In George Bernard Shaw's play Pygmalion, who is Eliza Doolittle?

In s 1912
play , the character of Eliza Doolittle is described by the playwright as a
destitute, clearly uneducated flower girl plying her trade on the rainy sidewalks of upper class
London.  When Eliza is introduced, it is in the midst of a collision with a doorman frantically
attempting to locate a cab for an exceedingly unreasonable woman and her daughter.  Cast once
more into the torrential downpour, the hapless doorman collides with Eliza, described as
follows:

She is not at all an attractive person. She is
perhaps eighteen, perhaps twenty, hardly older. She wears a little sailor hat of black straw
that has long been exposed to the dust and soot of London and has seldom if ever been brushed.
Her hair needs washing rather badly: its mousy color can hardly be natural. She wears a shoddy
black coat that reaches nearly to her knees and is shaped to her waist. She has a brown skirt
with a coarse apron. Her boots are much the worse for wear. She is no doubt as clean as she can
afford to be; but compared to the ladies she is very dirty. Her features are no worse than
theirs; but their condition leaves something to be desired; and she needs the services of a
dentist]. 

Putting aside theof any citizen of England
commenting negatively on another citizen of Englands dental situation, Shaw clearly intends
Eliza to represent a suitable project for which the plays other , Henry Higgins, can indulge in
a wager regarding his ability to transform his human subject into a representative of Londons
elite.  Eliza is desperately poor, and the contrasts among Englands social classes was
notoriously dramatic.  That within that course exterior lied the heart of a lovely young woman
was Pygmalions point.  The old adage of not judging on the basis of outward
appearances found its ultimate manifestation in Shaws play, since renamed My Fair
Lady and a regular source of material for stage and film productions.  Eliza
Doolittle has become synonymous with the potential within an individual otherwise rejected for
his or her appearance.

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