.

But first she tells Doolittle to step out on the balcony so that the she will not be shocked by the story of his new fortune. When she enters, Eliza takes care to behave very civilly. Pickering tells her she must not think of herself as an experiment, and she expresses her gratitude to him. She says that even though Higgins was the one who trained the flower girl to become a duchess, Pickering always treated her like a duchess, even when she was a flower girl.

His treatment of her taught her not phonetics, but self-respect. Higgins is speaking incorrigibly harshly to her when her father reappears, surprising her badly. He tells her that he is all dressed up because he is on his way to get married to his woman. Pickering and Mrs. Higgins are asked to come along. Higgins and Eliza are finally left alone while the rest go off to get ready.

They proceed to quarrel. Higgins claims that while he may treat her badly, he is at least fair in that he has never treated anyone else differently. He tells her she should come back with him just for the fun of it--he will adopt her as a daughter, or she can marry Pickering. She swings around and cries that she won't even marry Higgins if he asks. She mentions that Freddy has been writing her love letters, but Higgins immediately dismisses him as a fool.

She says that she will marry Freddy, and that the two will support themselves by taking Higgins' phonetic methods to his chief rival.

Higgins is outraged but cannot help wondering at her character--he finds this defiance much more appealing than the submissiveness of the slippers-fetcher. Higgins is pleased and sees now that Eliza can return home and live with her father in his new wealthy status, but Higgins protests strongly that he bought Eliza for five pounds and that Doolittle can't interfere unless he is a rogue, which Doolittle readily admits that he is — that is, he's part honest and part rogue, "a little of both.

Higgins then informs them that Eliza is upstairs, but before she is to be sent for, Higgins must promise to behave. Higgins then reprimands both Higgins and Pickering for being so completely self-centered and inconsiderate of Eliza's feelings. She asks Doolittle to retire for a moment until Eliza becomes reconciled with Higgins and Pickering. Eliza enters and addresses the two men in a refined, distant, and assured manner.

Her dignified carriage and her ease of manner unnerves Higgins, who immediately attempts to treat her as his "property," as something he created "out of the squashed cabbage leaves of Covent Garden. She says furthermore that everything that she has learned about manners has been due to the Colonel, and she now realizes that it is not what a person does, but how she is treated that makes her a lady: "The difference between a lady and a flower girl is not how she behaves, but how she's treated.

I shall always be a flower girl to Professor Higgins, because he always treats me as a flower girl, and always will, but I know I can be a lady to you, because you always treat me as a lady, and always will. When she refuses to return to Wimpole Street, Higgins predicts that she will "relapse into the gutter in three weeks" without him.

Eliza, however, says that she could not utter the old sounds if she tried and, at that moment, her father, Mr. Doolittle, appears at the window in all his splendid attire, and Eliza spontaneously emits one of her old guttural sounds — "A-a-a-a-ah-ow-ooh!

Doolittle has come to announce his marriage and to ask Eliza to attend the wedding. He explains that, like himself, his common-law wife has also been defeated by middle-class morality: "respectability has broke all the spirit out of her. Higgins says that she will also attend the wedding with Eliza, and Pickering leaves with the bridegroom. As Eliza is about to leave, Higgins blocks the doorway. He says that he wants Eliza to come back, but he will not change his manners, which he maintains are exactly the same as the Colonel's.

Eliza disagrees: "That's not true," she says, "He treats a flower girl as if she was a duchess. If he has treated her badly, she has to admit that she has never seen him treat someone else differently or better. He is proud that she is now independent — in fact, it's one of the basic things that he has wanted her to hear — but he insists that he can get along quite well without her, even though he admits: "I have grown accustomed to your voice and appearance.

Higgins counters, however, that he can't turn her "soul" on, and he says, furthermore, that he values quality more than service, and he points out that Eliza cannot buy a claim on him "by fetching my slippers and my spectacles.

At this point, Eliza is absolutely confused as to what course her life is to take. She sorely regrets the loss of independence which she once had. Higgins offers to adopt her or settle money on her, but he is horrified when he hears that Freddy Eynsford-Hill is romantically interested in her; Freddy, Higgins says, can't "make anything of" her. Eliza responds that maybe she can do something for Freddy; after all, she only wants to be natural, and she wants a little kindness, which Freddy can certainly give to her.

She knows that she cannot return to her old way of life, and she cannot stand the idea of living "with a low common man after you two" Higgins and Pickering , and she certainly doesn't intend to go to her father's house to live; thus, as soon as possible, she will marry Freddy.

Higgins is horrified at her conclusion, and he loudly asserts, "I'm not going to have my masterpiece thrown away on Freddy. What in heaven's name will she teach, Higgins asks, and he is totally astonished when she announces that she will teach phonetics.