Why Does Priestley Feel Responsible For Eva's Suicide

Steinbeck and Priestley present the underprivileged as victims of a Social Darwinist community by displaying them as individuals that have been more sinned against than sinning through the situations and issues that they have encountered.
J. B. Priestley was born in Yorkshire in 1984. Earlier inhis life, Priestley knew that he wanted to become a writer but decided he did not want to go to university as hbelieved he would have a better understanding of the world away from academia. So he became a junior clerk at the age of 16. When the first worldwar broke out, Priestley joined the infantry and almost died on numerous occasions. When war ended, he obtained adegree from Cambridge University, then moved to London to begin his career as

a writer. Priestly had very strong political views which he presented in his plays, it is said that his writing was 'groundbreaking and controversial'. During the second world war, Priestley conducted a weekly radio programme which was extremely popular but was accused and attacked for being too left-wing. Already at this stage we can see how this is portrayed in his writing, his attitude towards the higher class and the socialists is a strongly negative one. Later on the programme was cancelled for being too critical of the government.
Steinbeck worked as a manual laborer from a young age so he was exposed to the different types of people who worked in ranches and the different social and economical issues that followed, we can see this later on in his writing.
One of the main themes in Steinbeck’s of monsters and men is loneliness, there are also other themes presented in this novella like relationships and friendships, and dreams and aspirations. The title itself is an innuendo to a Robert burns poem 'to a mouse' which is about a man who is ploughing a field and finds that he ploughs straight through a mouse’s nest, the whole poem is him addressing this mouse. In the seventh verse it states "But mousie thou art no thy lane" which means 'you are not alone' , " In proving foresight may be vain" which translates to 'there is no point in trying to work out what is going to happen in the future', "The best-laid schemes o' Mice an' Men" which transposes to 'because the best laid out plans of mice and men', "Gang aft a-gley" which simply means 'often go wrong' "An' lea'e us nought but grief and pain, for promis'd joy." This means ‘the idea of looking towards what might be better, when it fails, you will feel even worse because you have built it up so much.' So all in all the poem is putting across the message to not bother making plans because they will fail, which I believe emphasizes the fatalistic tone of the novella beautifully.

An inspector calls is a play written in 1946 the based in 1912. In this era the social classes were profoundly distinctive. Society was divided in two: a person was either born into rich family and lived an easy going life or the person was born into a poor family and would have had to struggle through life trying to make ends meet to be able to survive through the night. The wealthy Victorians treated the poor as if they were a subordinate species; they were patronizing and condescending towards the underprivileged.
Eva Smith was unfortunate enough to have been born into an underprivileged family; Eva does not appear on stage which symbolizes the fact that the working classes had no voice. In the play inspector Goole represents the voice of the working classes and the ideologies of socialism; he tackles the death of Eva smith chronologically and in an organised manner.
Firstly he exposes Mr. Birling's involvement in the suicide. Very early in the play almost instantly, Priestley creates animosity between the audience and Mr. Birling as he is presented as an arrogant, bigoted, pompous, self-made persona with misguided and naïve opinions as in one of his first speeches in the play, he states rather presumptuously how the titanic was 'unsinkable, absolutely unsinkable' and how he was convinced that war was not going to take place by using phrases like 'silly little war scares'. As the play was written in 1946, the audience would have been well aware of the fact that the titanic did in fact sink and that a world war did break out. Therefore Priestley used phrases like these to influence and manipulate the audience to disagree with Birling's thoughts and opinions.
When Birling finds out that Eva smith was a worker at his works, recognized her from the photo the inspector had shown him and was told that she had committed suicide, he grew impatient and already began denying responsibility for her death "[it happened] - nearly two years ago - obviously it has nothing whatever to do with the wretched girl's suicide." Being from humble origins it would have been expected that Mr. Birling be more sympathetic towards Eva smith but Priestley presented Birling's attitude towards the underprivileged as belief that if he could work his way up the social ladder and become a self-made businessman anybody else could and those who did not, he deemed it as the individual's own fault for being lazy.
Birling fired Eva Smith because she was the 'one of the ringleaders' of the strike that had occurred due to the workers wanting to be paid twenty five shillings instead of twenty two and six, which is the equivalent to approximately one pound and ten pence a week in today's money. “she had a lot to say - far too much - so she had to go" this is Birling's excuse for letting her go. This oppressive, harsh way of dealing with the workers helped preistly present the audience with how morally reprehensive and vindictive Birling is. Priestly is constantly presenting Mr. Birling as a man who is unsympathetic, harsh and judgemental. He used Birling to represent the higher class, Preisltey's attitude towards the higher class is hostile and negative. "The girl had been causing trouble at the works. I was quite justified" Preisltey is presenting the audience with evidence of how harsh and heartless Birling was. Even later on in the play Birling does not accept any of the blame for the suicide he does not even show an ounce of remorse or regret for firing her in the first place which was the reason for the slippery path she took which led to suicide.
Next, the inspector moves onto Sheila's involvement. While the inspector and Birling are talking Sheila is eager to find out what is going on, "now there isn't a slightest reason why my daughter should be dragged into this unpleasant business" Birling tries to protect Sheila from the warped distorted outside world but had no trouble mistreating and firing Eva who is the same age as Sheila.
At the beginning of the play Sheila is presented as frivolous, facetious and carefree.

Sheila is horrified at the news of Eva's suicide and begins to ask questions about Eva like her age and if she was pretty or not, even before discovering that she was involved in the suicide she feels compassionate. Priestly wanted to present Sheila and Eric as the new generation of people who are aware and who care more about social responsibility rather than just themselves.
Sheila's remorse is clearly evident when her involvement in the suicide is revealed showing that she does in fact feel responsible for Eva's death, in sight of this, through the play we watch Sheila grow and become a more mature individual as oppose to the self-centered child she was at the beginning.
When the inspector is finished questioning Sheila, he moves onto Gerald. Gerald croft is an aristocrat who leads a playboy lifestyle. Although his attempt to deny his involvement to protect his interests, when the inspector mentions she changed her name to 'Daisy Renton' he automatically gives away the fact that he knew her and his involvement due to his "startled" reaction. Although he is roughly the same age as Sheila and Eric, Priestley presents Gerald in the same manner which he portrays Mr. and Mrs. and Birling. He illustrates Gerald as a shrewd, intelligent liar because when the inspector begins to ask him questions he tries to convince Sheila to leave so that she would not here the "unpleasant and disturbing" things Gerald had to say about what he did to Daisy Renton, the same way that Mr. Birling tried to keep Sheila out of the matter as if she were a

child.
After, the inspector proceeds onto questioning Mrs. Birling and her involvement with the death of Eva Smith. Preistley presents Mrs. Birling as a cold, opinionated, abrasive woman who is unforgiving, narrow-minded and self-righteous. She is completely compatible with mr Birling apart from the fact that she i superior to her husband. She is a product of Victorian socialism. She starts off very confidently and eloquently, as she was born into a wealthy family, she did not have to marry up. She is undoubtedly the most resistant towards the inspector.
When her involvement is exposed he first reaction is “I accept no blame for it at all." "I blame the young man who was the father of the child" she does not accept any blame and passes all of the blame onto the man who got her pregnant without realizing that it was her son. She continues on saying things like "he should be made an example of" and "he ought to be delt with severely"
After she is finished criticizing the man who got Eva smith pregnant, Sheila finally manages to bring to light that Eric is the man who got Eva pregnant. Mrs. Birling is astonished at the news and refuses to believe that it was Eric. Priestley presents Mrs. Birling to be haughty, unforgiving full of herself and a superiority complexed woman. Whereas he paints Eva up to be a very innocent, strong woman who was a victim of socialism. Priestley presents Eva almost in an angelic light compared to every other character in the play.
Priestley draws up Eric to be an awkward young man who is uneasy at the beginning of the play. There is a clear tension between him and his father which could possibly be linked to his drinking problem. Like Sheila when he is told that his child and Eva had died, he feels remorseful and guilty for the part he played in her death, whereas Mr. Birling's only concern is about the £50 which Eric had stolen from the works to give to Eva. Like Sheila, Eric becomes aware of social responsibility and is ashamed of his parents at the end of the play. Eva Smith was a victim of the seven deadly sins: pride and lust by Gerald, envy by Sheila, greed by Mr. Birling, pride and anger by Mrs. Birling and lust by Eric.
Contrary to popular beliefs, in this novella there are more than three characters who are underprivileged. This novella is a text of a different culture, it is based in the 1930's in a place named Soledad which literally means loneliness in Spanish, and portrays how hard life was for the migrant workers. It shows how the migrant struggled to maintain permenant relationships as they were constantly moving around. This is what makes George and Lennie so special; they have each other and are strengthened by their relationship.
Their relationship is mutually beneficial, Lennie depends on George to make the decisions and George benefits from this relationship as he has someone to talk to, he has Lennie's companionship. George's and Lennie's relationship is perfectly contrasted with that of Curley's and his wife's.
All the characters are isolated in one way or another, even George and Lennie. For example, Lennie is isolated because of his mental disability, George because of the simple fact that he takes care of Lennie, Crooks insists on being alone even though it is obvious that he does not like it due to racism, and some characters just feel lonely, like Curley's wife, Whit and Candy. Because of their loneliness, the characters in this novella struggle to express themselves for instance Carlson lacks empathy and understanding and we can see this clearly as in the last line of the novella, after George shoots Lennie, Carlson says "Now what the hell ya suppose is eatin' those two guys?". and Curley is always very aggressive.
All the characters in the novella have dreams and aspirations for a better life, its like an escape from reality for them. George Lennie and Candy long to be self sufficient which was the American dream, as the novella was based during the dust bowl. This was when America was in drought and once fertile acres and acres of land dried up and caused lost of dust storms. When Lennie presents this dream to Crooks, he is very cynical towards it because of the many years of discrimination. The whole novella represents the fatalistic view on dreams and aspirations.
George is a short - tempered, but honest man. He is conscientious, loyal and very protective over Lennie, almost like a father. His name in Greek is Georgos which means earth worker, farmer, and Milton is a link to john Milton and the poem called lost paradise which links brilliantly to the lost dream about the little farm. George has simple pleasures and is an idealist, this is shown in his dream of self-sufficiency. The fact that he killed Lennie out of mercy, shows how noble he is as by doing so, he was also sacrificing the dream making it unobtainable.
Lennie is the character which Steinbeck makes the reader feel the most sympathetic for as he is mentally handicapped and has a simple, innocent outlook on life, like a big child. Lennie is physically very large and strong which contrasts with his childlike emotions which can prove to be dangerous as he is not aware of his own strength. Steinbeck uses animalistic adjectives to describe Lennie, for instance instead Steinbeck refers to Lennie’s hand by using the words “his big paws”. The fact that he drinks by “dunking his head straight into the water” really emphasizes his simple instinctual nature. Even his name Leonard (Lennie) is from Old High German language ‘Lewerhart’ which means ‘strong as a lion, small as a mouse’. His sir name ‘Small’ being an ironic reference to his size.
Lennie is central to the tragedy, even at the beginning of the book; just by reading the title you know that they were doomed from the start. His actions throughout the book: from killing the mouse, to the rabbit then the puppy you can see that the animal seems to be getting bigger and bigger every time until finally he takes the life of Curley’s wife which turns out to be the reason which his life was taken from him. Lennie’s simplicity is endearing but this is at odds with the reality of the world, the innocence and purity of his dream is undermined by his disability, suggesting that it is not a reasonable view of the world. Like George, he has the dream of a simple person.
Candy represents the elderly as a forgotten generation meaning how once a person got older in that period of time, they were no longer of any use to anyone. And unlike now, in those days there were no welfare states so he wouldn’t have been able to retire and have a pension, he would have to keep working till he died. His injury is an inevitable by-product of a life of physical labor. He is isolated from the other characters because of his age and disability and seeks solace with his dog. Candy sees losing his dog is basically foreshadowing his own life as he can see that he has out lived his use. Because of this, candy is entirely devoted to George’s and Lennie’s dream which reflects his naivety.
Curley’s wife is the only female character in the novella, the fact that Steinbeck has failed to give her a name shows the fact that she is only an object, Curley’s possession which he can use and take advantage of whenever he pleases. This lack of identity is used to represent the way which women were treated in those days. Curley’s wife is very often linked with the color red to emphasize passion, danger and incongruity. She is viewed as being manipulative and dangerous by the men in the ranch, she is named ‘tramp’ by candy and ‘jail-bait’ by George. Her development throughout the book shows her to be insecure and lonely like all the other characters in this novella, the way she is described to be wearing her makeup and her way of dressing is her way of attention seeking in order to try and escape the loneliness, she is nothing but a trophy wife in this novella.
Like Curley’s wife, he is not properly named; he is only given a nickname which refers to his physique. He is also denied an identity which symbolizes the fact that he has no voice in society. Most of the ranch workers refer to him in strong, derogatory racist terms, even candy who comes across as a really nice guy. Crooks is heavily isolated due to discrimination, he sleeps on his own next to the horse manure in a poorly maintained room. He is a proud, dignified man who is well read and completely aware of his legal rights, because of the way that he had been treated for so many years, h is incredibly cynical of the characters dreams and highly suspicious of people when or rather if they show kindness towards him. It is obvious and clear that he does not enjoy being alone and isolated, but he feels safe and protected in his isolation and keeps separate because in his mind, that’s the safest way to be.

The presentation and attitudes towards every last one of the characters in these two texts are so important because steinbeck and Priestley both manipulate the audience's reactions to each of the characters, they either create or alienate sympathy towards the characters.

Through their presentation and their attitudes, both writers show that they have a soft spot for the underprivileged. They need to be protected and it is the responsibility and the role of those who have money to see to it that the underprivileged and exploited who do not have enough money themselves are indeed protected.