Sheila's Character Developement throughout the course of An Inspector Calls by J.B Priestley

Sheila's Character Developement throughout the course of An Inspector Calls by J.B Priestley

In this essay I am going to be describing how the character of Sheila develops throughout "An Inspector Calls" by J.B Priestley. Priestley was an English writer, who was born in Bradford. He served in the infantry during world war one, then afterwards attended Cambridge

University. As a newspaper essayist and journalist, he wrote on a variety of subjects, then the publication of "The Good Companions" in

1929 led to his establishment as a writer.

At the beginning of the play, Sheila seems to be fairly naive and acts like a younger girl.

We see this when she talks to Gerald about the previous summer and his dissappearance. When Gerald explains that he was "awfully busy at the works all that time", we see that Gerald finds Sheila to be naive in that she believes Gerald was really working for all that time. We also see that Sheila is possesive of Gerald when she says that she would hate for him to become an expert on port "like one of those purple faced old men".

Sheila's relationship with Eric is completely different, and we see that they are always arguing with each other or calling each other names.For example when Eric lets out the laugh during the dinner party, Sheila calls him "squiffy", or later on when she says "Don't be an ass, Eric." This seems to be a petty sibling rivalry.

Sheila appears to get on very well with Mrs Birling. There never seems to be any aggression between the two, just polite conversation. Also,

Sheila seems to agree with her mother most of the time , which we see when Mrs Birling objects to her husband talking about work, Sheila says "Neither do I. All wrong."

Sheila seems to have a different relationship wit...

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Through the course of the play Sheila slowly changes from a spoilt little rich snob into a mature young lady. She begins to share the inspectors' views on Edwardian society and brings about a few of her own views.

The purpose of Priestly writing 'An Inspector Calls' was to get his views about Edwardian society across England. Using the inspector he criticizes The social order of Edwardian society. So any comment made by the inspector is a comment made by JB Priestly.

Conclusion

I have been able to successfully answer the essay question using

Sheila Birling as my character to show how members of the Birling family changed. JB Priestly reveals the injustice that occurred in

Edwardian society. He shows the audience that the upper class people of Edwardian society were consequently not the respectable upright citizens that their class positions would have implied.