They all have negative characteristics that killed Eva. Priestly was trying to say that we all have bad characteristics and we should look at our actions and see what effect we have on other people. We all don’t always behave as we should to others; Priestly was trying to make us admit that.
I don’t think the play made much of an impact in those days because the rich were too self-righteous to notice how they made the lower classes suffer. When there was a war, the poor were sent to the front line. This wasn’t fair; the rich were killing off the poor because they thought they were all worthless and insignificant. Priestly was trying to point out that every person is important as each other, no person is better than anyone else.
All of the characters in the play represent one of the Seven Deadly Sins. Mr Birling represents greed, because he was the boss of a business and he wouldn’t give his workers a pay rise even though it was only a few pence. Mrs Birling represents pride because she was upper class and looked down on all the lower class people. Sheila represented envy because she got Eva fired from her job in Milwards because she looked better in a dress that Sheila wanted. Eric represents lust because he only helped Eva so he could make love to her. The inspector represents anger because he was angry about what the family did to Eva. Gerald represented sloth because he left Eva and didn’t do much to change her situation. Eva represented covetousness because she wanted what she couldn’t have, love and happiness. Priestly used the Seven Deadly Sins to show that the bad actions we take can cost lives.
All the characters did something to make Eva kill herself.
Mr Birling was the boss of Eva’s workplace. Eva asked Mr Birling for a pay rise but he refused it. He was originally a lower class worker, but he moved up once he owned a business and married an upper class women. He tries to act upper class, but he still speaks like a lower class person, his wife has to correct his actions.
“Arthur, you’re not supposed to say such things”
Now Mr Birling is upper class, he runs down the lower classes and says the classes shouldn’t mix even though his friends might be lower class.
“…as if we were all mixed up like bees in a hive – community and all that!”
Even though Mr Birling was blamed at first, he didn’t care about her, he just thought of her as a useless lower class worker. He called her a “wretched girl” and “cheap labour”.
He thinks that his family is respectable, but we later find out that he has an alcoholic son, his daughter’s fiancé sleeps with prostitutes, his wife is a selfish snob, his daughter is a spoilt brat and he is a greedy, stuck-up egotist.
Mr Birling was the eldest in the family. He didn’t admit he had anything to do with Eva’s death, he blamed Eric, and Eric accepted the blame.
Birling: “you’re the one I blame for this”
Eric “I bet I am”
Mr Birling brushed it all under the carpet as soon as the inspector had left. He was more upset about losing his chance to get a knighthood than knowing he was partly responsible for a girl’s death.
Mrs Birling is an upper class snob. She puts down her husband and she thinks she is better than him because she was probably born into the upper class. Mrs Birling patronises her family because Mr Birling was lower class. She says things like:
“Now Arthur, I don’t think you should talk business on an occasion like this”
and she raises her voice at Mr Birling when he acts lower class and she still calls Sheila a child when she is old enough to get married.
(To inspector) “You seen to have made an great impression on this child inspector”
Even though she spends time patronising her family, she hasn’t noticed what is going on with them. She didn’t know that her own son, Eric, had a drink problem and he stole money. She also didn’t know how feisty Sheila could be. She thinks her family is perfect and every thing is ‘La-Dee-Da’. She doesn’t see that her family has problems because she is a snob, and alcoholics could bring shame to the family.
When the inspector went to the house, she and Mr Birling tried to intimidate the inspector into leaving. They was doing the ‘Do you know who I am? I will be the Mayor soon. I know your boss’ technique. It didn’t work.
Mrs Birling was involved with Eva when Eva asked for money from the Women’s Charity Organisation. Mrs Birling was part of the organisation, and she turned Eva down because thought she was just a lower class scrounger.
“Oh – she had some fancy reason. As if a girl of that sort would ever refuse money”
Mrs Birling did all she could to stop Eva getting the money.
Sheila was the character in the play that got Eva fired from the job she loved. Sheila was envious of Eva because Eva was prettier than her. Eva looked better than Sheila in a dress that Sheila wanted. Sheila used her power as the daughter of a wealthy businessman to get Eva fired.
Sheila seemed horrified to know that she had played some part in Eva’s suicide. Sheila was one of the only characters to show any remorse for what she had done.
“…If I could help her now I would.”
She hated herself after she found out, and she thought everyone hated her too. When she was talking to Gerald, this is what she said:
“I got that girl sacked from Milwards. And now you’ve made up your mind I must obviously be a selfish, vindictive creature.”
She was the first to notice that there was something strange about the inspector.
“I don’t understand about you” and
“…there was something curious about him. He didn’t seem like a normal police inspector –“
She was the only one who was trying to make everyone see what he or she had done. Priestly did this to say that the young people of today are our only hope to make society less cruel because they still have time to change their ways.
Gerald was the only character in the play that showed any feelings for Eva. He saved her from a womaniser, Joe Meggarty. Gerald gave her a home for a while. Eva fell for him, but he didn’t feel about her as she felt about him.
His character was there to show that someone there did love Eva. He didn’t want to hurt her in any way. He was trying to help her, but in the end she got upset anyway. This might show that Priestly was trying to say that even though we try to help people, with good intentions, it could make matters worse.
Eric was an alcoholic. He made Eva pregnant and when she was drunk he took advantage of her.
Inspector: “Was she drunk too?”
Eric: “She told afterwards that she was a bit, chiefly because she’d not had much to eat that day.”
He raped her, Eva didn’t want Eric to go into the house with her, but he turned nasty because of the drink and insisted on going in. Eric was in the play to show the effects of drink and what it could make people do.
He was upset after it had all came out about what he had done to make Eva kill herself.
Eva was the main character in the play, even though we never actually see her. We know nothing about her in the beginning of the play, but further into the play, you find out much more about her.
All the characters in the play, apart from the inspector and Gerald, treated her like a lower class girl instead of a human being. They didn’t see that their actions towards people in the lower classes could make them kill themselves.
Gerald treated her like a normal human being even though he was the son of Lord Croft who owns a large business and is top of the upper class.
In the play Eva represents all of the lower class.
Inspector:” But just remember this. One Eva Smith has gone – but there are millions and millions of Eva Smiths and John Smiths still left with us.
Priestly was trying to say that many of the lower classes are treated like Eva Smith, so he used Eva as an example as one lower class girl who represents all of the lower class. She was one of many, so that might be why she had the common surname “Smith”.
The lower class that watch the play could relate to Eva because they might have been treated the same. When they watched the play, they might think that someone has noticed how unfairly they are being treated. The upper class might think about what they are doing to upset lower class people. They may change their ways and treat the working class better; after all, if it weren’t for working class, the business owners wouldn’t have any wealth.
The inspector was Priestly’s voice in all this. He said all the things Priestly wanted to say, but the Inspector would get more noticed because he was in a play and people would take more notice to a play than someone just standing up and dictating about equal rights.
The inspector was a spiritual figure, possibly the family’s conscience or even God. He could have been a ghost, hence the name G-o-o-l-e (ghoul).
The inspector was there to make the family and the audience realise the error of their ways.
The inspector was an angry man. He snapped at the family when they made references to Eva saying she was just a lower class girl so she is insignificant.
He didn’t act like a normal police inspector. He asked the questions, but he already knew the answers before they told him. He was just there to let them know what they had done, and not allow them to brush it under the carpet as soon as he had gone.
“This girl killed herself – and died a horrible death. But all of you helped to kill her. Remember that. Never forget it. But then I don’t think you ever will.”
He adds tension to the play when they find out he isn’t a real police inspector. He told them Eva had died before she even had, that makes the audience think. They would wonder how the inspector would know all these things if he wasn’t really a police inspector, then it would dawn on them that he could be a ghost or a spiritual figure. If he represented God, Priestly might have trying to say that God was angry about the world was split into classes and the upper classes treated the lower classes unfairly. The upper classes were breaking one of the Ten Commandments (Treat thy neighbour as you would like to be treated yourself.) Priestly wanted everyone to be treated fairly.
In the play it was the younger generation who showed most remorse for Eva’s death. They admitted to themselves and everyone there that they were to blame. The older characters tried everything to put the blame onto somebody else.
Sheila, Eric and Gerald admitted that they had played some part in Eva’s Death. They represented the younger generation. Priestly was trying to say that the young people could change things for the future; the older people are too set in their ways so they will not change. The older people in the play are Mr and Mrs Birling. Mr Birling blamed Eric for his part in Eva’s Death.
“Birling: (angrily to Eric) You’re the one I blame for this.”
He refuses to take any responsibility. Mrs Birling denies it every time she is being blamed, but she criticises everybody else who did something to Eva.
The play has only one setting, a Victorian dining room. It would have candles, gas lamps and an open fire to light the room up. This would give the room a spooky atmosphere to go with the ‘spooky’ character, the Inspector. The one setting means we will never actually see Eva, because she was dying while the play was going on. We would have only seen her if they had showed the shop, or the factory or the palace bar. The only things we know about Eva is what the characters tells us. We never see any other place in the play and we don’t need to. Priestly makes us use our imagination instead of showing us every little detail. By the end of the play you have to think. It makes you think because you find out that the inspector isn’t real and Eva wasn’t dead before the inspector came.
I think Priestly believes there is hope for the future. These days, there is less discrimination due to class, but people still don’t treat each other fairly. The violence seems to be getting worse, and there is still the threat of wars. Life has changed since the play was written, it has got better, but in other ways it has got worse.
