Examine the character of Colonel Pickering.

Examine the character of Colonel Pickering.

Shaw describes Colonel Pickering simply as "an elderly gentleman of the military type." There is very little known about him apart from the fact that he is a student of Indian dialects and the author of "Spoken Sanskrit." He has apparently lived in India for a considerable time period and has come to England to meet Higgins whom he knows by repute. On the whole he gives the reader the general impression of being an amiable and friendly man. His main function is to serve as a foil to Higgins. The Colonel's good manners and regard for others provide a striking contrast to Higgins's impatience and boorishness. Gentility is the keynote of the colonel's character. It is significant that in the opening act of the play the Colonel is described as the "gentleman" while Higgins is given the short shrift as "the notetaker." (However, one must also note that it is the egotistical tyrant Higgins and not the Colonel who charitably flings money into Eliza's basket near the end of Act One. Thus from the very beginning Shaw examines the constitutive criteria of gentlemanly behavior). Throughout the play the gentility of the Colonel is pitted against Higgins's volatility. For instance, when Eliza comes to Higgins's Wimpole Street laboratory to learn correct pronunciation, Higgins bullies her by calling her a "baggage" and "guttersnipe" while Pickering offers her a chair to sit down and addresses her as Miss Doolittle.

Like Higgins, the Colonel also exhibits a childish excitement about the project of transforming Eliza into a lady. After Eliza's first appearance in society during Mrs. Higgins's at-home, both Higgins and Colonel Pickering exhibit extreme excitement and nearly shout one another down in their account of the progress of Eliza's training. In fact Mrs. Higgins has to tell them to stop and brands them "a pretty pair of babies, playing with (their) live doll."........................................................................................................

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