Pygmalion Henry Higgins Quotes

HIGGINS. Pickering: shall we ask this baggage to sit down or shall we throw her out of the window? (2.30)

Judging Eliza by her slovenly appearance, Higgins treats Eliza like an object instead of a human being. His comment is no doubt sarcastic, but it tells us something about his attitude toward women.

HIGGINS. Oh, pay her whatever is necessary: put it down in the housekeeping book. [Impatiently] What on earth will she want with money? She'll have her food and her clothes. She'll only drink if you give her money.
LIZA [turning on him] Oh you are a brute. It's a lie: nobody ever saw the sign of liquor on me. [She goes back to her chair and plants herself there defiantly]. (2.121-122)

Higgins stereotypes Eliza as a poor person and simply assumes that she has a drinking problem.

Henry Higgins

Quote 15

HIGGINS. What! That thing! Sacred, I assure you. [Rising to explain] You see, she'll be a pupil; and teaching would be impossible unless pupils were sacred. I've taught scores of American millionairesses how to speak English: the best looking women in the world. I'm seasoned. They might as well be blocks of wood. I might as well be a block of wood. It's— (2.165)

Not only has Higgins come to view his clients as objects rather than human beings, he even seems to have lost something of his own identity in the process. There is another interesting interpretation, however: a block of wood, like a canvas, is a medium for artistic expression. He, of course, is paid to shape his clients, but this suggests that he, himself, could also be subject to the same process.