Characters of Pygmalion

Eliza comes very close to being a walking cliché. She's the poor girl from the streets, flower girl, who turns out to be a brilliant and beautiful young woman. She's smart, independent, and feisty. She doesn't seem to have a lot of hope for the future. She is a little bit crass but this is only because she is a product of her environment. a girl who howls every time she gets angry ("Ah-ah-ah-ow-ow-ow-oo!"). She doesn't want to be poor and dreams of a better life. When she meets Henry Higgins he treats her like she isn't even human. She seizes the opportunity to elevate herself in life when she visits him and Colonel Pickering to ask for language lessons. She isn't asking for the world; she just wants to be able to work in a flower shop. It should be said that a lot of the time Eliza functions as comic relief. Her howls, her indignation, her frequent exclamations of "Garn!" and "I'm a good girl, I am," and most notably her performance at Mrs. Higgins's party are all designed to make us laugh.
Eliza Doolittle is a very strong-willed and assertive woman, though maybe a little quirky. Henry Higgins puts her through hell and yet she endures and becomes a proper lady. I feel that Eliza is the most responsible for her transformation. She had will power and strength and was determined to make a better no matter what it took, even though Higgins and Pickering are getting a little carried away with their experiments. I tend to think that all she needed was the confidence that she could change her position in life. Henry was a means of confidence in that she felt he could transform her through language. In reality she made the transformation for herself through her determination, dedication, and hard work.

By the time we get to Act 4, we're behind Eliza, she doesn't speak with a thick accent; her grammar is correct; she moves with poise and confidence. Over the course of the play Eliza is transformed from a poor flower girl into a sophisticated young woman, but,...