By The End of the Play How Does Priestley Show Sheila's Change in Attitude?
By The End of the Play How Does Priestley Show Sheila’s Change in Attitude? In the play “An Inspector Calls” Sheila Birling changes throughout. Priestley shows her change in attitude after her confession and the confessions of her family. We see the difference in behaviour from the moment the inspector arrives. Sheila’s change is vital for the plot because Priestley wrote the play for a reason: to show the lack of respect that higher class people had for one of a lower class. “An Inspector Calls” is about a rich family in 1912, but was written in 1945. This is important because of the dramatic irony. When he talks about the Titanic, “absolutely unsinkable.” The effect of this is that the reader feels they understand, because they know for a fact that the titanic did sink. Also when he mentions about the war when he says, “”you’ll be living in a world that’ll have forgotten all these Capital versus Labour agitations and all these silly little war scares.” This is ironic because the war took place in 1914. The family are called the Birlings. Mr Birling is the “head of the house”, with his wife Sybil, daughter Sheila and son Eric. Gerald Croft plays
Sheila’s fiancée. The family are celebrating Sheila’s engagement until An Inspector Calls. The inspector gets each family member to confess about their involvement of the suicide of Eva Smith. During each confession, Sheila’s attitude changes, and Priestley shows this by the way she speaks and acts. At the beginning of the play, Sheila seems like a generally content person but also quite snobbish and arrogant. She says, “I think it’s perfect. Now I really feel engaged.” From this we know that she only really needed a ring to feel engaged, that she wasn’t happy with just the feeling of it, ...
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Sheila’s fiancée. The family are celebrating Sheila’s engagement until An Inspector Calls. The inspector gets each family member to confess about their involvement of the suicide of Eva Smith. During each confession, Sheila’s attitude changes, and Priestley shows this by the way she speaks and acts. At the beginning of the play, Sheila seems like a generally content person but also quite snobbish and arrogant. She says, “I think it’s perfect. Now I really feel engaged.” From this we know that she only really needed a ring to feel engaged, that she wasn’t happy with just the feeling of it, all because of her “spoiled“attitude. Sheila behaves possessively towards Gerald by saying, “I’d hate you to know all about Port like one of those purple faced old men.” This suggests that she just wants a perfect husband to be proud of. When Gerald gives her the ring she says, “Oh – Gerald – you’ve got it – is it the one you wanted me to have?” This is an example of her over joy at the sight of the ring so she is delighted that all the attention is focused on her; the celebratory engagement dinner party. The mood changes drastically when An Inspector Calls. Sheila seems to be interested in why the inspector has called when she asks, “What business? What’s happening?” When the inspector then tells Sheila and the family about Eva committing suicide, she exclaims, “Oh – how horrible! Was it an accident?” and appears very shocked to hear this. Shortly after, Mr Birling confesses and Sheila is distressed at hearing this. When the inspector tries to blame all of them, Sheila starts interrupting, “What do you mean by saying that? You talk as if we were responsible –“. She has a very sharp tone of voice, and is very inquisitive and sensitive to the fact that her father was partly responsible for Eva’s death; but only on a superficial level because it doesn’t affect her life directly. The Sheila confesses. She admits to being jealous of Eva and getting her sacked from Milwards. “And I was absolutely furious” Just because her envious side got the better of her, and she resorted to blackmail, “I went to the manager at Milwards and I told him that if they didn’t get rid of that girl, I’d never go near the place again and I’d persuade mother to close our account with them.” At this point Sheila’s character is changing from the happy bubbly person she was at the start, and is now feeling guilt and hurt. We know this because she is very bitter in the ways she talks. During the rest of the play Sheila is still curious towards the inspector, “I’m staying here until I know why that girl killed herself” We can tell from this that she is really interested to learn exactly how her family are involved. The inspector then tells them that Eva changed her name to Daisy Renton and Gerald confesses that he knew her, and took her on as his mistress. Sheila is obviously very hurt at hearing this, and makes a sarcastic comment or two, “But you’re forgetting I’m supposed to be engaged to the hero of it, Go on Gerald.” This suggests that she doesn’t really know what to say, as she is very confused, so uses her wit as defence for her emotions. After her mothers confession, Sheila begins to think, and realises how ridiculous they are all being, by treating Eva – a woman of an inferior class – unfairly. When Sheila says, “I know. I had her turned out of a job. I started it.” This shows us that she has now decided to take responsibility for her own actions and explains how her attitude has changed completely. Nearing the end of the play, Sheila makes a long meaningful speech where she now knows the drawbacks of social responsibility, “”But you’re forgetting one thing I still can’t forget. Everything we said has happened really had happened.” This is when she realises that each and every one of them discriminated against Eva because she wasn’t as good as them, which led to serious consequences. Her attitude has changed because she has learned that the way people treat each other can be hurtful and she is more aware of this. This relates to Priestley’s theme of social responsibility, because at that time – 1912 – it was a common thing for upper class people to look down on lower class people and not worry about how their actions affected anyone “below” them. At the start of the play, Sheila is happily celebrating her engagement. She is very stuck-up and very posh, as she comes from a wealthy family. She acts very superior and arrogant. During the course of the play, through each confession, she endures shock, anger, hurt, guilt and sorrow. All these factors made Sheila’s attitude change more, and by the end of the play she seems more mature about life in general and in the way in which she treats others. Priestly shows her change by making her more knowledgeable about the aspect of social responsibility; it’s almost as if she has grown 5 years older in the space of one evening. She changes because she realised her and her families’ behaviour towards Eva were wrongful and that there is nothing she can do to bring back Eva Smith.
