Priestly also suggest that Mr.Birling is self important, when he uses the word ‘portentous’ we know he is selfish and vain. He believes people will respect him for what he wears and owns.
We also know the Birling family relate to Birling in his view that, what you look like matters more than your actions:
‘All five are in evening dress of the period the men in tails and white ties not – dinner jackets’
They get dressed up even though it is only an evening dinner, showing they only care for their money and status.
The next thing that strikes as a reason to dislike Mr.Birling is his response to Shelia and Gerald’s engagement:
‘ You’re just the sort of son-in-law I wanted’
This suggests he had always had a plan to use Shelia to improve his status. Hoping she wouldn’t marry for love but for money.
We learn Mr.Birling is interested in business and hopes for a potential business partner in Gerald’s dad:
‘Perhaps we may look forward to the time when Crofts and Birlings are no longer competing but work together for lower cost and higher prices.’
This shows Birling is not interested in Shelia’s love for Gerald or their life together, even now he has no concern with his daughter’s life but his own, and hopes that he can make more money from this marriage. Through joining Crofts and Birling to create one company, achieving his potential for making more money.
Mr.Birling’s refusal to accept responsibility for Eva Smith’s death or welfare of the people around him, is one of the reasons his character is so disliked by the audience:
‘still I can’t accept any responsibility. If we were all responsible for everything that happened to everyone we’d had anything to do with, it would be awkward wouldn’t it?’
Even now Mr.Birling is refusing to accept any responsibility for Eva’s death. He is to selfish to realise, that he played apart and does not respect that Eva has died, and he has acted vain towards the whole situation.
Mr.Birling inability to accept any responsibility for his actions automatically apposes Priestly’s view on life. Priestly hopes for a world where people help each other out, but Mr.Birling contradicts this view.
This is not the only reason he is disliked. He is disliked because he is a hypocrite, he tells Eric to face up to his responsibilities:
‘It’s about time you learnt to face a few responsibilities.’
It seems ironic that he wants Eric to learn to deal with his responsibilities, when he won’t learn to deal with his own. The audience feels like Mr.Birling thinks he is better than his past actions. Showing how selfish and desperate Birling is.
Mr Birling believes that his social status offers him the opportunity to rule over a situation. He is arrogant and believes he is above other people. He states he was a councillor, Lord mayor and is a magistrate:
‘I was an alderman for years – and Lord Mayor two years ago – and I’m on the bench.’
Not only does it ensure him he is socially above the inspector, but also he tries to use it to say he knows how to judge a situation. Believing he understands about justice, open-mindedly he shows his opinion and determination, to receive gratitude for hearing him speak.
Priestly set the play in 1912 but it was first preformed in 1945. Priestly uses this to ensure the audience has a poor opinion of Mr.Birling. In 1945 people already know the disasters of 1912. And this information is used to add to the potential to dislike Birling.
Birling shows he has a good outlook for the future. Blindly ignoring any obvious problems that will occur:
‘There’s a good deal of silly talk about these day’s… you can ignore all this silly pessimistic talk, you’ll be marring at a very good time’
This proves Birling does not have a realistic opinion of the future. The audience viewing Birling’s opinions know that war and strikes are the future for Birling’s time. This shows that there is no reason to value Birling’s opinion.
Birling also has a strong view of the Titanic. This being, that he feels it will never sink:
‘Why, a friend of mine went over this new liner last week – the Titanic… New York in five days – and every luxury – and unsinkable, absolutely unsinkable.’
This once again informs the audience how optimistic Birling is, but he is not realistic.
The audience is prepared for Birling to receive what he deserves at the end of the play. They are happy for him to get his punishment, but when a phone call tells Birling that no girl has died and Inspector Goole isn’t real, you become outraged and disappointed.
This phone call caused the audience to become angry, feeling that he go away with it again. This causes annoyance and frustration.
Then another call tells us how a girl has died and an inspector is coming around. The audience’s reaction is just simple joy. You feel the frustration lift, the potential anger disappear and it is replaced with relief and satisfaction.
At the end of the play I had definitely decided Mr.Birling is dislikeable, and was pretty surely the most dislikeable character over all. There are many reasons to suggest the he is just the worst of many evils, but his refusal to accept any responsibility for
Eva’s death proves that he is generally selfish. He has no remorse for his actions showing how involved he is with hi future and how he can benefit himself.
He is a head figure of a large household who should have achieved more. Disapprovingly selfish as a father and overly controlling as a boss, he shows how vain and self-serving he definitely is.
Priestly used Birling to make a point, and needed Birling to be the most dislikeable character. Making Birling selfish and arrogant ensures the audience will dislike him. Birling is an insolent character, the way he ignores his actions and refuses to accept any responsibility for his consequences ensures that the audience will dislike him. This ultimately ensures Priestly’s point about treatment towards the poor is certainly received.
