Categorical Thinking in Pygmalion Geoffrey Yu Zhang College

In George Bernard Shaw’s Pygmalion, linguists Henry Higgins and Colonel Pickering attempt to transform a lower-class girl, Eliza Doolittle, into the likes of a duchess. From this story of social transformation, Pygmalion comments on different socioeconomic conditions in early twentieth century London. Through characters such as Eliza and their interactions with each other, George Bernard Shaw demonstrates the division of society and prejudice of others caused by categorical thinking with regard to social status.

Categorical thinking is the assigning of things to groups to help us define the world around us. While categorical thinking makes processing of information easier, it also can cause us to force information into categories even if they do not fit into a specific category. When we divide things such as tests into pass and fail, political parties into left and right, and in Pygmalion, social classes into rich and poor, we ignore the complexity of these subject. Oftentimes, these qualities exist on spectrums that interconnect in many different ways.

Firstly, Pygmalion demonstrates that the spectrum of social class is not a rigid hierarchy and cannot be defined by specific categories. No one better represents this than Eliza...