Priestley desires his audience to believe that Mr Birling is the most responsible for the death of Eva/Daisy's death as Mr. Birling is an austere man who ignores the needs of others to keep up profits and a good reputation. Birling perceives other people as "cheap labor." Mr Birling, a wealthy capitalist man, and a "rather portentous man," is an ignorant, over-confident, arrogant man who finds it difficult to think about other people. He doesn’t believe in "community and all that nonsense". Birling has a narrow perspective of the world and says that "a man has to make us own way". After Eva had lost her job, he expected her to fend for herself, which was an unfair judgement. Birling dismisses the idea of social responsibility and he calls people like the Inspector "cranks". Birling didn’t care about his workers and proudly says "I have a couple hundred workers under me, who keep changing," which further iterates the idea of him being arrogant and boastful. Instead of improving things for the workers who went on strike, he ensured that he …show more content…
caused their lives to become harder by personally firing them as he "went down" himself "and told them to clear out." Mr. Birling's dire actions resulted in Eva/Daisy being forced out of her job. If Birling hadn't fired Eva/Daisy, she would've still been working and may have still been alive. The other members of the family, except Mr.
and Mrs. Birling, feel ashamed and guilty of their actions and realise that their actions were unaccounted for. However Mr. Birling, being a selfish and self-centred man, feels no remorse or regret for his deed. In a nonchalant manner, he passes off the Inspector's visit as a "hoax" and regards it all as a joke instead of facing up to what he's done. Birling is shown to be someone who cares more about his reputation than anything else. Instead of helping his wife's situation, he thinks more about how "the Press might easily take it up-". He also hopes to hide the fact that Eric stole money: "I’ve got to cover this up as soon as I can." Birling wants to preserve his reputation and is paranoid about losing his titles as he fears that "there’ll be a public scandal". Birling doesn’t take responsibility for his wrongdoings and cares more about how he "was almost certain for a
knighthood". If Birling hadn't fired Eva/Daisy in the beginning, then she wouldn't have had to work in Milwards, become Gerald's mistress, Eric wouldn't have coerced her to sleep with him and then Mrs. Birling's committee. wouldn't have rejected her Mr. Birling had started a chain reaction which led to the death of Eva/Daisy.
Discuss Priestley's depiction of the Birling household and Gerald Croft, prior to the arrival of Inspector Goole In this submission I hope to fully discuss Priestley's depiction of the Birling household and Gerald Croft, prior to the arrival of Inspector Goole. The play is set in the fictional town of Brumley, an industrial town in the North Midlands. It is evening in the town, in the spring of 1912. At the moment the play starts the characters are celebrating the engagement between Gerald Croft and the Birling family's only daughter Sheila. They are all very pleased with themselves and are enjoying the occasion.
This is the concept of collective responsibility. Priestley says, 'things could really improve if only people were to become more socially responsible for the welfare of others'. We have to confront our mistakes and learn from them. The play starts off with the Birling family celebrating their daughter's engagement to Gerald Croft. The family included Mr Birling, Mrs Birling, Eric Birling, Sheila Birling and Gerald Croft.
Priestley is attempting to convey to his audience that Mr Birling needs to change, and not only Mr Birling, but the rest of the society that is comparable to him.
Since Priestley to show the current stereotypical mindset of people during those days, he uses Mrs. Birling to show her old-fashioned thoughts, as when Sheila doesn't believe that Gerald was busy all summer, Mrs. Birling says how "men with important work to do sometimes have to do sometimes have to spend nearly all their time and energy on business." Priestley also stereotypes men as he describes Gerald as a hero as he felt as though it was his duty to rescue Eva/Daisy from Alderman
Priestley mainly uses the characters in the play to present his views, especially Mr and Mrs Birling, to present his ideas about class and society. In the Birling family, Mrs Birling is the most upper class, and is always referring to the lower class female factory workers such as Eva Smith as ‘girls of that class’. She seems to think that working class people are not humans at all.
On overall, Priestley has presented the two characters, Arthur and Sheila Birling as completely differently. He wanted to match the story to the historical context of the 1910’s, but he has done this differently with Sheila. This is because the play was written in 1946 and the world had two wars and has started to comprehend the strength of community. She is the young generation of the 1910’s this means in a few years down the line, a war is going to break out and if they keep making the same mistake over and over again, it’s not going to turn out any better, by this, we see what happens in the second world war. This is why Sheila has been presented so that she understands consequences of what might happen if we don’t pull ourselves together.
In the play “An inspector calls” by J.B priestly, Mr Birling and Shelia Birling have contrasting attitudes to social issues. The author uses this to difference to highlight the diversity between generations and their reaction to situations faced. Arthur Birling is the father to Shelia Birling and is presented as the old fashion generation whereas Shelia is the young generation, who is more aware of the responsibility she has towards other people.The play begins with Mr birling and his family celebrating the engagement of Shelia and Gerald. The atmosphere is happy and light-hearted. Before the inspector arrives, Mr Birling is happy with life and himself “It’s one of the happiest nights of my life.” This shows that Mr Birling is quire selfish because he only thinks that it is one of the happiest nights of his life and not of Shelia and Gerald.
Priestly wants us to all accept responsibility for our own actions and understand that they have consequences. Throughout the play, the Inspector is pushing the characters to accept their own personal responsibility and for them to understand their actions will have repercussions and effect people like Eva. The inspector is Priestley's voice and conscience through the play, and is telling the audience that we need to accept personal responsibility in society. Sybil Birling said “He certainly did not make me confess- as you call it”. Mrs Birling is denying her personal responsibility with Eva and denying that she confessed to having dealings and confessing to her problems and qualms with Eva, her thoughts that she was in the right and did not do anything wrong with Eva. “In spite of what's happened to that girl since, I consider I did my duty.” Mrs Birling is cutting off all ties and denying the fact she played a huge involvement with her by not giving her the help and support and treating her with the capitalist viewpoint, and not giving her respect like she would if Eva was rich and in a higher class. Although Sybil and Arthur continue to refuse to take responsibility for what happened to Eva Smith, their younger children Sheila and Eric accept to their doings with Eva, they are willing to listen to the Inspector and do not shut down the possibility of being involved with her from the word go. This is evident when Sheila said “And probably between us we killed her”. This is showing us that she is accepting to the fact that by her actions she knew that it affected her and it was what lead to Eva commiting suicide. She accepted her responsibility, like Priestly wants us to accept our responsibility within society and realise that actions affect others. Both of the children know and understand and accept their doing with Eva. Eric
He uses the downfall of Eva Smith and a chain of events to demonstrate this. This leads to a very convincing and well-devised play, which puts across JB Priestley’s views clearly and precisely. In Edwardian Britain there was a great difference in the roles of men and women in society and the outlook of what and was not accepted differed substantially. A prime example of this in the play is when Mr Birling says ‘Nothing to do with you, Sheila.
The Inspector, straight form his introduction, is commanding and authoritative. Upon his entrance he creates, “…at once an impression of massiveness, solidity and purposefulness.”(PG.11) The Inspector continues to create this impression as he progresses through his speeches and through his interrogation of the family. The Inspector remains confident, sturdy and composed, while people around him crumble and fall to pieces. His ‘solidity’ is proven by the fact he remains on task despite numerous attempts from Birling to digress from the points he is making. The Inspector is told to appear ‘purposeful’; this is shown where he explains to Birling that Birlings way of thinking “Every man must only look out for himself,” is not the case, and all warps of society are interlinked. The view is best illustrated in the Inspectors final speech, where he says, “We don't live alone. We are members of one body. We are responsible for each other.”(p.56). This idea is one that Priestley, himself believed in deeply, and many of Priestleys writing shared this very theme.
This helped Priestley promote socialism against capitalism. JB Priestley uses dramatic devices to make An inspector calls a modern day morality play, to do this he uses dramatic devices, such as dramatic irony and tension in order to convey the message through the entire play. They are used accurately considering the time in which the play is set. Priestley also uses the characters as dramatic devices, they symbolise the dramatic devices, an example of this is Priestley makes us hate Mr. Birling because he symbolises capitalism, and in Priestley’s eyes capitalism is wrong. Throughout the play, Mr. Birling is the voice of capitalism....
Through his play Priestley endeavoured to convey a message to the audiences, that we could not go on being self obsessed and that we had to change our political views. He used the Birling family as an example of the Capitalist family that was common amongst the higher classes in 1912, who took no responsibility for other people and he showed this with the power of Socialism, represented by the inspector; the uneasy facade put on by the Birling family to cover up their real flaws and how they have treated those whom they considered to be lower class could not stand up to any scrutiny without shame for what had happened, showing that they know they have been wrong.
The story line of ‘An Inspector Calls’ holds a substantial amount of importance that addresses so many of humanities problems such as morals, prejudism, sexism, inequality between families, wealth and general class, and also taking responsibility, all of which are depicted through each of the characters, linking them in some way with Eva’s death, they are all in some respect responsible for it; this is the main theme that Priestly tries to portray using the Inspector as his mouthpiece. JB Priestly was a strong political
‘An Inspector Calls’ was written by J.B. Priestley in 1945, but is set specifically in 1912. The Birlings, an upper-middle class family, are celebrating their daughter’s engagement to a business-rival’s son. Into this scene of celebration comes the Inspector, who is there to investigate the suicide of a young working class woman. In this essay I intend to examine the role of the Inspector in the play, looking at his main functions and how effective he is in his role.
As I lay there in the pool floating along with the floating device watching the