When told, Mrs Birling won’t believe it. “ I don’t believe it, I won’t believe it… “. She says this because her pride will not let her be wrong. Also how she was blind to it before realising the truth. However she can’t take her words back.
Act Three begins exactly as Act Two ended, as the audience is in suspense because it is all silent due to Eric’s secret coming out. “ Eric is standing just inside the room and the others are staring at him “. This is the stage direction at the beginning of Act Three. Everyone knows that he was the father of Eva Smith’s baby. In this extract Priestly shows the audience what kind of a person Eric is. “ I was a bit squiffy. “ Eric says, trying to make the fact he was drunk, not sound so bad. He speaks in euphemisms to make people feel sorry for him. Another example of this technique he uses is“ Yes. And that’s when it happened. “ He says this, but I believe he forced himself on her and raped her. He uses these euphemisms to change the view of the truth.
At this point the tension is further increasing, because the audience are wondering what else Eric may have done. This is revealed when Eric confesses that he took money. He uses more euphemisms to soften his story. “ I got it – from the office “. He says this to make it sound less like he stole the money.
In Act Three the family is starting to fall apart. They are fighting and arguing about what has been done and said. At the beginning of the play they are celebrating and eating happily, but the Inspector’s entrance had changed all that. Eric is claiming that his mother and father are poor parents. Mr Birling asks why Eric didn’t come to him when he was in this mess to start with, but Eric replies that his father is not the person you can go to in need. This tells us that Eric’s relationship with his father is an untrustworthy one. Because Eric cannot trust his father, he probably doesn’t love him. You also know the father is uncaring, as he pays his workers very little, and is the reason that made Eva Smith ask for a raise in the first place. Mr Birling goes on to say “ Don’t talk to me like that. The trouble is - you’ve been spoilt “, but really it’s not Eric’s fault he’s spoilt, but it’s Mr and Mrs Birling’s, the parents.
At this point in the play, the tension is at its highest, this is because all has been revealed. Rows are starting and threats of violence are being said. The family is disintegrating slowly and the marriage of Gerald Croft and Sheila Birling has been called off.
The Inspector’s final words are important because it tells us, as the audience, what we should do. It’s the moral to this story and how Priestly gets his point across, in the inspector’s message.
He begins with… “ But just remember this. “
Which is to tell us that this is important, and telling them what to do, which shows us that he is respected. “ One Eva Smith has gone – but there are millions and millions and millions of Eva Smiths and John Smiths still left with us, with their lives, their hopes and fears, their suffering and chance of happiness, all intertwined with our lives, and what we think and say and do. “ This is the first moral, Priestly put in the Inspectors threatening last words. In this part of his speech he is using Eva Smith and John Smith as a way of describing the ordinary people.
Telling the Birling’s and Gerald Croft that there are other people than them, and that you should think of the consequences before you act, this is the second moral. “ We don’t live alone. We are members of one body “.
This tells us that we should work together.
Conclusion
I liked this play as it ends with a cliffhanger, leaving the watcher/reader thinking about what happened to the Inspector and what he said. I also liked it because it is symbolic and has many morals and meanings to it.
At the end of the play when Sheila and Eric have learnt their lesson, they are disgusted with how their parents are behaving as if nothing has happened. This is showing the audience how the younger generation is more responsible than the older generation in learning from their mistakes and facing the fact that they were wrong.
As the audience leaves the theatre they will be thinking about the Inspectors last words. Even though it was written in 1945 and set in 1912, it still has morals and meanings that are important to the world around us today in the 21st century.
