The play outlines 2 major points. The first being that you should always think through what you do and consider all possible repercussions. The second being how people can be ‘played’ or manipulated to create the desired effect, in this case, guilt.
“…don’t you see, there is still no proof it was really the same girl. He might have showed you a photograph of any girl…”
Top P68 Gerald to Mrs Birling
It is set around a well off family knows as the Birlings. The Birlings own a manufacturing company, Birling LTD. The entire play is set in the Birlings dining room. The Birlings had been enjoying the celebration of their daughter Sheila’s announced engagement to Gerald Croft, when there was a knock at the door, this is the inspector. He had come to question them over a young girl who had taken her own life earlier that evening.
From the beginning Arthur Birling comes over as a very arrogant and ignorant person. This is shown through out the play, but concentrated in certain conversations.
The following extract is a structurally important in the play.
“…There isn’t a chance of war. Look the worlds developing so fast it’ll make war impossible. Look at the progress we’re making, in a year or two we’ll have aeroplanes that will be able to take us anywhere, and the ships, why a friend of mine went over this new liner last week, the Titanic; she sales next week, 46800tons, New York in 5 days, every luxury and unsinkable absolutely unsinkable…”
The phrases in bold print just prove his arrogance. On the outside the Birlings are an idyllic family, living in an idyllic house with and idyllic lifestyle. The deeper you delve into the pages of the book, the more the Birlings loose this cleanliness.
Shelia is Arthur Birlings daughter, soon to be engaged to Gerald Croft. Shelia starts off as the quiet and understandably happy girl, but towards the end she becomes a lot more dominating and verbose. She looses the innocence around P18/19, around the time Gerald gets incorporated into the plot. Sheila’s role was that one day she went to a local department store to try a hat on, she could not get the hat to look good on her so an assistant put it on. Sheila became jealous because it suited her, then when she tried it on again the assistant, (Eva Smith) had a little laugh, thus Sheila already being in a bad mood was then enraged further and threatened to revoke the family account from the store if the girl was there the next time she visited.
Sybil is Arthur Birlings wife, she is quiet through out the whole confrontation with the inspector, although she is very stern and commanding over the younger characters.
As with all the other Birling’s, Sybil has her own little role. Sybil was a member of the society set up to help people like Eva Smith, but when she too turned her back on Eva Smith, Sybil became part of the plot.
Eric is the son of Arthur Birling. Eric is the youngest of the Birlings and often acts like it. Although there is no indication of age, I feel he must be about 18-25. Eric is also battling an alcohol addiction which only comes to light when the Inspector asks some very probing questions. Eric’s role in her death is that he met her one night whilst he was drunk and raped her. She became pregnant with his child. Eric had been stealing money from his fathers business to give to her.
Gerald is Sheila’s fiancé. Gerald is the son of a rivalling factory called Crofts Ltd.
Gerald’s part in Eva’s death is significant. He met her one night at the palace bar where she was being hassled by a local drunk. He felt sorry for her as she had been evicted from her sleazy back alley house, so Gerald put her up in a friends place for free. During her stay Gerald made love to her many times during her stay, although Gerald says this wasn’t his plan.
Last and definitely not least, Arthur Birling. Arthur is the head of the Birlings, and his role is by far the largest. Arthur Birling sacked Eva smith from his factory for wanting a rise of a mere two and four shillings. As mentioned earlier Arthur is a very ignorant man, once his mind is set he won’t move so in a way he is like the furniture inside the Birlings house, big, heavy and difficult to move.
Eva Smith (or Daisy Renton) were real people, maybe not a singular person it seems. Yes, Arthur Birling did sack a girl named Eva Smith, Mrs Birling turned away a woman called Eva Smith, Eric and Gerald met a woman called Daisy Renton.
The inspector had tried to give the impression it was one person by using a series of photographs and not showing any two people the same photograph.
So still this gets no one off the hook as although this tale didn’t end in tragedy, the things they all did were real.
On Page49 End of Act II it says “Curtain Falls Quickly”. Personally I think this is because Eric has just walked in with a pale ghostly face with something to say, it adds suspense for example on the TV show ‘Eastenders’ when there is an abrupt ending it does make you want to view the following episode.
Towards the end of the book you get an idea that the Inspector isn’t who he seems, with phrases like
“…We don’t live alone. We are members of one body. We are responsible for each other…”
It is although he is speaking for them as one of them, being an inspector he would be quite high up socially, or at least he won’t be at the bottom.
The ending is very peculiar. After Eric had come in and explained the inspector was a fake there was a phone call from the police:
“Hello Mr Birling, a woman has just died on the way to the hospital after ingesting cleaning products there is an inspector on the way”.
In the TV movie version of this book, there are some subtle differences. I enjoyed the film as it gives you a different view of all the characters. I feel more sympathy for Eric than before and I noticed that it makes the inspector a lot more eerie, i.e. with the ending being that the inspector suddenly disappears from a locked room and there is just an empty rocking chair the inspector had been sat in still rocking. It is a cool eerie effect but was not included in the book
The book has influenced me in the way that you should always think through what you do before you do it, as whatever you do there are always repercussions and not always good ones. It shows what the consequences could be if you forget that.
