Why does Eliza Doolittle want Henry Higgins?

[KiwiZ]

I've seen "My Fair Lady" only twice, so perhaps I am missing something. Henry Higgins is sexist, rude and even cruel at times. Why in the world does Eliza want him so? I wanted her to give Freddy a chance, he laughed at her outburst at the horse races, accepting her "as is" and was quite smitten.

What are your thoughts?

[journeymom]

Maybe it's wanting what you can't have. Or proving yourself worthy. Or being the one to change a previously unchangable man. (Men want to save women, women want to change men for the better.) It's always been acceptable (encouraged, required) for young women/girls to marry older men. I'm one of those guilty of enjoying Spring/Fall (or Spring/Winter) romances. The first time I saw My Fair Lady I was smitten with Rex Harrison and my mom made your same point. I think she was a little a little disappointed her daughter would fall for this romantic clap-trap.

The worst example is, I think, Lolita. Yuck.

Little Women (Jo and her husband)
Gigi
Girl With a Pearl Earring
Laura Ingalls and Almonzo Wilder
Rebecca
Jane Eyre

Warning :: Spoiler Ahead! Highlight to read message!

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I know, I know, it's icky. But I like the Hermione/Snape fanfiction stories.

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I don't know how old the Phantom is supposed to be, but maybe Phantom of the Opera fits here.

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Eta, House and Cameron from tv's House. Though I suppose they're not together. Still, she's attracted to him and he's about 20 y.o. than her.

[grahamsmom98]

I think she realized that he saw in her something that nobody had seen before. That, underneath her crude exterior, existed a real lady. She saw his interest in her was different. He didn't laugh at her. He knew her for what she had been and what she became. There would be no concerns about her past. He didn't give a damn about what others thought and, thus, would be an ideal partner. He would tell anybody that criticised her background to go to hell and enjoy it.

Henry Higgins had fire. He had a backbone. He treated everyone the same (with a lot of disdain, but because of their attitudes, not their station in life). He fell in love with the fire in Eliza and the qualities she possessed. He knew Eliza was amazed at his wealth and surroundings, but her body wasn't for sale ("I'm a good girl, I am!"). Henry Higgins never tried anything. He made it clear from the beginning he was not interested in her for sex.

Freddy was boring and shallow. There was no fire in him. He would be a dull partner for life (or, even, for the short-term). He would do whatever his mother told him to do. he might not like it, but he would never have the backbone to stand up to her or to anyone.

Freddy was smitten because she was pretty and fresh and new (as opposed to the girls he had grow-up with and would be expected to marry).

He would NOT have been allowed to carry it any further because she was not the type of girl men like him married. Slept with, certainly, but marry? Never. Not without risking losing the financial support of the family. Freddy had no skills to make a living. Eliza would have had to work to support them as his family would have pulled the money out from under him. Love is all very well and nice, but it wouldn't keep Freddy in the lifestyle he was accustomed to.

I'd take Henry ANY day over Freddy. Of course, Col. Pickering was pretty cute, too!

[KiwiZ]

Wow, what great insightful answers! I shall have to watch it again with what you said in mind. And Col Pickering is a sweetheart

[KittyKat]

You make a lot of very valid points! I hadn't seen things from quite that perspective.

journeymom:
I'd add Jane Austen's Emma to your list, possibly others of her characters... mind blanking at this point.

[Snowdrift]

Yep, I'd go for Pickering over either one, but IRL my DH is probably most like Freddy. Guess that's what I get fro marrying a younger man...

[grahamsmom98]

I suggest you read "Pygmalion" by George Bernard Shaw, his original play. "My Fair Lady" was based on this. It is certainly a bit different than what others later did to the story!

Here is what GBS said actually happened at the end of "Pygmalion"

However, in an epilogue that Shaw wrote after too many directors tried to adapt the conclusion into something more romantic, he writes,

"The rest of the story need not be shewn in action, and indeed, would hardly need telling if our imaginations were not so enfeebled by their lazy dependence on the ready-mades and reach-me-downs of the ragshop in which Romance keeps its stock of 'happy endings to misfit all stories." He goes on to deliver a detailed and considered argument for why Higgins would never marry Eliza, and vice versa. For one, Higgins has too much admiration for his mother to find any other woman even halfway comparable, and even "had Mrs. Higgins died, there would still have been Milton and the Universal Alphabet." To Shaw's mind, if Eliza marries anyone at all, it must be Freddy-- "And that is just what Eliza did."

The epilogue goes on to give a dreary account of their married life and faltering career as the owners of a flower and vegetable shop (an ironic treatment of the typical "happily ever after" nonsense) in which Freddy and Eliza must take accounting and penmanship classes to really become useful members of society. One can see this whole play as an intentional deconstruction of the genre of Romance, and of the myth of Pygmalion as well.