Women and Eccentricity in Shaw

Eliza Doolittle and the Dog-woman project almost opposite images of British womanhood. Eliza has been turned out by her father into the slums of London and she longs to live in comfort and security. She thinks her dreams can come true if she can speak proper English. The Dog-woman, on the other hand, unlike the Cockney flower girl, is practically a misfit, but not quite. She wears her size and oddness as though they were inevitable.

The title of W.'s Sexing the Cherry is obviously a provocative one. Yet the image actually comes from the sexing of hybrid cherries.

The Dog-Woman is the perfect image of that old joke about the 800-pound gorilla who can sit on the bus wherever he likes. She is a giantess, can hold normal-sized Jordan in her palm, and plows her way through life in a way that tells everyone...
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