The Birling family and Gerald all seem to be right wing at the beginning of the play. However, by the end of the play the younger Birlings have changed to agree with more left wing values. This change is a vital part in making the audience feel that being left wing is the fairer view point. The views of Mr. Birling can be seen many times throughout this play. For example, Mr. Birling’s way of responding to Gerald’s comment “You seem to be a very nice well-behaved family” is to reply, “we think we are”. He is the head of the household and therefore the speaker for the family who are typically wealthy right wing.
Mr. Berling is full of self-importance and arrogance who considers capital before the needs of his workforce. “We hard-headed businessman must say something sometimes” Mr Birling’s reply to why Eva and her colleagues don’t deserve a pay rise. Why should they get more of his profits since he feels he owns the workers and can treat them how he likes. This is one of the deadly sins; greed. However, Mr Birling fails to realize that without the workers he wouldn’t have a penny to his name. Indeed, when one of his workers tries to strike he recognizes the consequences straight away and so she is fired.
Moving down to the younger generation of the Birlings we find Sheila, who is jealous of others. This jealousy is shown for example, “When I was looking at myself in the mirror I caught sight of her [Eva] smiling at the assistant.” Sheila realizes that on a beautiful body like Eva’s a dress would look good but on her it appears less flattering. Sheila was jealous of Eva so took it into her own hands and with her power got this lovely helpless girl fired for nothing.
Mrs. Birling is also guilty. She is full of self righteousness: “I used my power to have it [Eva’s application for charity] refused” says Mrs. Birling. This is when Eva went to the charitable institution Mrs. Birling worked for. Mrs. Birling decided that Eva was not deserving of help, so like Sheila she used her social power to refuse her help. She was trusted with the power to decide who was worthy and this was obviously a worthy case but she had said no and so that was final.
Eric is a spoilt and over indulged young man who could not resist temptation. Eric admits “I got it [the money he stole] from the office”, clearly showing the audience and Mr. Birling who suddenly realizes, that this boy has no sense of what money is. This is tremendously upsetting for Mr. Birling who himself had to work his way up to the upper middle class and so valuing money to its full extent and he now realizes that his son has no appreciation of his money and so he says that Eric will have to work it off.
Gerald’s part in this is as clear as anyone else’s even as a new member to the Birling family. He admits “Yes I suppose it was inevitable she [Eva] was young pretty and warm hearted.” Gerald went for Eva’s external appearance, using her, (though kindly) and then discarding her when it suited him. Wounding her again emotionally, just like his new family had done.
As we have just seen the Birlings and Gerald are wrong doers, however the inspector enters as an omniscient god-like character who seems to know more about the family than they know about themselves. Even afterwards when we find out he wasn’t a real inspector and the whole business was a fake we can still feel that his left wing moral message has impacted on the audience. His character is so believable that the fact that he doesn’t exist becomes irrelevant since the moral-message he conveys remains strong.
When the young Birlings are told their part in this girl’s horrible death they feel so bad they don’t even try to justify themselves. They hang their head in shame and try to make their parents own up for their wrong doings, and repent. For instance, after finding out it’s all a fake and all giving a sigh of relief, Sheila says: “So there is nothing to feel sorry for? nothing to learn?”. Even though he was a fake there is a strong message to be learnt, a moral taught through a left wing perspective. Sheila also says: “you’re pretending everything is just as before”. That is to say let’s stop and think, let us learn from our mistakes she may not be dead but we still killed her metaphorically.
However whilst the younger characters attempts at persuasion continue the elders are adamant about their approach and a sign of this is a comment from Sheila on her way out of the room: “I want to get out of this, it frightens me the way you talk”. To this Mr. Birling still replies: “Nonsense you’ll have a good laugh over it yet” he is adamant it is all a joke. However if all was serious his chance of getting a knighthood would now be next to nothing. This shows us he was scared at the time about the truth in all of it but has now reverted to his usual arrogant complacency.
Mr. Birling continues to disprove the evidence that was shown to him and the rest of his family: “There wasn’t any proof that Eva Smith was Daisy Renton.” His efforts to make it all seem fake to the children are evidence of his fear of change and fear of seeming weak. Lastly after the phone call it’s hard not to believe the inspectors message and it’s taken to heart at once by Mr. Birling. This final note of the phone call makes the audience remember the inspector’s left wing moral message and ponder over it for the rest of the night.
The play is disturbing in that the audience understands that the older Birlings seem incapable of redemption yet priestly succeeds in imparting his moralistic left wing message about the value of freedom and social equality.
