George Bernard Shaw’s famous play Pygmalion is a story about a brilliant linguist who adopts a low-class flower girl and, through the power of language, trains her to pass for a duchess. It’s a humorous social commentary on how the upper class values external qualities over internal ones, and how learning can change someone forever - for better or for worse.
However, my favorite character from the play is not the eccentric linguistic genius, Henry Higgins, nor is it Eliza, the flower-girl who transforms so shockingly. It is a relatively minor, yet still immensely entertaining character - Eliza’s father, Alfred Doolittle.
Who is Alfred Doolittle?
Alfred Doolittle works as a dust-man to avoid getting a real job, and lives a hand-to-mouth existence he seems completely satisfied by. An armchair philosopher, serial monogamist, unapologetic beggar and deadbeat dad, the characters and audience both view him with delighted reproach. He isn’t a good person, nor does he pretend to be. When he hears about Higgins taking in Eliza, he goes to him immediately - not because he is worried for her safety, but because he wants to make some money off the wealthy linguist. That should tell you what kind of person he is. At the same time, he’s just so entertaining to watch - his rough eloquence and ingenuity as he tries one set of lies after another to get some money out of Higgins.
The Philosophy of the Undeserving Poor
Alfred also acts as a foil to his daughter. While Eliza dreams of going up in the world, he is perfectly content being in the lower class. He is, as he calls himself, one of the ‘undeserving poor’ - someone who does whatever he can to get out of doing any actual work.
I’m one of the undeserving poor: that’s what I am. Think of what that means to a man. It means that he’s up agen middle class morality all the time. If there’s anything going, and I put in for a bit of it, it’s always the same story: “You’re undeserving; so you can’t have it.” But my needs is as great as the most deserving widow’s that ever got money out of six different charities in one week for the death of the same husband. I don’t need less than a deserving man: I need more. I don’t eat less hearty than him; and I drink a lot more. I want a bit of amusement, cause I’m a thinking man. I want cheerfulness and a song and a band when I feel low. Well, they charge me just the same for everything as they charge the deserving. What is middle class morality? Just an excuse for never giving me anything. Therefore, I ask you, as two gentlemen, not to play that game on me. I’m playing straight with you. I ain’t pretending to be deserving. I’m undeserving; and I mean to go on being undeserving. I like it; and that’s the truth.
The reason Alfred is content living such a life is that nobody expects him to be a good person. ‘Middle-class morality’, as he puts it, does not apply to him. He can drink and borrow and go out with his missus all he wants without any reproach from society, because society does not expect anything better from him. Thus, he plays into one of Shaw’s major themes on how society judges people solely based on their external characteristics.
Alfred has an unique set of morals. He accepts five pounds from Higgins, but refuses ten; he only wants enough money to drink the weekend away, and believes that any more will only bring a man unhappiness. This makes the conclusion of his story all the more humorous.
An Ironic Conclusion
By a sudden twist of fate, Alfred comes into wealth. However, he is unhappy with this, as not only would he be expected to follow the ‘middle-class morality he hated, but that other people would now exploit and scam him the way he had scammed rich people in the past.
Happier men than me will call for my dust, and touch me for their tip; and I’ll look on helpless, and envy them.
While he does not change over the course of the story, it is enjoyable to watch his discomfort as society forces him to become a gentleman.
Overall, Alfred Doolittle is a philosophizing sleazeball - unashamedly immoral, massively entertaining, and a vehicle for Shaw’s thoughts on class.