Birling himself as I am sure I have hinted is not a man who acts like his social class status would suggest. Very early on in the play this becomes apparent,
“Well, well – this is very nice. Very nice. Good dinner too Sybil. Tell cook for me.” After this statement is made it becomes apparent that this is a blunder in manners by Birling. It is very rude for a host to state how he feels the meal was before his guest does. Gerald and Mrs. Birling pick up this faux pas very quickly. Gerald politely agrees while Mrs. Birling rebukes her husband on his mistake.
Mr. Birling is very provincial in his speech. Yet he speaks very strongly about what he believes in. He expresses his opinions very openly and reaches high peaks of patronization and pompousness. He states in one of his many speeches that he believes that the future ahead bears a lot of opportunities and good times. He states that he believes that there will be no war in Europe despite all the political tension that was there at the time. He blames this tension on the “half-civilised folks in the Balkans.” This yet again highlights his pompousness. Of course you will remember that World War one started just two years later. Birling also states how he believes in the fact that the Titanic is unsinkable, a fact of course that wasn’t true, a fact that was proved fictional in that very same year. Birling also believes that 1940 will be a time of great prosperity when actually 1940 is when World War two was raging. These 3 examples of Birling’s provincial speech are also three forms of dramatic irony. I will talk about these in greater detail later on in my submission. Birling welcomes Gerald Croft into the family because he feels that Gerald Croft represents a potential business link between his firm and Gerald Croft’s father’s rivaling firm. Yet again this shows Birling’s capitalist mentality. In short, Mr. Birling is a little man who thinks very highly of himself. Look closer and you see a man who’s life is dependant on the social ladder. It Is blatantly obvious that Birling would never want a community, he would always want a vertical ladder of class – as long as he was at the top of it.
Sybil Birling, Birling’s wife, is described as, “about fifty, a rather cold woman and her husbands social superior”. Her coldness and lack of conscience make her insensitive while, her keen consciousness of the rules of polite behaviour and etiquette, (shown for example I the way she rebukes her husband for his comments about the meal) make her seem out of touch with what really matters. She is reluctant to drink wine with the family. You get the feeling the latin phrase “in vino veritas” would suit this situation well. The phrase means, in wine, truth. This would highlight Sybil’s awareness of polite behaviour. She doesn’t want to drink wine and lose any social etiquette than she usually shows. She is afraid that by drinking the wine she will not think so carefully when she speaks and she may say something rude and ill mannered. Her relationship with Birling is one that seems to work well, but it is one that would have been very uncommon in terms of the time. It is highly uncommon that a woman should have any control of her man in 1912. This is because women were still treated like second-class citizens most of the time, they weren’t allowed to vote and they were supposed to be completely dependant on their husband for money and security. Therefore it is very strange that Sybil has the amount of control over her husband that she has. Birling is very provincial in his speech and so Sybil takes great pride in telling her husband off when he goes too far and states things that she feel are unnecessary or wrong. This is her way of keeping her husband under control and never letting him forget that she is her husband’s social superior. Whenever Sybil interrupts her husband, he instantly stops and corrects himself or apologises to her. Sybil uses her social status as a means of taking control of her husband.
You get the impression that Mrs. Birling is a very quick-minded individual. She seems to be one step ahead of the conversation at all times and seems to understand any hidden messages behind a person’s comment. This is shown when Sybil notices the tensions between Gerald and her daughter Sheila after Gerald spent most of the summer away. She does her best to get rid of this tension by saying,
“Now, Sheila, don’t tease him. When you’re married you’ll realise that men with important work to do sometimes have to spend nearly all their time and energy in their business. You’ll have to get used to that, just as I had.” She also congratulates Gerald when he produces the ring just at the right moment, realising that it dismissed any tension between him and his fiancée.
The conversation itself flows according to Sybil. She changes the subject whenever she feels right to do so. This may be a sign of how Sybil rates herself above the rest of the family. You may get the feeling that she changes the subject when she gets bored with the old one.
Mrs. Birling treats her now grown up children as still children. She refers to her daughter as a girl rather than a woman on atleast one occasion. She has a huge influence on Sheila. Mrs. Birling knows exactly how a girl should be brought up to become the perfectly well mannered young woman. With all her attention on Sheila you get the feeling that Eric is somewhat out of the family spotlight, because as I will write later, Birling gives little attention to his son either. Snobbish and arrogant are two words that describe Mrs. Birling well.
Sheila, the Birling family’s only daughter is described as, “a pretty girl in her early twenties, very pleased with life and rather excited.” Sheila is very much her mother’s daughter. She has been shielded from the outside world while being taught how to act “properly” by her mother. She seems very immature compared to the usual early twenty year old. Her comment, “you’re squiffy”, is a good example of her immaturity. The fact that she calls her mother mummy on atleast one occasion is good proof of this. I think that Sheila is a spoilt girl, but I don’t think this is due to any fault of her own she has been smothered by her mother, you would think for the whole of her life. She is the stereotypical rich girl of the time. You get the impression that the Victorian term; “children should be seen and not heard” would still comply to Sheila and her past life seeing as she has little to say at the dinner table despite her general aura of self confidence. Without Sheila being able to talk as an adult with adults from an early age it’s hardly surprising that she acts immaturely now.
There is definitely tension between Sheila and her fiancé Gerald. It seems that Gerald spent the whole summer away from Sheila. I don’t think Sheila trusts Gerald an inch and doesn’t believe his excuse that he was very busy at the works.
Gerald Croft is described as, “an attractive chap about thirty, rather too manly to be dandy but very much the easy well-bred young man-about-town.” Gerald is the son of a high-class family. He is fiancé to Sheila and it seems that his mother doesn’t like the idea of him marrying a girl from a lower class than himself. Despite this he is very happy to marry Sheila. His absence during the summer has created strong tensions between him and Sheila, and may suggest that he is a dubious character despite what he appears to be. When Eric guffaws at Gerald’s promise that he will be careful and will therefore behave himself, you get the impression that Eric knows something that the rest of the family don’t know about Gerald. This spreads some shadow and mystery over the seemingly nice character of Gerald. He is definitely in control of his relationship with Sheila. The fact that the ring he gets her is the ring that he, himself wanted to have is good proof of this. Sheila, it seems didn’t have a say in which ring she was to have.
Gerald gets on very well with Mr. Birling mainly because he shares the same capitalist mindset. He is the only one that doesn’t disagree that Mr. Birling’s comments about the two rival companies joining together. Mr. Birling treats Gerald more like a son than how he treats Eric. Gerald seems to be the bridge between the two generations, especially in the way he talks. He is very much favoured by Mr. and Mrs. Birling; this is most probably because he is of higher social class than them. Despite the fact that he is much liked by the seniors of the Birling household, Mr. Birling forces him into the shadows of the conversation. This is yet again because Mr. Birling would never be upstaged by a younger person and especially not the son of a rival company.
Eric Birling is the son of the Birling family he is described as, “in his early twenties, not quite at ease, half shy, half assertive.” Eric Birling seems to be university educated. He is a rebel at heart but this is only really emphasised when he goes against his father’s capitalist ideas. He is the black sheep of the family because on atleast one occasion he goes against his father’s ideas, he seems to question his father when he is in full pompous flow. Eric is assertive when he is being comical. He is the only one out of the group who has a noticeable sense of humour. I feel that this sense of humour is so noticeable because he wants attention from someone. I feel that in his childhood, like Sheila he was told to be seen and not heard as were many other children. But now I think he realises that nobody really takes notice of him. His mother concentrates hard on his sister, Sheila, and his father seems so narrow minded that he completely ignores Eric’s point of view when it comes to business. Eric gives the impression in these early pages that he doesn’t believe in his fathers capitalist ideas. I believe that because of this Eric has been forced away from his father. Eric is shy when he is stating what he believes in. I think this is because any ideas in the past that have not gone along with his fathers capitalist mentality have been squashed and Eric has gained no self confidence because of this. There are huge tensions between Eric and his Father. His father is so narrow minded that he never takes in any of Eric’s comments about business that go against his. You get the feeling that Eric leaves the company of the other men because he is envious of Gerald’s relationship with Birling. He may feel that Birling considers Gerald a better son that Eric because Gerald shares the same capitalist mentality where as Eric doesn’t share the same mindset and sometimes goes against it. Eric has been pushed away from the family spotlight and so demands attention that he seemingly never fully gets.
I believe that this play has a strong didactic purpose. From the outset it seems very obvious that J.B. Priestley intends to use the play to tell people about his political ideas. The main political point in the play is Socialism versus Capitalism. Mr. Birling represents Priestley’s hatred of the capitalist ideology. Mr. Birling is by no stretch of the imagination a nice person. The use of dramatic irony, when Mr. Birling mentions the “unsinkable” Titanic and that 1940 would be a time of great prosperity when actually it is when World War two, is used to show the reader how stupid this man really is. He speaks so confidently about things he knows nothing about. Eric goes against what Birling talks about so confidently and so represents the socialist view. Eric is written as the weak man out of the three of them so that the reader will feel sorry for him and start to support his ideas. His weakness when it comes to talking is a good example of how the socialist ideas were treated at this time. In the last part of this scene when Eric returns to the conversation between Mr. Birling and Gerald Croft, the other two men mock him. This is no doubt another way that Priestley has shown how he feels the bully like capitalists mocked the weaker socialists just because they thought differently to themselves. Capitalism was so dominant that socialist ideas were simply pushed aside because of capitalist’s narrow minded thinking. Inspector Goole is the strong socialist character in the play. Another thing that makes the reader think that Birling is a complete and utter idiot is when he talks so patronisingly about H.G. Wells and George B. Shaw. These are two very popular writers who were themselves socialists. J.B. Priestley wanted to show how stupid Birling was by not agreeing with the ideas of these two very intelligent men. H.G. Wells worked with the League of Nations so his ideas were worth a lot more than Birling’s ones.
The timing at which the doorbell rang when the inspector calls may something that Priestley wanted to emphasise. When the doorbell rings Birling is in full patronising and pompous flow. The doorbell, you feel, is acting as a wake up call. It is a sign that things are about to change very dramatically. This may also be the wake up call for the whole of capitalism in the United Kingdom. When, finally, a strong socialist makes an impact on capitalists and makes them finally think outside the “build them cheap, sell them expensive” capitalist business mentality. Eric’s character most probably represents the beginning of socialist thinking, when people just started to think of other options to politics than the capitalist view. Inspector Goole represents the stronger socialist ideology, which came about later on in history. Inspector Goole may also represent Priestley’s socialist ideas. There is also the idea in my mind that Goole represents the person that started off the breakdown of capitalism into a society that was more tolerant of the socialist mentality.
William Murray