How Does Bernard Shaw Create Comedy, Seriousness, Sympathy, and Empathy in Pygmalion?

In the play, Pygmalion, Bernard Shaw creates many events that consist of comedy, seriousness, sympathy and empathy. These four emotions helps the audience decide what they feel towards

--------------Shaw creates a lot of humour often in ways where Higgins is not aware of it. After Eliza had showed her anger and hatred towards him by throwing insults at him Higgins calmly replies back. The surprise for the audience in this is that usually the audience would expect Higgins to retaliate in a similar fashion, but instead he talks to her in a peaceful manner. Higgins says, “The creature is nervous after all.” He calls her a ‘creature’ in third person which seems to be an attempt to wind Eliza up. This would normally annoy the audience but Shaw turns this into a comedic event as Higgins is blindly insulting Eliza and is completely unaware of how his words will have an effect on her. The audience, therefore, laughs at Higgins’ oblivion.

--------------Shaw makes comedy with simple and common effects such as sarcasm. Here is a clear example of sarcasm in use: “Oh yes, of course. You shied them at me.” Here, it is obvious that Higgins is irritated here; the use of sarcasm shows the audience this. Shaw has created emphasis on the word ‘shied’; this could indicate that Higgins had probably found the fact that the slippers had been thrown at him, quite annoying. If Shaw had rearranged that sentence to: “Oh yes, of course. The ones that you shied at me”, the emphasis would be put on the word ‘you’ which shows annoyance towards Eliza. This could be found as quite humorous as the reminding of the incident seems to cause irritation up on him.

--------------Another way Shaw displays humour is when Higgins says something serious and it is ruined ...

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...for her. This is also comical as Shaw uses words like ' good girl' which suggests that Higgins is talking to a small child. This could mean that Higgins feels slightly sympathetic towards Eliza as treating her like a child might suggest that he is more concerned. The comedy in this is that Higgins is treating Eliza like a small child and he is unaware of doing so.

--------------Overall, the emotions created by Shaw win the audience over. He creates comedy by ridiculing Higgins which the audience enjoys; seriousness from Higgins is in a lot of his dialogue and usually comes out when Higgins is showing his intellectual side and is often accompanied with comedy, sympathy and others. Shaw also creates sympathy for Higgins by revealing his feelings for Eliza; empathy is found when Higgins sympathizes over Eliza. These four things bring the audience to like Higgins more.