Act Three

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Act Three is set on Mrs. Higgins's at-home day in her flat on Chelsea Embankment. The scene takes place between four and five in the afternoon in a cultured drawing-room with a balcony, flowers, and t…

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Mrs. Higgins is Henry Higgins's mother. She is over sixty, sensible, cultured, and long past dressing out of fashion. She acts as the moral and practical voice of the scene because she sees more clear…

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Higgins comes in with his usual lack of social tact because he wants to discuss his phonetic experiment. He has taken on a common flower girl and is training her for a bet with Pickering so that she c…

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She tells him that he offends all her friends and that they stop coming whenever they meet him. Her complaint shows that Higgins is socially clumsy and disruptive in polite society.

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Small talk means polite, light conversation used in social gatherings. Higgins has taught Eliza to stick to safe subjects like the weather and people's health, but he treats the whole matter casually …

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Eliza enters with remarkable distinction and beauty, and everyone rises at once. This shows how far her outer appearance has been transformed, even though her social identity and inner situation are s…

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She says, "How do you do, Mrs. Higgins?" with pedantic correctness of pronunciation and careful handling of the H in Higgins. The greeting shows that her speech has been trained successfully at the le…

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Eliza's weather remark is drilled, safe small talk. She speaks with correct pronunciation and correct register on a socially safe topic, but the speech is so precise and unnatural that it becomes comi…