Interpersonal Communication Behavior Analysis
Communication is everywhere and constant in the film; My Fair Lady where different interpersonal relationships are evident between the characters present in the film. My Fair Lady focuses on the story of a low-class flower girl who becomes a fair lady that everybody admires. Eliza has a thick cockney accent that defines her identity and describes a unique communication behavior upon Eliza. In return, communication affects her interpersonal situations in most of the times in the film. Freddy Eynsford Hill runs into flower girl Eliza Doolittle after the crowds are leaving the Opera and spills her flowers onto the muddy ground (Reynolds, 2002). He is the first individual in the context to identify Eliza’s thick and cockney accent. In order to improve her communication, Eliza enrolls for speaking lessons at Higgin’s home facilitated by her little savings. This scene marks the beginning of different interpersonal relationships between Eliza and different characters in the film.
Eliza has a self-concept that generates different relationships and communicative interactions in different settings of the film. Her self-concept develops from various interactions she establishes with significant others. The film presents a strong relationship between Eliza and Higgins. However, Higgins treats Eliza badly judging her from her accent. Higgins judges Eliza on the basis of her dreadful accent to an extent that he considers her communication traits as a challenge. Instead of teaching Eliza the speaking lessons, Higgins takes Eliza to his home subjecting her to the arduous refinement. Eliza’s zeal to learn speaking lessons and the fact that she was taken by Professor Higgins is considered as a good fortune. Her father, Alfred Doolittle is among the characters who find it a good fortune and shows up at Higgin’s residence to check her daughter’s progress and receive a compensation of five-pound note (Lerner et. al, 2008).
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Eliza demonstrates her focus on doing things right motivated by her innate optimism to get to paradise. Moreover, she sings about the imaginary paradise describing it as a lovely place despite her challenging environment (Reynolds, 2002). Eliza introduces herself as a good and respectable girl although Professor Higgins could not view her in such a dimension. On the contrary, he could mistreat her and even employ insulting tutoring method for her lessons. Despite her positive attitude, Eliza has a sense of rejection, disappointment and great confusion regarding how Higgins could treat her. This is due to the fact that through her songs, Eliza considered herself as a dominated fool, mutton-headed dolt and an addle-pated fool for having considered Professor Higgins as her tutor to help her learn the language.
Nevertheless, before Eliza leaves Higgins’ home, Higgins decides to give her a brief trial run at the Ascot races. Eliza has already developed slow and measured communicative power demonstrating a good eloquence. However, immediately the race begins, Eliza becomes more excited. The more excited she gets, the more she gets back to her thick cockney argot. Her excitement makes her shout, “Move yer arse” as an encouragement, which in return shocks several ladies in the races (Reynolds, 2002). In addition, this scene puzzles Freddy who has been attracted to Eliza. Eliza does not understand the fact that her cockney dialect affects the communication expectations among her colleagues. Her mode of communication presents different validations and rejection instances where characters in the setting judge her according to her accent. However, they tend to miss the respectable part of her.
Despite the setback at the Ascot races, Professor Higgins decides to involve Eliza in the Embassy Ball. Consequently, Eliza’s unique participation charms everyone including the queen Zoltan Karpathy, the nefarious linguist. However, despite her great presentation, Eliza receives neither a word of encouragement nor compliment an instance that heartbreaks her. Eliza confronts Higgins for his careless character and in return, he dismisses her with her usual coldness. Eliza returns back to her Covent Garden and decides to remain at home. She finds that her father was receiving a royal treatment from pub proprietor and friends as well (Lerner et. al, 2008). In general, Higgin’s behavior is motivated by his perception towards Eliza considering her illiteracy portrayed by her accent. However, when Eliza leaves, Higgins begins to spot the significance of having Eliza around. This demonstrates a strong relationship between them. Higgins becomes desperate finding Eliza and locates her at his mother’s home. Unlike Higgins, Mrs. Higgins likes Eliza’s personality and in return defends her to her impervious son.
Higgins asks Eliza to return suggesting that he treated Eliza equally with everyone else; a fact that never reflected his bad treatment especially towards Eliza. For instance, Higgins had a good relationship with Colonel Pickering considering the fact that they both had almost similar social status and were literate with fluent language skills. Eliza is convinced that Higgins can never change hence does not give in to his request. Higgins realizes Eliza’s value and the fact that he misses her. Listening to a recording of their first meeting at Higgins homes, Eliza returns and recites the remaining part using her cockney accent, which suggested, “I washed my face and hands before I came, I did” (Lerner et al., 2008). In return, this case induced a different perception towards Eliza as identified by Higgins. Consequently, Higgins change his treatment towards Eliza and considered her as a respectable girl despite her cockney accent. Higgins could judge the girl as illiterate considering her social background and the cockney accent. In return, this fact affected their interpersonal relationship in the entire film presenting distinct aspects of communication.
A different scene that presents interpersonal communication includes Freddy Eynsford-Hill who had developed feelings towards Eliza. She had developed into a beautiful girl hence winning Freddy’s heart. Freddy decides to profess his love for her. However Eliza seems to be so tired of words and without giving an answer, she demands that Freddy should show her whether he loves her. Their interpersonal relationship presents a distinct thought where words might not be enough but how the characters treat each other is significant enough to convey the feelings towards each other (Loewe, 1958).
Furthermore, Colonel Pickering is aware of the rude treatment by Higgins towards Eliza. Without confronting him, Colonel Pickering advices Higgins to improve his treatment on the young girl. However, Higgins responds that Eliza is just an illiterate girl from a humble background who does not deserve any noble treatment. Pickering protects and cares about Eliza. He is aware of how Higgins treats Eliza since he checks on Higgins to treat Eliza more respectfully. In addition, Pickering sponsored Eliza for her tutoring and could share his company with both Eliza and Higgins hence reducing the between the two. Eliza continually develops both internally and externally and Pickering hands over his role to Mrs. Higgins after the incident identified in the context (Lerner et al., 2008).
Moreover, communication facilitates social self, which does not develop through social interaction. The relationship between Eliza and Mrs. Higgins is characterized with empathy and care as Eliza narrates her mistreatment by Higgins. In return, Mrs. Higgins develops a protective power for Eliza and confronts her son to protect the beautiful girl. Mrs. Higgins participates for the approval of Eliza as a respectable and good girl who requires attention and care from Higgins and everyone associated with her. Looking at her interpersonal relationship with Higgins, Eliza tried to present her good and respectable nature but Higgins had his mind fixed on the social and illiteracy belief towards her (Reynolds, 2002).
Additionally, gets emotional following her state and being fond of singing, she sings her heart out describing her grief and feelings towards anyone she could interact with. For instance, singing of unrequited love, Eliza sings, “Where are the words I long to hear? And where are the words I long to say? Why can’t I open my heart?” Moreover, when she was leaving Higgin’s home, she sang, “You are not the beginning and the end. If they can do without you Ducky, So can I. I shall not feel alone without you. I can stand on my own without you.” This song can be associated with Eliza’s quest for freedom and happiness that could reflect her good and respectable character (Loewe, 1958).
Meanwhile, the film presents different interrelationships with the main one revolving around Eliza’s life who communicates her thoughts through singing. Despite her thick cockney accent, Eliza was a great personality that was mistaken by Higgins following her social state and illiteracy, as suggested by Higgins. Moreover, Higgins character and interpersonal communication are characterized to be ego as he considers himself as literate and a noble person (Loewe, 1958). This aspect influences his relationship with different characters including his mother who is aware of the mistreatment by his son does not support him anymore. Eliza’s journey of individualization aims at obtaining freedom from the yolks of her accent and mistreatment from Higgins. Consequently, upholding positivity considering herself as a respectable and good person, she eventually develops a great understanding of her significance towards Higgins who seems to change her character after realizing he might be losing someone important for him. In conclusion, the real interpersonal events presented through the film, “My Fair Lady” presents a significant role of interpersonal communication in any given relationship describing different aspects that influence the same factor.
References
Lerner, A. J., Loewe, F., & Previn, A. (2008). My fair lady . Pearson education.
Loewe, F. (1958). My fair lady: a musical play in two acts . Penguin.
Reynolds, D. (2002). The good, the bad, and the ugly of incorporating" My Fair Lady" in the workplace. SAM Advanced Management Journal , 67 (3), 4.
