Why are there so many references to “what is to become” of Eliza? Trace these references throughout the play. What broader concern for society might Shaw be expressing?
Throughout the play there are many times where concern for Eliza’s future are raised. During the second act when the prospect of the transformation experiment becomes a reality, Mrs. Pearce is the first person to raise the question of Eliza’s wellbeing after the experiment is finished. She makes Higgins think of the minute details he was neglecting to acknowledge when he took on the experiment like where Eliza was to go after and whether she is to be compensated during:
“MRS PEARCE: Will you please keep to the point, Mr. Higgins. I want to know on what terms the girl is to be here. Is she to have any wages? And what is to become of her when you've finished your teaching? You must look ahead a little.”
Then as Pickering realizes Mrs. Pearce is right, he expresses concern for Eliza’s more immediate future as well:
“PICKERING Excuse me, Higgins; but I really must interfere. Mrs Pearce is quite right. If this girl is to put herself in your hands for six months for an experiment in teaching, she must understand thoroughly what she's doing.”
The next person we see concerned for Eliza’s future (her financial one) is Mrs. Higgins in act two. She asks if Eliza is to be a lady like Higgins intends, how is she going to have money? A lady can’t work for a living. And lastly, Eliza herself vocalizes her concern for what is to become of her in act four:
“LIZA [pulling herself together in desperation] What am I fit for? What have you left me fit for? Where am I to go? What am I to do? What's to become of me?”
Shaw is expressing a broader concern for society through these character’s concerns. Eliza represents the lower class and thus I believe Shaw is expressing concern for the lower classes well-being as a whole. Through Higgins’ experiment, Shaw indicates that the upper classes will ignore and degrade the lower class until they can use them for their own purposes without any concern for them as individual human beings. By expressing concern for Eliza and her life, Shaw is pointing out that the lower class and their well-being needs to be considered just as the middle classes is. That each individual of the poor has their own hopes, aspirations, and feelings to be taken into account. By doing this, he also points out the selfishness and callousness of the middle class to ignore, disregard, and/or not realize such things. The theme that the lower class is not a generalized stereotypical group but rather a class made up of individual people just like the middle class comes into play here.