People's Attitudes Revealed by Eva Smith's Life Story in J.B. Priestley's an Inspector Calls

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People's Attitudes Revealed by Eva Smith's Life Story in J.B. Priestley's an Inspector Calls The play, An Inspector Calls was written by J.B.Priestley in 1945 and performed a year later. The story is about a traditional upper class family called the Birlings, who throughout the play are revealed to be involved in the life and death of a young, working class girl called Eva Smith. We discover that she commits suicide because of the chain of events, which the Birlings were involved in. In this essay I am going to be examining each character's involvement in her life and their attitudes towards Eva smith and girls like her. The first character I am going to look at is Mr. Birling. He is a very successful businessman who as worked hard to get where he is and believes that nothing will bring him down. He is very pompous and has strong views on many subjects. He likes to describe himself as a, " hard headed man of business" who is working for " lower costs and higher prices". This is the reason why he is involved with Eva in the first place. Eva was working at Birling's factory where she went on strike for more pay. The sharp way in which Mr. Birling reacts to this shows us his attitude towards his staff. " I refused, of course". He appeared shocked to see that a girl like Eva would even consider asking for more money. It almost seems as though he felt threatened by her actions, as his way of life could be in trouble if the working class became organised and demanding. Him and the inspector seem to have a lot of disagreements throughout his questioning. Mr.Birling gets very annoyed with the inspector and he makes threats on many occasio... ... middle of paper ... ...at they did and. Gerald is once again in-between the two generations and he is a mixture of the two. Overall, even if the Birlings didn't contribute to Eva Smith's death they still used their power and position to take from the working class. Everything still happened and it shows us that attitudes at this time, towards others lower than them was rude, inappropriate, and in turn could have led to someone else's suicide. This also shows us that the Birlings represent more than themselves, but their whole class and that Eva represents her class and that the events that took place, happened on a daily basis without anyone knowing. Each character's attitude towards Eva slowly changed, as the generations grew younger. This indicates how social classes were slowly wiped away and that today's generations are more equal.

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