1. Becoming an example for somebody

2. An ancient myth

3. Getting an opportunity to be taught

4. A brave promise

5. The first appearance in society

6. The night of the triump

7. The first meeting

8. The main characters

A. Pygmalion is one of Shaw's best comedies. The title of the play comes from a Greek myth. Pygmalion, a sculptor, was said to have carved a statue out of ivory. It was the statue of a beautiful young girl whom he called Galatea. He fell in love with his own handiwork, so the goddess Aphrodite breathed life into the statue and transformed it into a woman.

B. The principal characters of the play are Eliza Doolittle and Henry Higgins. Eliza, a girl of eighteen, comes from the lowest social level and speaks with a strong Cockney accent, which is considered to be the most uncultured English possible.

C. Henry Н iggins is a professor of phonetics. He studies the physiological aspects of a person's speech, that is to say the sounds of the language. When in the street one day, he points out the flower-girl, Eliza, to his friend Colonel Pickering, who is a phonetician studying Indian dialects.

D. "You see this creature with her kerbstone English: the English that will keep her in the gutter to the end of her days. Well, sir, in three months I could pass that girl off as a duchess at an ambassador’s garden party. I could even get her a place as lady’s maid or shop assistant, which requires better English. That's the sort of thing 1 do for commercial millionaires. And on the profits of it I do genuine scientific work in phonetics..."

E. Eliza hears this conversation and is impressed. She sees a chance of being pulled out of the gutter. The next day she goes straight to the professor's house and insists on being taught. She offers all the money she has. Higgins is couched. He makes an agreement with Pickering. He bets Pickering that he will pass her off as a duchess in six months. He will not only teach her to speak her native language correctly, but will teach her manners too.

F. Some time later Higgins takes Eliza to one of his mother's at homes to meet some of her friends. The professor wants to see how Eliza will manage to behave and speak in society. She can as yet speak only on two topics: the weather and health. Some visitors arrive and they begin to talk. Mrs. Higgins asks questions about the weather, which Eliza answers beautifully, but she soon forgets her role. She gets interested in the conversation and says to the visitors all she wants to say and, naturally, falls into her habitual accent.

G. The guests of Mrs. Higgins are Mrs. Eynsford Hill, and her son and daughter, Freddy and Clara. They seldom appear in society, because they have no money and they are awfully afraid to become old-fashioned. When they see Eliza at ease with Colonel Pickering and Mrs. Higgins, they think her speech is a new fashionable manner of small talk. Freddy is fascinated-by Eliza's charming prattle, and Clara tries to imitate her.