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What did higgins mean when he told pickering that this is an age of upstarts?

User Kizer
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Higgins suggests that he is living in a time when dreams can come true, when rags-to-riches stories are, well, more than just stories. At the same time, he acknowledges that the movement from Kentish Town to Park Lane is not only a matter of making a fortune.-shmoop
User Adam Liss
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Answer:

Higgins meant to imply that everyone has the chance to make something out of their lives. An individual may work for whatever he dreamed of, and be successful. It is the age when "dreams can come true".

Step-by-step explanation:

George Bernard Shaw's play "Pygmalion" tells the story of how a lowly girl Eliza Dolittle transformed from poor to a classy English woman/lady. The process not only gave her a new start in life, changing her life and appearance but it also gave a new-found confidence in her own self.

In Act I, when Professor Higgins told Colonel Pickering that "this is an age of upstarts", he meant that it is possible to do anything. The "rags-to-riches" stories are possible, and that one can do anything to change his life. "Upstart" is a new start for anything, so he must have implied that even he r Pickering or anybody for that matter, is capable of making his dreams come true.

User Uniqrish
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