The ending of the play is ambiguous in that the audience does not know whether Eliza marries Freddy or returns to live with Higgins. Why did Shaw write such an open ending? Cite evidence from Eliza’s closing speeches to indicate which choice you believe she makes.
Eliza and Higgins, based on the ending of Pygmalion in Act V, are supposedly an open-ended tale that remains subjective to the audience. Shaw seems to let the reader decide whether or not the two of them get together in the end and live 'happily ever after', right? But based on the rest of the evidence from the play-- i.e. Shaw's cynical perspective on society and the social classes, his intent was never to let Higgins and Eliza be together.
First off, the two of them do not even belong in the same social structure. While Eliza seems like a high class woman with all of the ladylike mannerisms she was taught to feign, "Nothing can make [her] like them". At heart, she is still the street urchin flower girl with modest goals. She was not brought up to live without a care in the world and there are some things she simply would never understand about 'higher end' life.
Second, Higgins, despite what it seems, is not actually attracted to Eliza romantically. He does not and never has seen Eliza as a love interest, but enjoys and admires how respectfully Eliza has treated him in the past. What he really is incapable of living without is her servitude. He wants a woman that will please him with her service, not her body or company.
Not only are their classes totally distinct from each other, but the two of them are also insufferably stubborn. Both of them want to be right in the instance of their argument, so they are both waiting for the other to back down and admit defeat first. Eliza wants Higgins to respect her as a woman, not a servant, and Higgins wants her to accept who he is, (though by the end of the play he is under the impression that he has already won).
This is not a Cinderella story, despite the similarities. If it had a happy ending, it would undermine the lesson Shaw had been trying to teach his audience the whole time: Things are wrong with society. He intended to use Pygmalion to show us what life is really like, not what we romantically fantasize it to be like in fairy tales and the like.
The most important thing to pick up from Pygmalion's ending, though, is another of Shaw's points. Literary works all have specific beginnings and ends, but in reality, there is no such thing. There is no closure to the play because he wants to point out how the lives of these characters are still happening, they simply are no longer being recorded. Tales end, but life goes on.
Eliza and Higgins, based on the ending of Pygmalion in Act V, are supposedly an open-ended tale that remains subjective to the audience. Shaw seems to let the reader decide whether or not the two of them get together in the end and live 'happily ever after', right? But based on the rest of the evidence from the play-- i.e. Shaw's cynical perspective on society and the social classes, his intent was never to let Higgins and Eliza be together.
First off, the two of them do not even belong in the same social structure. While Eliza seems like a high class woman with all of the ladylike mannerisms she was taught to feign, "Nothing can make [her] like them". At heart, she is still the street urchin flower girl with modest goals. She was not brought up to live without a care in the world and there are some things she simply would never understand about 'higher end' life.
Second, Higgins, despite what it seems, is not actually attracted to Eliza romantically. He does not and never has seen Eliza as a love interest, but enjoys and admires how respectfully Eliza has treated him in the past. What he really is incapable of living without is her servitude. He wants a woman that will please him with her service, not her body or company.
Not only are their classes totally distinct from each other, but the two of them are also insufferably stubborn. Both of them want to be right in the instance of their argument, so they are both waiting for the other to back down and admit defeat first. Eliza wants Higgins to respect her as a woman, not a servant, and Higgins wants her to accept who he is, (though by the end of the play he is under the impression that he has already won).
This is not a Cinderella story, despite the similarities. If it had a happy ending, it would undermine the lesson Shaw had been trying to teach his audience the whole time: Things are wrong with society. He intended to use Pygmalion to show us what life is really like, not what we romantically fantasize it to be like in fairy tales and the like.
The most important thing to pick up from Pygmalion's ending, though, is another of Shaw's points. Literary works all have specific beginnings and ends, but in reality, there is no such thing. There is no closure to the play because he wants to point out how the lives of these characters are still happening, they simply are no longer being recorded. Tales end, but life goes on.