Pygmalion Act 4 Summary

  • Midnight at Wimpole Street, some months later. Eliza comes in, looking beautiful but tired.
  • Higgins and Pickering stumble in, drunk and happy. They've just come from a bunch of fancy parties and, well, it turns out their scheme worked. Higgins has won the bet, and is too busy tooting his own horn to congratulate Eliza.
  • He and Pickering talk about the evening's events as though Eliza can't hear them – even though she's sitting right across the room.
  • They act like she's a kind of performing monkey, a puppet, a doll, a robot.
  • By now, though, she's got a much larger vocabulary, and she knows Higgins can be a pretty miserable jerk.
  • Even after she brings Higgins his slippers, the two men don't pay any attention to her.
  • At this point Eliza's just about ready to pull an Incredible Hulk and strangle the two of them.
  • When Higgins asks her to turn off the lights and give Mrs. Pearce his breakfast order, she throws his slippers in his face. She even threatens to kill him.
  • Just as Mrs. Higgins warned, Higgins's work has left Eliza in a pickle. She doesn't know what to do with herself now that he's won his bet, and she's mad. Just like Mrs. Higgins said, she's learned how to act like a lady and now she's worried she won't be able to do anything to make a living.
  • Higgins tries to talk her down, suggests she get married, become a florist, etc., but Eliza doesn't listen.
  • All she wants to do is get out of there, telling Higgins that he can keep all the clothing and jewelry he bought her. This gets Higgins super angry and now he nearly pulls an Incredible Hulk and hits Eliza. He gets so angry that he cusses Eliza out and then storms out of the room.
  • Eliza smiles, for the first time, Shaw tells us, as Higgins slams the door.