Take this Pygmalion Quiz to find out how well you remember the book. Answer these quick questions to find out. Play it now!
One evening in Covent Garden, two elderly gentlemen cross paths in the rain. Colonel Pickering is an expert on Indian dialects, while Professor Higgins studies phonetics. The first makes a wager with the other that, using his expertise in phonetics, he can persuade upper-class London society that, in a matter of months, he can change the cockney-speaking Covent Garden flower girl, Eliza Doolittle, into a lady with the poise and eloquence of a duchess. The following morning, the girl shows up to his laboratory on Wimpole Street and offers to pay one shilling for speech therapy so she may learn how to speak clearly enough to work at a flower shop. Higgins mocks her savagely but is drawn to the prospect of manipulating her. To encourage him, Pickering offers to pay for the experiment’s expenses if Higgins can pose as a duchess at an ambassador’s garden party using Eliza.
Higgins accepts the challenge and has his staff give Eliza a bath and some new clothing to start. Then, Eliza’s father Alfred Doolittle arrives to demand the return of his daughter while actually planning to extort money from Higgins. The professor awards Doolittle five pounds since he finds his peculiar vocabulary amusing. The now-clean, attractive flower girl is not recognized as the dustman’s daughter as he leaves. Also, you must try to play this Pygmalion quiz.
Pygmalion quiz
Higgins spends several months teaching Eliza how to talk properly. There are then two Eliza trials. The first encounter takes place at Higgins’ mother’s house when Eliza meets the Eynsford Hills, a family consisting of a mother, a daughter, and a son. Freddy, her son, is attracted to her strength and is even more enamored by what he perceives as her artificial “small talk” when she speaks in Cockney. Mrs. Higgins is concerned that once the experiment is over, there will be issues, but Higgins and Pickering are too busy playing their game to pay attention. This Pygmalion quiz will help you remember certain details.
Characters:
Professor Henry Higgins
Professor of phonetics Henry Higgins portrays Pygmalion in Eliza Doolittle’s Galatea. He is the creator of Higgins’ Universal Alphabet, a proponent of ideas like visible speech, and he documents his phonetic subjects using a variety of recording and photographic techniques. He does this by breaking down people and their accents into what he feels are easily comprehensible units. He is an unorthodox person who, in the majority of cases, deviates from society’s norms. The only reason the world has not turned against him is that he is, at his core, a good and harmless man. He is impatient with high society, forgetful in his public manners, and inadequately considerate of conventional social niceties. His tendency to bully is his major failing.
Eliza Doolittle
She is not in the least romantic in appearance. She also makes her debut in Act I. Eliza Doolittle appears to contradict all preconceived preconceptions we may have about the romantic heroine in every way. Less of her inherent traits as a heroine is at play when she is converted from a sassy, smart-mouthed kerbstone flower girl with abhorrent English to a (still sassy) regal figure suited to consort with royalty. Rather, it has to do with the fairy-tale element of the transformation myth itself. Eliza Doolittle comes across as being far more instrumental than essential, in other words. After the ambassador’s party, Eliza Doolittle chooses to speak out for her own dignity in response to Higgins’ harsh behavior. This is when Eliza Doolittle truly (re-)emerges. As a result, Higgins starts to regard Eliza as a being deserving of his admiration rather than as a mill around his neck at the point when she transforms from a duchess to an independent woman.
Colonel Pickering
In terms of phonetics passion, Colonel Pickering, the author of Spoken Sanskrit, is comparable to Higgins (though a little less obsessive). However, Pickering is consistently kind and honestly a gentleman, in contrast to Higgins who is a haughty, reckless bully. He doesn’t say much in the play and mostly serves as Higgins’ civilized counterpoint to the barefoot, absent-minded insane professor. He contributes to the Eliza Doolittle experiment by placing a bet on it, promising to pay for it if Higgins succeeds in convincingly transforming her into the duchess. Eliza learns how to pronounce words from Higgins, but Pickering’s considerate care of her teaches her to appreciate herself.
About the Pygmalion quiz
15 multiple-choice questions in the free Pygmalion quiz below will help you gauge your knowledge of the book. Determine which chapters, ideas, and writing techniques you already understand, as well as what you still need to learn in preparation for your forthcoming essay, midterm, or final test. Now take the free test!
For more trivia quizzes check this: The Pearl Quiz.
