An Inspector Calls, by J.B. Priestly.

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Jeremias Adolfo

10 Clare

        Coursework- An Inspector Calls

        An Inspector Calls, by J.B. Priestly, is the story of an Inspector visiting to a normal family, the Birlings. They are celebrating Sheila Birling‘s engagement to Gerald Croft, who is also at the celebration, when the Inspector arrives telling them of the suicide of a young girl called Eva Smith. At first they deny any knowledge of the girl, but as the play goes on the Inspector manages to show that they all helped kill her. Mr Birling had her dismissed from his factory for demanding a small increase in wages, Sheila ordered her to be dismissed from her job in a shop simply because of her pride. Gerald Croft kept her as his mistress before leaving her suddenly, Eric Birling (Mr & Mrs Birling‘s son) also had an affair with the girl and stole money to keep her living, and Mrs Birling used her influence to deny help to Eva Smith when she needed it most, driving her to suicide. 

        The character that I will explain about is Mr. Birling. He is married to Sybil Birling and has two children, Eric and Shelia. He considers himself to have a very high status in society. He is a factory owner, ex-Lord Mayor of Brumley and a local magistrate. He regards himself as being reasonable, but his first priority is to make money “it’s my duty to keep labour costs down” and therefore pays his employees no more than the going rate. However, as the play continues further, we are shown how Sheila sees her father being exposed as a “hard headed business man” and as an insensitive character. During the celebration of the engagement of Shelia and Gerald Croft, a conversation is discussed and Mr. Birling says, “…I say there isn’t a chance of war…” as just after the play was set, the first world war had broken out. Also says, “…the Titanic- she sails next week…and unsinkable, absolutely unsinkable.” Then in 1912 the ‘unsinkable’ Titanic hits an iceberg and sinks, more than 1500 died. This shows that whatever he says about the future the opposite happens. Priestly uses Mr. Birling as a self-made man when Birling says, “A man has to make his own way.” Priestly uses this because at the time when the play was written men were always more superior than women so Mr. Birling had to show that he had to make all the hard decisions without the help of women. He is selfish when it comes to family matters. One of the main reasons for Mr. Birling’s liking of the idea of Gerald marrying Sheila is the fact that Croft’s and Birling’s, Gerald’s father’s company and Mr. Birling’s companies respectively, can someday join forces for “…lower costs and higher prices.” When Mr. Birling is introduced to the Inspector, he acts as if the Inspector is just another working class person that can be pushed around. He tried to bribe the Inspector into giving up the investigation. This creates tension to the audience thinking of why would he bribe the Inspector and knowing that Mr. Birling has done something wrong so he tries top bribe him.

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        There are very few similarities between Mr. Birling and her daughter Shelia. It is showed by how they use their language. Mr. Birling uses a more formal language like “respectable” to show that he is in a

higher-class and Shelia uses slang. One of the expressions she tells her brother is “You’re squiffy” to tell Eric that he is drunk, by using these expressions of slang emphasises her youth. The language that Mr. Birling uses emphasises how pompous he is about himself. He feels that what he has to say is more important than what the other person ...

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