Higgins Philosophy

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Higgins' Philosophy

Professor Higgins is seen throughout Pygmalion as a very rude man.
While one may expect a well educated man, such as Higgins, to be a
gentleman, he is far from it. Higgins believes that how you treated
someone is not important, as long as you treat everyone equally.
The great secret, Eliza, is not having bad manners or good manners or
any other particular sort of manners, but having the same manner for all
human souls: in short, behaving as if you were in Heaven, where there
are no third-class carriages, and one soul is as good as another.
-Higgins, Act V Pygmalion.

Higgins presents this theory to Eliza, in hope of justifying his
treatment of her. This theory would be fine IF Higgins himself lived by
it. Henry Higgins, however, lives by a variety of variations of this
philosophy.
It is easily seen how Higgins follows this theory. He is consistently
rude towards Eliza, Mrs. Pearce, and his mother. His manner is the same
to each of them, in accordance to his philosophy. However the Higgins
we see at the parties and in good times with Pickering is well
mannered. This apparent discrepancy between Higgins' actions and his
word, may not exist, depending on the interpretation of this theory.
There are two possible translations of Higgins' philosophy. It can be
viewed as treating everyone the same all of the time or treating
everyone equally at a particular time.
It is obvious that Higgins does not treat e...

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Submitted by: digitalessays
Date Submitted: 07-10-2004
Category: History
Words: 755
Pages: 3.02