My impression of Sheila before the inspector’s arrival is that she is young, naïve and innocent. “Gaily” and “possessively” are used to describe how she speaks which shows us she has the attitude of a child and she also refers to Mrs Birling as “Mummy” showing her child-like innocence. Her parents refer to her as “Sheila-girl” or “girl” in the beginning of the play. When Gerald gives her the ring she is exuberant and perky; “Oh - it’s wonderful!”
When Sheila learns of Eva’s death she becomes disturbed and feels very saddened by it. Then, when she hears of her father’s refusal to offer more wages to Eva she criticises him and feels his actions towards the young woman were unreasonable. When the inspector questions Sheila, is very open with him, answers all her questions enthusiastically and takes responsibility for her wrong doings immediately. She has an immense sympathy towards Eva. As the inspector continues to question Sheila, we see her becoming more distressed about the matter, and holds nothing back from him. She takes responsibility for her actions instantly and is truly sorry for her actions. “I’ll never, never do it again to anybody”, and this shows us her realisation of the errors of her ways.
When Sheila discovers Gerald’s affair with Eva Smith she realises that a key factor is missing from their relationship, candour, unlike her mother who would chose to forget the incident. Sheila has moral values and does not want to enter a relationship without honesty present. When Sheila gives Gerald the ring, she has matured and handles the situation with dignity. “Gerald, I think you’d better take this with you”. Sheila has learnt from the inspector’s message because throughout the play she encourages the members of her family to answer the inspector’s questions honestly, especially her mother: “You mustn’t try to build up a kind of wall between us and that girl”, though this loyalty for the girl could be fuelled by her guilt.
As soon as the inspector departs, the Birlings forget the inspector’s message of collective responsibility because they discover that the inspector isn’t really an inspector. Sheila is appalled at this behaviour. “You’re pretending everything’s just as it was before”, she says to her family. Sheila scolds her parents for ignoring the inspector’s message because they feel that they can ignore the message of the inspector as their reputation is still intact.
Priestly is trying to get across to the audience that the old are set in their ways while the young, like Sheila and Eric who are the only two who have learnt from the inspector’s message, are young and are open to change. Priestly feels positive towards this character and shows us her transformation from naivety to maturity.
Sheila plays two key roles in this play one to show us that the younger generation are open to change and secondly, to help the inspector to expose her family’s hypocrisy. Priestly hopes that the audience will learn from Sheila and relate to her. I believe she is sorry for her actions because I think she has the most compassion for Eva in the play. “The worst part is [over]. But you’re forgetting the one thing I still can’t forget”.
Prior to the inspector’s arrival the family are enjoying dinner. Mrs Birling’s role in that family is to scold and correct, she is a domineering person. She scolds her husband for complimenting the food (which is the role of the guest), “Arthur, you’re not supposed to say such things” and this shows us that she has the most power in class. Mrs Birling’s views on a woman’s role in a marriage are traditional; she accepts the role of being the submissive, accepting wife. She believes in the concept that the woman should be left at home and not question their husbands. She tries to enforce this rule on Sheila by saying, “When you’re married you’ll realise that men with important work to do sometimes have to spend nearly all their time and energy on their business”. This gives us a negative impression of her values, which are traditional; she is set in her ways.
When she encounters the inspector, she puts on airs. She is adverting and spurns the inspector when he questions her; she also drops in many names of important politicians in attempts to scare him off. Mrs Birling has no sympathy what so ever towards Eva Smith because of her class. She constantly refers to Eva as “Girls of that class” or “Girls of that sort”. She does not feel guilty about refusing Eva assistance from the charity: “In the circumstances I think I was justified”. She does not accept her responsibility and tries to pass on the blame to the baby’s father. Haughtily, annoyed, bitterly, sharply, staggered, angrily, rather crowed, agitated - all these words are used to describe Sybil Birling in act two. All the words used to describe her are negative. Mrs Birling acts dazed when Eric’s drinking problem is revealed to her, which suggests that she has no real knowledge of her children and their problems. Priestly uses this to say that Mrs Birling is not a good mother.
When Mrs Birling hears that the inspector was not in fact a real inspector, she is pleased because her reputation will be re-established. She chooses not to learn anything from the inspector’s message. She believes in individual responsibility, like her husband, whereas the inspector’s ideas call for collective responsibility. She does not believe in this because she is old and set in her ways. Priestly feels pessimistically towards this character, he uses her to show to the audience that her attitudes are redundant and have no use in society. An audience will react to Mrs Birling negatively because Priestly puts her in a bad light and her views/attitude is dislikeable.
We first hear about Eva Smith from the inspector who keeps her memory alive throughout the play. The first words the inspector utters about Eva Smith were that “she was in great agony”, when she died. The words creates immediate sympathy for Eva. The inspector emphasises throughout the play, the pain that Eva was in and always puts a light of sympathy on her by using dramatic language to do this. When Mr Birling is questioned he inadvertently creates sympathy for Eva in his description: “a lively good-looking girl”, “A good worker”. Then Gerald’s confession carries it on even further as he puts her in a positive light all through his confession. “She looked young and fresh and charming”, he describes the first time they met with a sort of fondness. He describes her as “very pretty - soft brown hair and big dark eyes”. They first meet at a place called ‘The Palace Bar’, where Eva went to look for a job as a prostitute, as she was running low on money. Gerald “rescues” Eva and takes her as a mistress. When they break the affair off, Eva takes it badly but with dignity.
When Eva approached Mrs Birling’s charity she is described by the inspector as being “alone, friendless, almost penniless, desperate”, and gives us an even more sympathetic emotion for this girl who had reduced to begging for money. Eva, throughout the play, is seen as someone who has moral values so when she turns down Eric’s proposal to marry her, “no she didn’t want me to marry her. Said I didn’t love her and all that”, it shows us that she is not like Mrs Birling, and understands the true meaning of marriage. Priestly uses this to show the audience that though this woman was poor, she had moral values, saying that you don’t have to have to be rich to be honourable, unlike Mrs Birling who seems to be less morale, yet very rich. Priestly feels very positive towards this character and puts her in a good light all through the play. Eva is a key factor in the play; she represents the working class, the underdog, and Priestly uses her to expose the idea that you do not have to be rich to have moral values. An audience will react to Eva positively and with her story in mind they would have a different view towards life.
For the character Sybil Birling I feel very negative towards, throughout the play she has showed no remorse for what she did until she heard she had killed her own grandchild “I didn’t understand” but that again was forgotten when she discovers that the inspector is not a real inspector. The character Eva Smith I feel great sympathy and respect towards this character, though her life was going through terrible times she managed to hold on to her self-respect and dignity. And Priestly constantly portrays as a strong willed character with moral values through out the play. He is trying to make the audience see that you do not have to be rich to have moral values.