What are the social implications of Professor Higgins's experiment with Eliza?

is a withering critique
of Victorian society and its class structure. The upper-class professor of phonetics, Henry
Higgins, sets out to transform a humble Cockney sparrow into a lady of quality, whom he will
then introduce to high society. Higgins's behavior exemplifies the general level of contempt
displayed by the upper-classes toward those they regarded as their social inferiors. He doesn't
value Eliza Dolittle or accept her for who she is; he sees her as a problem to be solved by
means that are both manipulative and exploitative in equal measure.

At the
same time, the artificial methods used by Higgins to transform Eliza into a high-class social
butterfly expose the artificiality of the class structure that existed at the time. If someone
of Eliza's humble social origins could be passed off as a refined upper-class lady after a
relatively short program of instruction and training, then that would seem to suggest that
so-called good breeding is ultimately irrelevant, not just in terms of one's worth as an
individual, but also in relation to how one is judged and evaluated by
society.