卖花女简介及相关资料

賣花女 (戲劇)

《賣花女》，原名《皮革馬利翁》(Pygmalion) 是愛爾蘭劇作家蕭伯納的戏剧。皮革馬利翁原是羅馬神話中的一位雕刻家的名字，一生不愛女色，卻愛上了自己刻的雕像。這尊雕像令他魂牽夢縈，最後他去請求維納斯女神成全。維納斯讓皮革馬利翁用手碰觸雕像，雕像變成了一位活生生的美貌女子。皮革馬利翁相當高興，給她取名伽拉忒婭 (Galatea)，並帶她去感謝維納斯。蕭伯納以這個故事為藍本，以賣花女一劇表現出皮格馬利翁和伽拉忒婭可能會發生的問題。本劇曾於1938年翻拍成黑白電影，由 Wendy Hiller 飾演賣花女伊萊莎·杜立德 (Eliza Doolittle)，莱斯利·霍华德飾演語音學教授亨利·希金斯 (Henry Higgins)。1956年，此劇改編為音樂劇《窈窕淑女》 (My Fair Lady)，由朱莉·安德鲁斯 (Julie Andrews)飾演伊萊莎，Rex Harrison 飾演希金斯教授。1964年，音樂劇拍成同名電影，改由奧黛麗·赫本飾演伊萊莎。

[编辑] 故事大綱

[编辑] 第一幕

安斯佛西爾太太 (Mrs Eynsford-Hill) 和女兒克拉拉 (Clara) 正在聖保羅教堂外等待兒子弗雷迪 (Freddy)，豈料弗雷迪冒冒失失的撞到了賣花女伊萊莎。像伊萊莎那樣中下階級的市井小民，說起英语來有一種特殊的考克尼腔。語音學家亨利希金斯偷偷記下伊萊莎說話的腔調，並宣稱自己能在六個月內矯正伊萊莎的發音，將她訓練成一位淑女。弗雷迪在計程車裡等家人，但是安斯佛西爾太太和克拉拉卻搭上了公車。伊萊莎於是和弗雷迪坐同一班計程車回家。

[编辑] 第二幕

希金斯在前幕認識的上校平克林 (Colonel Pickering) 在位於溫普街 (Womple Street) 的家裡。伊萊莎到希金斯府上，希望他能矯正自己的發音，以開花店自力更生，不用再到街上賣花。

[编辑] 第三幕

[编辑] 第四幕

[编辑] 第五幕

伊萊莎和弗雷迪偷偷逃走，希金斯和平克林報警找人。伊萊莎與弗雷迪來到希金斯太太的住處，希金斯和平克林也找到了這裡。希金斯太太命令僕人暫時把伊萊莎和弗雷迪藏起來。希金斯氣得暴跳如雷，向母親說明伊萊莎不知去向。這時，已變成中產階級的杜立德先生來向他訴說自己不快樂的生活，還有他又要再婚的事。不久希金斯太太終於讓伊萊莎出來，和父親交談幾句後，所有人都離開，只剩下伊萊莎和希金斯兩人。此時的伊萊莎和過去已大大不同，反而不知將來該何去何從 (一口標準英語和同行之間好似沒落的貴族，但是在某些貴族的眼裡，她還是賣花女出身。)。她頻頻問希金斯該怎麼做，希金斯只是認為她可以再回去賣花。這時伊萊莎終於把她對希金斯的不滿說了出來，並宣布自己將與弗雷迪結婚，教授語音學，希金斯氣得七竅生煙。希金斯太太備好馬車，要參加杜立德先生的婚禮，問伊萊莎準備好沒有。希金斯又要求伊萊莎幫他跑腿，伊萊莎丟下一句「你自己去買！(Buy them yourself.)」[1]隨即出去。

[编辑] 電影版結局

由於原版《賣花女》結局裡伊萊莎並未和希金斯在一起，不符合觀眾期望，蕭伯納又

在劇本後補述安排這種結局的原因，說明伊萊莎這個決定是經過深思熟慮的，以及伊萊莎和弗雷迪可能發生的問題。電影版《賣花女》讓伊來莎再度回到希金斯身邊，但是希金斯只說了一句：「伊萊莎，我的拖鞋死到哪去了？」後來音樂劇《窈窕淑女》，甚至其音樂劇電影版本，都沿用這個結局。

[编辑] 註釋

1. ^ 另一版本為伊萊莎說了一段話，告訴希金斯「如果沒有我，你會變得怎樣，我很難想像！(What you can do without me I cannot imagine.)」

英文版 卖花女 简介（比上面的全）

Pygmalion (play)

Pygmalion: A Romance in Five Acts (1913) is a play by George Bernard Shaw.

Professor of phonetics Henry Higgins makes a bet that he can train a bedraggled Cockney flower girl, Eliza Doolittle, to pass for a duchess at an ambassador's garden party by teaching her to assume a veneer of gentility, the most important element of which, he believes, is impeccable speech. The play is a sharp lampoon of the rigid British class system of the day and a comment on women's independence, packaged as a romantic comedy.

The Pygmalion myth was a popular subject for Victorian era English playwrights, including one of Shaw's influences, W. S. Gilbert, who wrote a successful play based on the story in 1871, called Pygmalion and Galatea. Shaw

also would have been familiar with the burlesque version, Galatea, or Pygmalion Reversed.

Inspirations

Shaw created Eliza Doolittle specifically for Mrs Patrick Campbell, partly as a flirtatious challenge and partly to tease her for her social pretensions, which he felt hampered her growth as an artist.[1] Her affected diction onstage (even in Shakespeare), which both he and Oscar Wilde instantly recognized as that of a suburban social climber,[2] was at odds with her considerable abilities, and likely provoked the Higgins in Shaw to a great degree. The idea came to him in 1897, when \"Mrs. Pat\" was under contract to Johnston Forbes-Robertson and at the height of her youthful fascination and glamour. Writing to Ellen Terry in September of that year, he mentions Forbes's \"rapscallionly flower girl\"; the next sentence is, \"Caesar and Cleopatra has been driven clean out of my head by a play I want to write for them in which he shall be a west end gentleman and she an east end dona in an apron and three orange and red ostrich feathers.\"[3]

\"The reformer England needs today is an energetic phonetic enthusiast: that is why I have made such a one the hero of a popular play.\"[4] The success of

Pygmalion drew attention to the science of phonetics and speculation arose over

whether a model for Henry Higgins existed. Shaw never named an inspiration for the man or the professor. However, in the Preface to the 1916 edition he writes at length about the respected philologist and phonetician Henry Sweet, with whom he communicated for years regarding phonetics and shorthand. Dr. Sweet would

stand before a group of speakers, taking furious notes on their phonetic

conversation; he categorized voice sounds and accents, sent postcards to friends written in a unique shorthand or in the symbols of his \"Broad Romic\" system of phonetic notation,[5] could pronounce seventy-two vowel sounds,[6][7] and

\"unfortunately was of a rather difficult disposition.\"[8] Nevertheless, \"Higgins is not a portrait of Sweet... still, as will be seen, there are touches of Sweet in the play.\"[4]

Shaw also knew and may have consulted with Daniel Jones, the leading phonetician of the time. In a few years Jones would codify a standard of English speech, Received Pronunciation, \"the accent most commonly associated with the British 'upper crust'...based on a sixteenth-century, upper-class London accent\";[9] the steps to learning and teaching such an accent would have been of paramount importance to the playwright. It's also possible that Dr. Jones's laboratory equipment inspired Higgins's,[10] but Jones's biographer concludes that \"the Higgins character...would appear to have taken on a vivid life of its own during the writing of the play.\"[10]

First productions

Shaw wrote the play in the spring of 1912 and read it to Mrs. Campbell in June. She came on board almost immediately, but her mild nervous breakdown (and its doctor-enforced leisure, which led to a quasi-romantic intrigue with Shaw[11]) contributed to the delay of a London production. Pygmalion premiered at the Hofburg Theatre in Vienna on October 16, 1913, in a German translation by Shaw's Viennese literary agent and acolyte, Siegfried Trebitsch.[12][13] Its first New York

production opened March 24, 1914 at the German-language Irving Place Theatre.[14] It opened in London April 11, 1914 at Sir Herbert Beerbohm Tree's His Majesty's Theatre and starred Mrs. Campbell as Eliza and Tree as Higgins. Shaw directed the actors through stormy rehearsals often punctuated by at least one of the three flinging out of the theater in a rage.[15]

Plot

First American (serialized) publication, Everybody's Magazine, November 1914

Shaw was conscious of the difficulties involved in staging a complete representation of the play. Acknowledging in a \"Note for technicians\" that such a thing would only be possible \"on the cinema screen or on stages furnished with exceptionally elaborate machinery\omission if necessary. Of these, a short scene at the end of Act One in which Eliza goes home, and a scene in Act Two in which Eliza is unwilling to undress for her bath, are not described here. The others are the scene at the Embassy Ball in Act Three and the scene with Eliza and Freddy in Act Four. Neither the Gutenberg edition referenced throughout this page nor the Wikisource text linked below contain these sequences.

[edit] Act One

'Covent Garden' - 11.15p.m. A group of people are sheltering from the rain. Amongst them are the Eynsford-Hills, superficial social climbers eking out a living in \"genteel poverty\Mrs. Eynsford-Hill and her daughter Clara. Clara's brother Freddy enters having earlier been dispatched to secure them a cab (which they can ill afford), but being rather timid and faint-hearted he has failed to do so. As he goes off once again to find a cab, he bumps into a flower girl, Eliza. Her flowers drop into the mud of Covent Garden, the flowers she needs to survive in her poverty-stricken world. Shortly they are joined by a gentleman, Colonel Pickering. While Eliza tries to sell flowers to the Colonel, a bystander informs her that a man is writing down everything she says. The man is Henry Higgins, a professor of phonetics. Eliza worries that Higgins is a police officer and will not calm down until Higgins introduces himself. It soon becomes apparent that he and Colonel Pickering have a shared interest in phonetics; indeed, Pickering has come from India to meet Higgins, and Higgins was planning to go to India to meet Pickering. Higgins tells Pickering that he could pass off the flower girl as a duchess merely by teaching her to speak properly. These words of bravado spark an interest in Eliza, who would love to make changes in her life and become more mannerly, even though, to her, it only means working in a flower shop. At the end of the act, Freddy returns after finding a taxi, only to find that his mother and sister have gone and left him with the cab. The streetwise Eliza takes the cab from him, using the money that Higgins tossed to her out of pity, leaving him on his own.

[edit] Act Two

Higgins' home - Next Day. As Higgins demonstrates his phonetics to Pickering,

the housekeeper, Mrs. Pearce, tells him that a young girl wants to see him. Eliza has shown up, and she tells Higgins that she will pay for lessons. He shows no interest in her, but she reminds him of his boast the previous day, so she can talk like a lady in a flower shop. Higgins claimed that he could pass her for a duchess. Pickering makes a bet with him on his claim, and says that he will pay for her lessons if Higgins succeeds. She is sent off to have a bath. Mrs. Pearce tells Higgins that he must behave himself in the young girl's presence. He must stop swearing, and improve his table manners. He is at a loss to understand why she should find fault with him. Then Alfred Doolittle, Eliza's father, appears with the sole purpose of getting money out of Higgins. He has no interest in his daughter in a paternal way. He sees himself as member of the undeserving poor, and means to go on being undeserving. He has an eccentric view of life, brought about by a lack of education and an intelligent brain. He is also aggressive, and when Eliza, on her return, sticks her tongue out at him, he goes to hit her, but is prevented by Pickering. The scene ends with Higgins telling Pickering that they really have got a difficult job on their hands.

[edit] Act Three

Mrs. Higgins' drawing room. Higgins bursts in and tells his mother he has picked up a \"common flower girl\" whom he has been teaching. Mrs. Higgins is not very impressed with her son's attempts to win her approval because it is her 'at home' day and she is entertaining visitors. The visitors are the Eynsford-Hills. Higgins is rude to them on their arrival. Eliza enters and soon falls into talking about the weather and her family. Whilst she is now able to speak in beautifully

modulated tones, the substance of what she says remains unchanged from the gutter. She confides her suspicions that aunt was killed by relatives, and mentions that gin had been \"mother's milk\" to this aunt, and that Eliza's own father was always more cheerful after a good amount of gin. Higgins passes off her remarks as \"the new small talk\if she is going to walk across the park, to which she replies, \"Walk? Not bloody likely!\" (This is the most famous line from the play, and, for many years after the play's debut, use of the word 'bloody' was known as a pygmalion; Mrs. Campbell was considered to have risked her career by speaking the line on stage.[citation needed]) After she and the Eynsford-Hills leave, Henry asks for his mother's opinion. She says the girl is not presentable and is very concerned about what will happen to her, but neither Higgins nor Pickering understand her thoughts of Eliza's future, and leave feeling confident and excited about how Eliza will get on. This leaves Mrs. Higgins feeling exasperated, and exclaiming, \"Men! Men!! Men!!!\"

However, the six months are not yet up, and just in time for the Embassy Ball Eliza learns to behave properly as well as to speak properly. The challenge she faces is increased, however, by the presence at the Ball of Nepommuck, a former pupil of Higgins' who speaks 32 languages and is acting as an interpreter for a \"Greek diplomatist\" who was in fact born the son of a Clerkenwell watchmaker and \"speaks English so villainously that he dare not utter a word of it lest he betray his origin.\" Nepommuck charges him handsomely for helping keep up the pretence. Pickering worries that Nepommuck will see through Eliza's disguise; nonetheless, Eliza is presented to the Ball's hosts, who, impressed by this vision of whom they know nothing, despatch Nepommuck to find out about her. Meanwhile Higgins,

the interesting work done, rapidly loses interest in proceedings as he sees that no-one will see through Eliza. Indeed, Nepommuck returns to his hosts to report that he has detected that Eliza is not English, as she speaks it too perfectly (\"only those who have been taught to speak it speak it well\"), and that she is, in fact, Hungarian, and of Royal blood. When asked, Higgins responds with the truth - and no-one believes him.

[edit] Act Four

Higgins' home - The time is midnight, and Higgins, Pickering, and Eliza have returned from the ball. A tired Eliza sits unnoticed, brooding and silent, while Pickering congratulates Higgins on winning the bet. Higgins scoffs and declares the evening a \"silly tomfoolery\been sick of the whole thing for the last two months. Still barely acknowledging Eliza beyond asking her to leave a note for Mrs. Pearce regarding coffee, the two retire to bed. Higgins returns to the room, looking for his slippers, and Eliza throws them at him. Higgins is taken aback, and is at first completely unable to understand Eliza's preoccupation, which aside from being ignored after her triumph is the question of what she is to do now. When Higgins does understand he makes light of it, saying she could get married, but Eliza interprets this as selling herself like a prostitute. \"We were above that at the corner of Tottenham Court Road.\" Finally she returns her jewelry to Higgins, including the ring he had given her, which he throws into the fireplace with a violence that scares Eliza. Furious with himself for losing his temper, he damns Mrs. Pearce, the coffee and then Eliza, and finally himself, for \"lavishing\" his knowledge and his \"regard and intimacy\" on

a \"heartless guttersnipe\

[edit] Act Five

Mrs. Higgins' drawing room, the next morning. Higgins and Pickering, perturbed by the discovery that Eliza has walked out on them, call on Mrs. Higgins to phone the police. Higgins is particularly distracted, since Eliza had assumed the responsibility of maintaining his diary and keeping track of his possessions, which causes Mrs. Higgins to decry their calling the police as though Eliza were \"a lost umbrella\". Doolittle is announced; he emerges dressed in splendid wedding attire and is furious with Higgins, who after their previous encounter had been so taken with Doolittle's unorthodox ethics that he had recommended him as the \"most original moralist in England\" to a rich American founding Moral Reform Societies; the American had subsequently left Doolittle a pension worth three thousand pounds a year, as a consequence of which Doolittle feels intimidated into joining the middle class and marrying his missus. Mrs. Higgins observes that this at least settles the problem of who shall provide for Eliza, to which Higgins objects — after all, he paid Doolittle five pounds for her. Mrs. Higgins informs her son that Eliza is upstairs, and explains the circumstances of her arrival, alluding to how marginalised and overlooked Eliza felt the previous night. Higgins is unable to appreciate this, and sulks when told that he must behave if Eliza is to join them. Doolittle is asked to wait outside.

Eliza enters, at ease and self-possessed. Higgins blusters but Eliza isn't shaken and speaks exclusively to Pickering. Throwing Higgins' previous insults back at him

(\"Oh, I'm only a squashed cabbage leaf\"), Eliza remarks that it was only by Pickering's example that she learned to be a lady, which renders Higgins

speechless. Eliza goes on to say that she has completely left behind the flower girl she was, and that she couldn't utter any of her old sounds if she tried — at which point Doolittle emerges from the balcony, causing Eliza to relapse totally into her gutter speech. Higgins is jubilant, jumping up and crowing over her. Doolittle explains his predicament and asks if Eliza will come to his wedding. Pickering and Mrs. Higgins also agree to go, and leave with Doolittle with Eliza to follow.

The scene ends with another confrontation between Higgins and Eliza. Higgins asks if Eliza is satisfied with the revenge she has wrought thus far and if she will now come back, but she refuses. Higgins defends himself from Eliza's earlier accusation by arguing that he treats everyone the same, so she shouldn't feel singled out. Eliza replies that she just wants a little kindness, and that since he will never stoop to show her this, she will not come back, but will marry Freddy. Higgins scolds her for such low ambitions: he has made her \"a consort for a king.\" When she threatens to teach phonetics and offer herself as an assistant to Nepommuck, Higgins again loses his temper and promises to wring her neck if she does so. Eliza realises that this last threat strikes Higgins at the very core and that it gives her power over him; Higgins, for his part, is delighted to see a spark of fight in Eliza rather than her erstwhile fretting and worrying. Mrs. Higgins returns and she and Eliza depart for the wedding. As they leave Higgins incorrigibly gives Eliza a number of errands to run, as though their recent conversation had not taken place. Eliza disdainfully explains why they are unnecessary, and wonders what Higgins is going do without her. Higgins laughs to himself at the idea of Eliza

marrying Freddy as the play ends.

[edit] Ending

Pygmalion was the most broadly appealing of all Shaw's plays. But popular

audiences, looking for pleasant entertainment with big stars in a West End venue, wanted a \"happy ending\" for the characters they liked so well, as did some critics.[16] During the 1914 run, to Shaw's exasperation but not to his surprise, Tree sought to sweeten Shaw's ending to please himself and his record houses.[17] Shaw returned for the 100th performance and watched Higgins, standing at the window, toss a bouquet down to Eliza. \"My ending makes money, you ought to be grateful,\" protested Tree. \"Your ending is damnable; you ought to be shot.\"[18][19] Shaw remained sufficiently irritated to add a postscript essay, \"'What Happened Afterwards,\"[20] to the 1916 print edition for inclusion with subsequent editions, in which he explained precisely why it was impossible for the story to end with Higgins and Eliza getting married.

He continued to protect the play's and Eliza's integrity by protecting the last scene. For at least some performances during the 1920 revival, Shaw adjusted the ending in a way that underscored the Shavian message. In an undated note to Mrs. Campbell he wrote,

When Eliza emancipates herself — when Galatea comes to life — she must not relapse. She must retain her pride and triumph to the end. When Higgins takes your arm on 'constant battleship' you must instantly throw him off with implacable

pride; and this is the note until the final 'Buy them yourself.' He will go out on the balcony to watch your departure; come back triumphantly into the room; exclaim 'Galatea!' (meaning that the statue has come to life at last); and — curtain. Thus he gets the last word; and you get it too.[21]

(This ending is not included in any print version of the play.)

Shaw fought uphill against such a reversal of fortune for Eliza all the way to 1938. He sent the film's harried producer, Gabriel Pascal, a concluding sequence which he felt offered a fair compromise: a romantically-set farewell scene between Higgins and Eliza, then Freddy and Eliza happy in their greengrocery/flower shop. Only at the sneak preview did he learn that Pascal had shot the \"I washed my face and hands\" conclusion, to reassure audiences that Shaw's Galatea wouldn't really come to life, after all.[22]

[edit] Differing versions

Different printed versions of the play omit or add certain lines, much like Shakespeare's First Folio and First Quarto editions of his plays. The Project Gutenberg version published online, for instance, omits Higgins' famous declaration to Eliza, \"Yes, you squashed cabbage-leaf, you disgrace to the noble architecture of these columns, you incarnate insult to the English language! I could pass you off as the Queen of Sheba!\" - a line so famous that it is now retained in nearly all productions of the play, including the 1938 film version of Pygmalion as well as in the stage and film versions of My Fair Lady.[23]

The director of the 1938 film, Anthony Asquith, had seen Mrs. Campbell in the 1920 revival of Pygmalion and noticed that she spoke the line, \"It's my belief as how they done the old woman in.\" He knew \"as how\" was not in Shaw's text, but

he felt it added color and rhythm to Eliza's speech, and liked to think that Mrs. Campbell had ad libbed it herself. Eighteen years later he added it to Wendy Hiller's line in the film.[15]

In the original play Eliza's test is met at an ambassador's garden party, offstage. For the 1938 film Shaw and co-writers replaced that exposition with a scene at an embassy ball; Nepommuck, the dangerous translator spoken about in the play, is finally seen, but his name is updated to Arstid Karpathy — named so by Gabriel Pascal, the film's Hungarian producer, who also made sure that Karpathy mistakes Eliza for a Hungarian princess. In My Fair Lady he became Zoltan Karpathy.

Shaw's screen version of the play as well as a new print version incorporating the new sequences he had added for the film script were published in 1941. The scenes he had noted in \"Note for Technicians\" are added.

[edit] Influence

Pygmalion remains Shaw's most popular play. The play's widest audiences know it as the inspiration for the highly romanticized 1956 musical and 1964 film.

Ironically, Pygmalion has transcended cultural and language barriers since its first production. The British Museum contains \"images of the Polish production...; a

series of shots of a wonderfully Gallicised Higgins and Eliza in the first French production in Paris in 1923; a fascinating set for a Russian production of the 1930s. There was no country which didn't have its own 'take' on the subjects of class division and social mobility, and it's as enjoyable to view these subtle differences in settings and costumes as it is to imagine translators wracking their brains for their own equivalent of 'Not bloody likely'.\"[24]

Joseph Weizenbaum named his artificial intelligence computer program ELIZA after the character Eliza Doolittle.[25]

《窈窕淑女/卖花女》英文原版

亨利.希金斯是一名固执傲慢的语言学教授。有一天他遇到了言语粗俗的卖花女伊莉莎.多莉特，告诉她一个人的语音标志着这个人的社会地位，如果她改进发音就可能会有一份体面的工作。教授回家后，遇到了同行皮克林上校，他告诉上校他能在六个月内把一个下层社会的女子培养成为上流社会的淑女。上校与教授打赌此事不可能。第二天恰好伊莉莎来了，在上校的帮助下，她成了教授的学生。经过刻苦学习，她取得了巨大进步，变得谈吐高雅、仪态端庄。最后在一次大型舞会上，她被介绍给上层社会，赢得了众人的赞美，并被皇家语音专家认为是某国的公主。教授回家后，兴高采烈地向上校索要赌金，完全忽视了伊莉莎，伊莉莎一怒之下，忿然离去。此时若有所失的教授才感到伊莉莎已成为自己

生活的一部分。

作者简介：萧伯纳

乔治·伯纳德·肖，爱尔兰剧作家，1925年「因为作品具有理想主义和人道主义」而获

诺贝尔文学奖，其喜剧作品《卖花女》（Pygmalion）因被好莱坞改编为卖座电影《窈窕淑

女》（My Fair Lady）而家喻户晓。

《卖花女》中男主角性格分析

希金斯最引人注目的特点是某种天真，这与他的职业技能和智力成熟形成对照。他给与他有联系的人带来很多麻烦-伊莉莎、皮尔斯太太、希金斯夫人—但他无意伤害任何人。他既不残忍也不卑鄙。他按自己的标准公平、体面地对待每个人。他对任何情况的反应都是直接的、即时的，而且通常要大喊大叫。他对别人的情感简直不加太多的考虑。

希金斯眼中的自己是个极为和蔼、温柔、慈善的人，经常成为别人不理智行为的牺牲品。他的善良的意图，以及他对自己本性的滑稽而欠准确的想法使他总是那么引人注目。

但实际上，希金斯喜欢自行其是。当他产生了一个念头时，如第二幕中那样，他便粗暴地对待一切反对。他不在乎辟克林的疑虑，不在乎皮尔斯夫人的反对，也不在乎伊莉莎出于无知的惊骇。他试图给皮尔斯太太一个女儿，让她收养，以此来安慰她。（不问她是否想要女儿，也不问伊莉莎是否想认干妈。）他编了很多嫁夫而富的奇异的婚嫁故事来引诱伊莉莎。他像个不负责任的孩子，为了搞到新玩具，他什么都做得出来。

希金斯完全献身于自己的工作。他对其工作的精神上的重要性有种得意洋洋的想法。他是莎士比亚和弥尔顿的语言的捍卫者。他打开英语这个无价的宝藏，与他的学生分享，使他们的灵魂变得崇高，把他们从人为的阶级障碍的束缚中解脱出来。

这种投入是使他变成吓人的怪物的诸多原因之一。他的工作非常重要；其他事情与之相比是那么渺小，简直是浪费时间。这样，他就不为举止、社交时的闲聊和文明生活中的

其他礼节而费心了。其结果是，他让母亲烦得不得了。反复表现希金斯的粗鲁举止是剧中的喜剧因素之一。尤其滑稽的是，当有礼貌地撒个无关紧要的谎话是得体的举止时，他总是那么直率诚实。第三幕中，在母亲的“会客日”，他冷冷地向因斯福德—希尔太太和她的女儿们打招呼，他没法假装很高兴看到她们。佛莱第的到来终于让他忍受不了了。希金斯呻吟道：“天啊，又来了一个！”难怪他母亲希望，在她会客时，儿子呆在他自己的家里。她是这样评价他的：“亨利，你在皇家学会的晚会里是众望所归，可是在这些平常的场合你可真有些讨厌。”（Henry:you are the life and soul of the Royal Society’s soirées;but really you’re rather trying on more commonplace occasions.）

希金斯不停地咒骂。皮尔斯太太以不畏牺牲的耐心忍受着他的语言。甚至辟克林上校，一个军人，而且也习惯这类事情，也提到他很少听到过这样的咒骂。

邋遢是希金斯的又一特点。就餐时他用晨衣擦手。他把所有食物一古脑儿装到一个盘子里。第二幕中有趣的一场戏中，皮尔斯太太告诫希金斯给伊莉莎做榜样，改善他的仪态时，她提到了他这些举止。当时她指出，他最近差点让果酱坛里的鱼刺卡住，那鱼刺一定是他自己掉进去的。伊莉莎本人也在第五幕中指出，如果不是辟克林上校，她永远也不会知道贵妇人和绅士的举止到底是什么样的。她尤其提到希金斯在餐室脱鞋的毛病。

希金斯对伊莉莎既霸道又无耐心。他对她全神贯注是因为她是一件用做语音学实验的物件。实际上，伊莉莎是个有着非凡头脑与心胸的女人。他感觉到自己已经听任事态发展，到了要建立真正深刻的人类关系的边缘。他拼命挣扎，为自己保持有伊莉莎为伴的快乐和方便，但不再对伊莉莎有进一步的付出。他不想改变自己的为人之道，只想自己属于自己。剧终，我们不清楚这一内心斗争会有什么结果。

—引自《世界经典文学作品赏析》之《乔治.肖伯纳的<卖花女>》,外语教学与研究出

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萧伯纳钦定版本

皮格马利翁(Pygmalion)是古希腊神话中的塞浦路斯国王。相传，他性情非常孤僻，喜欢一人独居，擅长雕刻。他用象牙雕刻了一座他的理想中的女性的美女像。他天天与雕像依伴，把全部热情和希望放在自己雕刻的少女雕像身上，少女雕像被他的爱和痴情所感动，从架子上走下来，变成了真人。皮格马利翁娶了少女为妻。

英国大文豪萧伯纳以上面这段传说为原型创作了同名社会讽刺剧，通过描写教授如何训练一名贫苦卖花女并最终成功被上流社会所认可的故事，抨击当时英国的腐朽保守的等级意识。而后来的好莱坞据此翻拍的《窈窕淑女》，则被普别认为没有很好的表现出原著中的讽刺元素。但是不是因此就足以作为否定库克和赫本版本的理由呢？似乎还有讨论的空间。

伦敦的某音乐厅外，众人因避雨而暂时聚拢在一起。期间，因卖花女的一句貌似不礼貌的称呼产生小小的争执，并由此引出了本片的另外一位主人公语音学教授希金斯。一番喜剧式唇枪舌剑之后，教授做出了一个在他的刚刚结识好友上校匹克文看来不可能完成的决定：要在三个月内，训练这位发音丑陋，语言低俗的卖花女，并使其最终进入上流社会的公众场合而被接受。

在表现教授训练卖花女的过程时，导演巧妙的借助演员的表情、肢体动作以及相互之间镜头位置的反差对比，辅助以一盏大号聚光灯，制造出了类似于警察在刑讯逼供的效果。非常有趣。同时，它也是本片中唯一没有用语言来制造笑料的场景。

卖花女的学期初考是要在教授母亲家中会见几位体面的客人。由于怕这位学生不慎露出马脚，教授要求她在众人面前只谈两件事情：天气和健康。而也卖花女也的确信守了诺言，没有谈及其他。但这却不妨碍本次会面成为她的滔滔不绝的个人秀。其中因自造俚语而导致听众的理解障碍，以及对因流感问题而引发的夫妻相处和酗酒之间的独特而“辨证”关系等对白，都极具喜剧效果。它应该是女主角的扮演者温迪希勒在本片中表演最出彩的段落。她凭借此片获得了1938年OSCAR最佳女主角的提名。

而对于后面的宴会大考段落，个人却不是很满意。坦白的说，我没看过后来根据同一题材改编的好莱坞经典歌舞剧《窈窕淑女》。但是却看过在内容上有几分近似的，同样是奥黛丽赫本主演，同样表现小鸭变天鹅的《龙凤配》。在那部影片中，霍顿扮演的富家花花公子哥一开始对于赫本扮演的，马尾辫连衣裙的邻家女孩打扮的司机女儿并没有太多留意和好感。可当后来赫本从巴黎学成归来并换了一套时尚装束后，他偶见之下便惊为天人。其实以赫本当时的年纪、清纯及可爱，是无需用衣着来修饰的。她本身的气质和魅力也是衣着难以掩盖的。所以赫顿的这种态度突变，可以认为是编导刻意安排的。它在某种程度上，缺乏观众的认同感。而相似的问题也发生在本片当中。女主人公，伦敦街头的穷苦卖花女的精彩段落反而是在变化之前。蹩脚的发言、粗俗的举止，以及由此而产生的英国式的喜剧效果，被温迪希勒表演的惟妙惟肖入木三分。相反，到了教授调教成功，卖花女亮相舞会并迷倒众人的桥段，故事的可信度就大打折扣。也就是说温迪塔勒遇到了与赫本在《龙凤配》中的性质相同，但过程却是完全相反的问题。这显然是由于，希勒虽是个很有特点也很会表演的女演员，但却绝对不够漂亮、清纯、可爱。因此使得豪门贵族对其惊艳不已的情节设计缺乏说服力。由此，我们是不是可以得出一些结论：演员当然可以尝试不同的角色。但是其个人的气质、魅力是很难被通过所谓的表演而被刻意压制的。特别是女演员。因此，类似丑小鸭便天鹅的这种故事模式，一旦被电影具象化，一旦需要由同一个女演员来扮演几乎等于是前后截然不同的两个人物时，就容易造成观众的认同感的缺失。

关于影片的结尾，据说萧伯纳本人并没有让这对奇异师生陷入爱河的初衷。在他的附录中，女主人公是嫁了出去，并开了一家花店。但是她对教授的敌意没有丝毫的减低。不过，对于这段情节的描述，萧大师没有加入任何人物对白。而从实际效果上看，包括本片在内的所有改编版本所采用这个相对轻松和谐结局，似乎与这部作品的整体基调更为统一。而考虑到萧伯纳本人也是本片的编剧，所以是不是可以看作是大师对于故事结构的自我修正？无论如何，追求大团圆结局的做法，都不能笼统的归咎于向商业世俗低头。具体案例还要具体分析，才是客观正确的态度。

本片的故事情节，除了被好莱坞翻拍为《窈窕淑女》之外，还受到了其他另类电影导演的情理。70年代，情色片（也许头两个字倒过来更合适）导演Radley Metzger将其改编为《贝多芬小姐的启蒙》。在片中，女主角要面临的艰巨挑战不再是纯正的英语发音，而是各种性技巧。而最终他与“教授”的关系发展也不再是单纯的停留在情感纠葛，而是上升到了…大家可想而知会是什么情节。导演在这个过程中的各种喜剧手法的运用由于有了“性”的参与，而显得非常怪异而有趣。此片被很多人认为是史上最好的A片之一。不过可惜随着后来不久，家庭录像带的大量普及，由此对A片电影市场的蚕食，彻底扼杀了这个领域的艺术家类原本就不多的奇思妙想。经典喜剧A片令人遗憾的就此绝响。