*WINNER* Eliza's Rising Consciousness in Pygmalion

Abstract

This won best graduate paper in English.

Eliza Doolittle's transformation from, to use Henry Higgins's playfully aggressive words, "draggled tale guttersnip" to a "duches" in six months reveals a Shavian critique and satire regarding the aftermath of the end of the Victorian Era. Scholars and readers have questioned the veracity and depth to which Eliza's being has truly changed. Is she merely learning the erudite Victorian shtick to appease those elitist desperately try to hold on to a society, London (1913), that is becoming more liberal and less class-conscious, or is Eliza fundamentally altering her relationship and power to operate, interact, change, and remain resolute in this society? The answer is: both. As the phonetic's professor, Henry Higgins, teaches Eliza modern contrivances such as the emerging "standard English", Eliza gains not only the knowledge of modern (1913) ordinances, but, and quite independent of Higgins, an ability to access and express new ideas, which include challenging her "creator" - Higgins. The Eliza before the transformation and the Eliza after exhibit similar wants but differ widely in the power to understand, restrain, change, and achieve those wants. Through the alterations of Eliza's language and social behavior she acquires a greater sense of autonomy, the burden of consciousness, and the power to overcome sentimentality and romanticism linked to traditional gender narratives. This paper uses textual analytics through a combination of Corpus Linguistics and close reading to track Eliza's  ascendancy in areas of autonomy and awareness, the totality of which represents a fundamental rise in her consciousness.