Compare the Actions and Attitudes of Sheila and Mr. Birling Towards Eva Smith and Their Responsibility of Her Suicide

In the novel, both Sheila Birling and Mr Birling each play a huge role in Eva Smith’s death with their actions and their attitudes towards her.

The first person that seems to be responsible for the death of Eva Smith was Mr. Birling. He was the owner of a mill and hired Eva Smith to work there. He admitted that she worked well but had to make her redundant due to her asking for an increase in wages and protesting against Mr. Birling not giving her a rise. “We were paying the usual rates and if they didn’t like those rates, they could go work somewhere else. It’s a free country”, says Mr. Birling.

From Mr. Birling’s actions it does not seem to be the full responsibility of Mr. Birling for the death of Eva Smith. He was looking at the best interests of his firm and it his firm would not run very efficiently with a troublemaker. I also think he is not fully responsible because Eva Smith must have thought of the consequences of protesting against low wages, although his actions were the starting point for the rest of the bad things that were to happen to Eva Smith.

Although Mr. Birling does refuse to take full responsibility in that when he fired Eva Smith he did do a morally wrong thing. The Inspector does not question the Birling family as if they have all committed a crime. He is there to show them what the consequences of their actions are if they are not careful and think about what they do. Mr. Birling when being interrogated by the Inspector takes offence at the way that he is talking to him, but he does not understand the message that the Inspector is trying to tell them, that is the ...

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The next person that seemed to be responsible for the death of Eva Smith was Sheila Birling. After Eva Smith was made redundant from Mr. Birling’s factory she managed to get a job at Milwards, a respectable upper class department store. Sheila complained to the manager of Milwards because Eva Smith had appeared to be giggling at her when she was trying on a dress.

I think that Sheila’s action of complaining to the manager of Milwards can not be justified. Sheila was jealous of Eva being prettier that herself, and she used her superiority from being of an upper class family to fire Eva Smith which I think, is very unfair despite your social class. Although Eva Smith was made redundant once again I think that Sheila did contribute to the death of Eva Smith but is not the most responsible person. When Sheila went shopping that day at Milwards she was prepared to pay for the best service and she did not receive it and therefore complained, which to some extent I think can just about be justified, but it was really a very un-moral thing to do. Later in the text Sheila admitted that she would have never complained if she knew that Eva would have been fired.

When the Inspector is questioning Sheila he takes a more calm approach to her than he does with Mr. Birling. The Inspector takes this different approach when talking to Sheila because she does not try and hide the fact that she had seen Eva Smith and that she got her fired from her job at Milwards purely from an act of anger and jealousy. Sheila tells the inspector everything she knows and she does so with regret for her actions and with great emotion that she played a part in making someone committing suicide.

This is all completely different to the attitude to her father; he refuses to take any of the responsibility for Eva Smith’s death, whereas on the other hand Sheila immediately says that she is massively to blame. The main reason for this difference in attitude is the generations between father and daughter. People of the older generation do not care about the working class and they think that they are far superior to everyone else. The younger generation are completely different; they care for other people and show emotions and feelings towards them.

Michael Leondiou

4 Stanislaus