We can easily see that the family is coming apart. The Inspector tells them at the start of the Act that they will have plenty of time to “adjust”, their family relationships. Each member of the family has their own point of view and they start to engage in bitter recriminations, blaming each other aggressively.
Arthur Birling regrets nothing. Birling wants to keep all the revelations in the family, he’s terrified it’ll be a “public scandal.” He tells us that he’s “learnt plenty”, but not about how and why he’s been wrong. The only thing he’s learnt is how Sheila and Eric behave and think, which he doesn’t like. He complains that the problem with Eric is that he has been spoilt. He then says that Eric will have to work without pay until he’s paid off what he owes, and that there won’t be any drinking or picking up women. Birling finds the whole thing particularly painful because they were all so happy earlier, “When I think of what I was feeling when the five of us sat down to dinner”. It seems as though he was feeling content and proud. At the end, when Sheila is unsure about whether she’ll take Gerald back, he ridicules “the famous younger generation who know it all”. Birling thinks they’re wrong and naïve, and that he always knows best, showing his arrogance and his reluctance to change his ideology.
Sybil Birling could be seen to be as bad as her husband. She can’t understand, and doesn’t try to understand the behaviour of either of her children. She pleads with Eric when he curses her, “Damn you, Damn you” – “I didn’t know, I didn’t understand”. Sybil is also rather ashamed of what Eric did, but not ashamed of what she did. We can see a hint of protection of family honour by stopping Sheila from telling Gerald the details of what he has missed, as if that is the most important issue at state rather than the death of a young girl.
Sheila doesn’t agree with her parents. Sheila openly reveals Eric’s alcoholism, which annoys her mother, who speaks “very sharply” to Sheila. She thinks the worst thing is their actions; whether they led to the girl’s death or not, they may have. Sheila states that she is ashamed of what they have done to the girl and accuses her parents of having learnt nothing and of being “childish” for not facing the facts. Sheila’s also frightened by “the way they talk”. They want to go on “in the same old way”. They haven’t learnt.
Eric says that he’s “ashamed of his parents”. Eric calls his little sister “little sneak” because she told his parents about his drinking. He tells his father he’s “not the kind of father a chap could go to when he’s in trouble.” After he’s confessed about Eva/Daisy, he’s “nearly at breaking point.” He seems to be a bit harsh towards his mother, “you killed her – and the child she’d have had too – my child – your own grandchild”. And he tells her she doesn’t understand anything, showing the annihilation of parent – child relations.
In Act 3 we learn about Eric’s involvement with Daisy/Eva, and that the Inspector might be a fake. She wouldn’t marry him, so he gave her money which was stolen from his father’s office. Then Daisy/Eva found out it was stolen money, so she wouldn’t take anymore and didn’t see Eric again. Eric accused his mother of killing Daisy/Eva and the unborn child, this is the point where he nearly attacks her. The Inspector tells them they each “helped to kill her”. He says, “We are responsible for each other.” They wonder if the Inspector was real and if they all knew the same girl. They then learn that no girl died of suicide at the infirmary tonight. Now Birling, Sybil and Gerald think everything’s okay. Sheila and Eric don’t, the girl could have died. The police ring, a girl has just died after swallowing disinfectant.
It is Sheila, along with her mother, who first suspects the Inspector was a fake. It’s the timing oh his entrance which makes her ask, “Was he really a police Inspector”. He arrived just as Mr Birling was saying that a man “has to look after himself”, the Inspector interrupted Birling mid-rant and the Inspector seemed intent on proving Birling completely wrong. Next, Gerald comes back from his breath of fresh air. On his walk he asked a policeman about Inspector Goole and the policeman said that there is no Inspector Goole, or anyone like him.
Does it really matter whether or not the Inspector was real? The parents and Gerald think it does. They now want to keep the whole affair quiet, so there won’t be a public scandal. Arthur says he was probably a “socialist” or “some sort of crank”. Now Arthur also regrets not standing up to him. Sybil and Eric are disgusted by their parents, they’ve still all helped to kill Daisy/Eva. They are ashamed that their parents want to evade all responsibility.
After all this there was no girl called Eva/Daisy who had just died in hospital. Gerald now doubts the whole story. He suggests they may have been shown different photos, no two people see a photo at the same time. He also thinks they might each have known a different girl and that there wasn’t just one. He also then says that a girl may not have killed herself that day. So he rings the infirmary, no girl has died there today from drinking disinfectant, and they haven’t had a suicide case for months.
Arthur is so overjoyed at all this that he pours a dink for Gerald and himself. He’s so ecstatically happy, he wants to drink to a toast, “Here’s to us”. At this point Sybil’s happy as well. Sheila however is frightened by their behaviour, she wants to “get out of this”. As she points out, each of them did do those things. Their behaviour was still bad, whatever it resulted in. Eric argues with her, but Gerald doesn’t, he says “Everything’s alright now, Sheila”, and offers her back the ring. She then states that she needs time to think whether the engagement is back on, “No, not yet. It’s too soon.”
After, the phone rings and Birling answers, it’s the police. A girl has just died on the way to the infirmary. She had swallowed some disinfectant, an Inspector is on his way to ask them some questions. Normally at the end of a play everything is sorted out. There are still many questions, who was the Inspector? How did he know about the Girl? Was he real?
There’s a clear hierarchy of social classes in this play. Many things contribute to where you are in the social scale. Most of it comes down to money. Those who have it, and those who don’t.
Working class people had all the low status jobs and no money. All the middle class people owned places of work, such as factories or were professionals (like lawyers) and had plenty of money. Upper class people inherited lots of land and money and were often Lords and Ladies.
The Birlings and the Crofts were very high up socially. Your class depends on the family which you were born into. The Birlings are clearly a middle class family. Sybil Birling, however, is her husbands “social superior”, which means her family were higher up the social hierarchy. If your family owned land then it was of higher status than a city family who have made money out of business. That’s why Gerald’s family are seen as superior to Arthur’s. Where your money comes from was important.
This seems to be very unfair. You can’t choose which family you’re born into. And most people tended to die, still in the same social class they started in. Gaining a title can really help you with business and to impress others. Arthur Birling reckons he’s set to get a knighthood in the next honour’s list.
Social class is very useful for showing off in the community. Birling’s biggest fear just after the Inspector leaves seems to be that he won’t get his “knighthood” because there’ll be a “public scandal”. He was Lord Mayor two years previously and had been an Alderman (Council member) for many years. He “sits on the Bench”. He’s a magistrate, a judge who sits in courts and dispenses justice. Birling has a desire to get his knighthood so he’ll be Sir Arthur and wants Gerald to hint this to his parents to impress them. We can also see that there is something really smug and nasty about asking Gerald to drop hints. Sybil Birling is the leading member of the Brumley Women’s Charity Organization. This is a group of wealthy middle class women who give money to desperate women. (or are supposed to anyway).
We can learn that all things matter when you’re middle class in 1912. Arthur has bought the same port as Gerald’s father, hoping to impress him to no success. This is because Gerald doesn’t recognize the port. Sybil also disapproves of her husband saying what good food it was in front of Gerald. That isn’t the right thing, “Tell cook from me” implies that they talk to the servants. Playing golf with the Chief Inspector is supposed to be something that would impress Inspector Goole. Even the ceremony of the dinner partly is sacred. E.g. the order of the events (Food,port, the women retiring to the drawing room leaving the men to smoke cigars. These things matter to Arthur and Sybil because they show the world that you have a place in the social hierarchy, the more refined and draft the ritual, the higher up you are.
Middle class people do a lot of hiding and repressing. These middle class people never seem relaxed, open and honest in their prosperity. Sybil is a cold person so she finds it easy to repress things, though Sheila’s a bit different. She is by nature a more open and honest person. Still, certain things are not spoken about. Birling shows us some sings of euphemism. One thing that isn’t spoken of is prostitution, “I see no point in mentioning the subject", says Birling when “women of the town” are mentioned. Another thing that is kept in the dark is mistresses, women aren’t meant to know about these. Sheila figures it out, but Sybil is chocked. Another serious issue is Eric and his drinking problem. Sheila had worked it out but his parents hadn’t wanted to know. Also Alderman Meggarty’s womanizing. This is well known but not spoken of. Sybil is shocked when it is mentioned. Sheila knows a girl was assaulted by him in the town hall, but her mother keeps her quiet. There are still much worse things to be kept quiet about, now that the family’s mixed up with the death of a prostitute. These include the fact that Arthur is desperate to hide the fact that his own son is stealing from the company, and the person he was stealing for was a cheap working class prostitute. Finally that his wife deliberately and maliciously refused to help this girl and effectively kill her own grandchild, “When this comes out of the inquest, it isn’t going to do us much good”, says Bilring.
Sybil Birling thinks that the working class are complete scum. Sybil’s obsession with her working class is chronic. She refuses to believe that Eva/Daisy turned down Eric’s money because it was stolen, saying that a “girl of that sort” doesn’t have “five feelings and scruples”. Sybil is such a cold person, and has probably repressed emotions all her life in the name of “fitting into society”, it’s not surprising she gets “very distressed” and collapses “into a chair” at the end. She’s the one member of the family who’s obsessed with etiquette, like telling off members of the family for swearing or for saying other inappropriate things. She also claims not to recognize Eva/Daisy, for her, Eva/Daisy has no identity. Sybil goes so far as to say, “I don’t suppose for a moment that we can understand why the girl committed suicide. Girls of that class……” Before Sheila interrupts her. Sybil likes her working class faceless and dehumanised.
In my opinion, the class system of the early 1900s was all wrong. The hierarchy of social class was based on hypocrisy, lies and selfishness. It used and abused those lower down, then threw them out if they become inconvenient and no longer useful, E.g. Eva/Daisy. The inspector warns us that if we don’t accept that we must all take responsibility for each other, because we are all equal, and it will end in fire, blood and anguish.
Eva smith/Daisy Renton splits up the generations in the play. She causes a rift between the old hypocrites and the young idealists. The older generation are old fashioned. At the beginning the authority of Arthur and Sybil is unquestioned, and they are in control. Arthur is the boss of the Birlings and his company. He’s also in charge of the dinner party. (he’s the one who decides to make a speech) He also called Gerald “my boy”. Sybil is in charge of the domestic arrangements, reprimanding Eric, organizing Edna and reminding her husband not to be too long in talking to Eric and Gerald. From their point of view, the younger generation are still “children” who follow dutifully in their parents’ footsteps (Even Eric and Sheila are in their early twenties. Eric is almost certainly being groomed to take over the company from his father)
The younger generation are different. Eva/Daisy was just another young, working class girl, poor, hoping for better wages and a better life. Her vitality is the reason why Birling sacked her, she “had a lot to say for too much. So she had to go”. This is the reason why he says things to his kids like, “if you’ve nothing more sensible to say then that…you’d better keep quiet”. He wants to suppress the youth which challenges his authority. Eric is a sulking young man who is called a “boy”. By his father. He’s in the shadow of his father and suffers because of it. Later his father says he was “spoilt”, although his father must take responsibility for this. But he wants to be understood and at the end, knows that he doesn’t want to be like his parents, “I don’t give a damn now whether is stay here or not”. Sheila has to tell her father she is “not a child”. But she did behave like a spoilt child in having Eva/Daisy dismissed. Eric says she has a “furious temper”. But she grows up during the course of the play and ends up telling her parents that, “it frightens me the way you talk, and I can’t listen to any more of it”. Eric at the end is standing around “as If he has nothing to do with” his parents. And Sheila stands shoulder to shoulder with him. By the end of the play they’re no longer governed by their parents, but have learnt to think for themselves and to resist their parents’ beliefs and ideology. They refuse to be subservient to their parents.
Gerald’s the oldest young man around. Gerald’s closer to Sheila Eric’s age then he is to Mr and Mrs Birling’s, but he’s a young man who is already old in his attitudes. He is a younger-generation version of Arthur, and just as stubborn. Gerald works for his father’s company. He’s marrying Sheila and probably hopes to bring a merger between the two companies. He also agrees with Birling that Eva/Daisy had to be fired, “I should day so”. He also says that the strike wouldn’t have lasted long because “They’d be all broke, if I know them.” That “them” is the typical “is and them” smug, arrogant upper class attitude that this play is all about. He thinks he knows everything.
Gerald never rocks the boat, he’s got nothing of the rebel in him and he’s as shallow as Arthur. He just wants to sweep everything under his middle class carpet.
Even when he’s found out to have ditched Eva/Daisy, he’s not particularly remorseful. When he comes back from his walk he’s really keen to discredit the Inspector, but not feeling guilty or bad. He doesn’t seem to be suffering, unlike Eric and Sheila. He actually thinks his engagement can be back on: “Everything’s alright now, Sheila”. Gerald’s a really depressing character, because he shows a side of society that will never change, whether they’re young or old, people like him will always be selfish and mean. And will never learn.
Women in the play should only be seen and not heard. The girls seem to conform to stereotypes. They do all the things that women do, like love the rituals of weddings. Sheila gazes adoringly at the engagement ring saying. “is it the one you wanted me to have?” The men also seem to conform to stereotypes, Arthur sends Sheila and Sybil out of the room so that they don’t have the details of Eric’s confession.
The stereotypes get challenged by the girls. Eva/Daisy has something of a rebel in her. Sheila then becomes something of a rebel herself as the evening develops. The two girls break our of the roles that society has allocated for them and become more independent and express their views freely.
Eva/Daisy was a “ring leader” of the strike who had “a lot to say”. Eva was a “pretty” girl who was “lively” and had “spirit”. She questioned the decision of her boss instead of being placid and quiet. Instead of relying on a man to save her, she refused Eric’s support and decided to go alone.
Sheila is also revealed to be quite a strong young woman during the evening. She interrupts everyone at different times, apart from the Inspector, she challenges her father when she sees the Inspector for the first time, she hands back the engagement ring and then refuses to say whether she’ll have Gerald back at the end and she refuses to be called a “child” by her parents. By the end of the play Sheila is stating her own opinions, not those she is “supposed” to have, even to the point of disagreeing with her parents face to face, “That’s what’s important, and not whether a man is a police Inspector or not”, she’s learnt to think for herself.
An Inspector Calls is a play that doesn’t involve religion. This play is like the old morality plays, but it doesn’t follow Christian ideas about confession and forgiveness. The moral judge isn’t God, it’s a police Inspector. Priestley changes the religious background of the morality play and makes it secular. Priestley creates the Inspector to represent the temporal law. At the end, Eric says, “he was our police Inspector all right”, and both he and Sheila realize that it doesn’t matter whether Goole was a real Inspector or not. The inquisition wasn’t a legal one or a religious one – it was a moral one. The younger generation have made progress and Priestley wants to show them that they can be positive agents of change for the future.
