Signet Essay Contest Winner 2015: Lucille Riddell

In George Bernard Shaw’s play Pygmalion, the character of Colonel Pickering serves as an antithesis to Eliza in both manners and morals. While Eliza has the heart of a lady, but lacks polish, Pickering hides his often less-than-chivalrous character beneath a façade of perfect manners and conventional morality. However, Pickering’s behavior betrays his innate classism and insensitivity, proving that, while an expert at navigating the social mores of the day, he is no true gentleman.

Throughout Pygmalion, Shaw highlights Pickering’s seemingly effortless command of the period’s conventional manners and morals. One highly praised trait of the 19^th century gentleman was respect for women, a quality that Pickering appears to possess in abundance. For example, Shaw mentions that the Colonel stands up straighter when Higgins’s housekeeper, Mrs. Pearce, enters the room (21). Shortly after Eliza, a common flower girl, arrives at Higgins’s house, Pickering begins to refer to her as “Miss Doolittle,” a polite attention that quickly wins her heart (30). More importantly, Pickering demonstrates his concern for Eliza’s moral character when he confronts Higgins about the dubious respectability of letting a young woman stay in a house with two older men (35). He also makes frequent stands for what Doolittle calls “middle class morality,” as when he remonstrates with the unrepentant dustman for not marrying his “missus” (43-44).

Despite his mastery of moral conventions, however, Pickering’s character shows glaring deficiencies in less popular areas of morality. His obvious classism falls into this category. As Shaw points out through the character of Eliza, a true gentleman would not treat a flower girl any differently than he would a well-bred lady (94); but despite Eliza’s commendation of him, Pickering’s behavior nonetheless fails to measure up to this standard. From the start, he takes a patronizing attitude towards Eliza, treating her like a child and speaking to her in condescending phrases like “There’s a good girl” (8). In contrast, he treats better-bred women like Mrs. Higgins with a genuine respect. For example, in Act Three of Pygmalion, Pickering quite seriously asks Mrs. Higgins for her advice on how to “eliminate the sanguinary element” from Eliza’s conversation (62).

Shaw’s most telling demonstration of Pickering’s classism, however, occurs in Act Two, shortly after Doolittle has left Higgins’s house. Previously, Pickering has scrupulously referred to Eliza as “Miss Doolittle,” but after meeting her father – a poor, drunken dustman – he unconsciously changes his attitude and begins to call her only “Eliza” (47). Shaw highlights this small but important incident by having Eliza call Pickering’s attention to it, protesting, “Aint [sic] you going to call me Miss Doolittle any more?” Although the Colonel quickly rectifies his mistake, excusing it as a “slip of the tongue,” he has already betrayed his reluctance to show deference to someone of lower-class connections.

Pickering’s lack of gentlemanly character is also revealed through his insensitivity. Throughout the play, he sits back and watches Higgins bully Eliza, making little or no effort to dissuade him. When Higgins threatens to “touch [Eliza]…with a broomstick” in Act Two, Pickering never moves to help her, despite her obvious distress (24). Later in the same scene, he finally intervenes, but only after Eliza pathetically begs him to. In fact, her words, “Oh, sir: youre [sic] a gentleman: dont [sic] let him speak to me like that,” serve as a reminder that Pickering is not a true gentleman, as any real gentleman would have stood up for Eliza without being asked (28). Occasionally, Pickering even contributes to the teasing. For example, Eliza has barely walked in the door when Higgins begins making fun of her name, chanting a nursery rhyme about “Eliza, Elizabeth, Betsy, and Bess”; instead of bringing his obnoxious colleague back to the point, Pickering joins in and ends up making Eliza even more uncomfortable (23).

The Colonel’s insensitivity also taints his attitude toward Eliza after the climactic ballroom scene. Like Higgins, Pickering fails to notice Eliza’s desire for credit, instead characterizing the entire event as “a triumph for [Higgins]” (74). Later, when Mrs. Higgins confronts the two men about their “brutal” treatment of Eliza, Pickering blames Eliza for what he considers a misunderstanding (89). Even when prompted further, he refuses to openly admit his own ill manners and apologize to Eliza, conceding only that he and Higgins had been “a little inconsiderate” (90).

While Pickering demonstrates near-perfect mastery of the traditional manners and morals of his day, his classism and insensitivity disprove his image as the ideal gentleman. Ultimately, the Colonel serves as an example of “middle class morality,” which Shaw characterizes as more focused on conventionality and appearances than on truly moral behavior. In that sense, Colonel Pickering’s character, like that of the other characters in the play, is composed of “a little of both”: both incivility and politeness, both crudity and refinement, and both immorality and morality (89).

Works Cited

Shaw, George Bernard and Alan Jay Lerner. Pygmalion and My Fair Lady. London: Signet Classics, 1980. Print.