<George Bernard Shaw's Pygmalion opens on a rainy night at Covent Garden in London. Several people take shelter under the portico of St. Paul's Church while waiting for the rain to stop. The setting introduces people from different social classes, showing one of the central themes of the play—class distinction and language.
Among those waiting are Mrs. Eynsford Hill, her daughter Clara, and her son Freddy. Mrs. Eynsford Hill sends Freddy to find a taxi because it is raining heavily. Freddy tries his best but fails to get one. As he hurries back, he accidentally bumps into a poor flower girl and knocks her basket of flowers to the ground. The flowers scatter everywhere, and the flower girl becomes upset because selling flowers is her only source of income.
The flower girl, Eliza Doolittle, speaks in a strong Cockney dialect. She is poorly dressed but hardworking and self-respecting. She complains to Freddy for knocking down her flowers. Feeling sorry for her, Mrs. Eynsford Hill gives Eliza some money to compensate for the damage. Eliza gratefully accepts it and thanks her.
Soon, an elderly gentleman takes shelter nearby. Eliza politely offers to sell him a flower. At that moment, another man, who has been quietly writing in a notebook, begins taking down everything Eliza says. Seeing this, Eliza becomes frightened. She thinks he is a policeman collecting evidence against her. She worries that she may be arrested simply because she spoke to a gentleman. She repeatedly insists that she is a respectable girl who has done nothing wrong.
The crowd gathers around the notebook man. A bystander explains that he is probably not a policeman but someone interested in recording speech. The notebook man calms Eliza by reading back her own words exactly as she had spoken them. The crowd is amazed at his ability to identify where people come from simply by listening to their accents. He correctly guesses that Eliza comes from Lisson Grove, Clara from Epsom, and others from different places.
The mysterious notebook man is Professor Henry Higgins, an expert in phonetics, the scientific study of speech sounds. Higgins proudly explains that he can identify a person's birthplace from the way they speak. He even says that, with proper training, he could teach Eliza to speak such perfect English that she could pass as a duchess at an ambassador's garden party within six months. Higgins also criticises Eliza's poor pronunciation and tells her that speech is one of the most important qualities that can improve a person's life.
The elderly gentleman then introduces himself as Colonel Pickering, a scholar of Indian dialects. Pickering has come from India to meet Higgins because he admires his work on phonetics. Higgins is delighted because he, too, had wanted to meet Pickering. The two scholars quickly become friends and decide to continue their conversation over dinner. Their meeting is an important turning point in the play because it leads to Higgins' famous experiment with Eliza.
Before leaving, Higgins throws some money into Eliza's basket. Eliza is delighted because she has never received so much money at once. When Freddy finally returns with a taxi, Eliza happily hires it for herself. She confidently gets into the cab and leaves, while Freddy is left standing in surprise. This humorous ending shows the beginning of Eliza's transformation from a poor flower girl into someone who dreams of a better future.
Act I introduces the major characters, establishes the central conflict, and presents the themes of language, social class, identity and self-respect. It also prepares the audience for Higgins' experiment, which becomes the main focus of the rest of the play.>
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