“…They suddenly decided to ask for more money.”
Her and about four others then went on a small strike for more wages as the wages Mr Birling was paying them they could hardly live on.
The reader is strong against the Birling’s and is glued to the Inspectors side now and is horrified to find out the reaction of Arthur Birling this extremely rich man once Lord Mayor (who is very big headed and thinks he’s in for a chance of knighthood) responds by saying
“I told the girl to clear out …”
The atmosphere of hatred between the reader and Mr. Birling builds up and adds to the drama and shock of how this rich man helped lead this girl to suicide.
By this time the reader is already set against the Birling family just by one interview and then are even more pleased (and shocked) to find out that the Inspector isn’t just there to see Mr Birling.
Arthur Birling doesn’t care for much anything or anyone else all he cares for is money he makes this very clear by saying
“…Perhaps we may look forward to the time when Crofts and Birlings are no longer competing but working together-for lower costs and higher prices.”
He says this in his speech to his newly engaged daughter Sheila and future Son in Law Gerald Croft. (Birlings and Crofts are two textile businesses ran by Arthur Birling and Gerald’s father, Mr Croft)
From this speech we can see that Arthur isn’t at all happy for Sheila getting engaged but happy about whom she is marring, He’s happy for the business by Sheila marring Gerald Arthur Birling is making a very good investment indeed.
Sheila however is marring Gerald because she thinks she’s in love and thinks he’s better than anyone else but she doesn’t know what the Inspector does the reader have their suspicions about Gerald when Sheila says
“…Except all last summer, when you never came near me…”
We soon enough find out both of there’s aid in the suicide of this young girl.
The young girl Eva Smith had a stroke of luck and started working at a really posh clothes shop named Millwards, it really was a change from the factory and she thought her life was finally going right again but was suddenly fired, Eva Smith didn’t have a clue why but Sheila did.
Sheila being as spoilt as she is went in there with her mother and insisted on trying on a dress her mother and the shop assistant tried to convince her not to and she realised why when she tried it on the shop assistant called Eva and put the dress against her to show Sheila why she was the wrong type, and Eva was the right type in every way that Sheila was the wrong type Sheila was so jealous
“…I caught sight of the girl smiling…as if to say : doesn’t she look awful…I was very rude to both of them, and then I went to the manager and told him that this girl had been very impertinent…” she told the Inspector so she had threatened to close the account with Millwards if the girl wasn’t dismissed, and as the Birlings were extremely rich Millwards couldn’t afford to lose them and dismissed the girl.
Sheila shows an emotional side at this point and says “”…She was very pretty and looked as though she could take care of herself…and if I could help her now I would…”
She obviously couldn’t help her but it adds a bit of positive atmosphere for Sheila the reader realises that she does care for others as the reader myself I felt sorry for Sheila a tiny bit thinking it was all her fault except then I found out Gerald’s story but by this time she had changed her name from Eva Smith to Daisy Renton when Inspector Goole first mentions this name Gerald gives himself away He knows the girl he met at the Palace bar twice, this was during last summer when he hardly came near Sheila and was apparently busy with work, the second tome he met her he had arranged too he found out that she was totally poor didn’t have a penny, luckily Gerald knew someone who was going away for six months and let her stay there after a while they got into a relationship but on the first week of September Gerald had to go on a business trip and he broke the relation ship off as she knew it was coming to an end.
Before the Inspector comes Sheila and Gerald seem very happy now that the Inspector has interviewed both of them Sheila is a nervous wreck and Gerald is upset by the memories over the summer but the reader now dislikes Gerald even more because of him misleading this girl the reader can’t relate in any way to the Birling family but can relate to Eva otherwise known as Daisy.
Coming closer to the end of the Inspection Eric is drunk and goes outside to cool off and Gerald goes for a walk but before he goes Sheila gives him the engagement ring and calls the whole thing off.
Right from the begging of the story we can tell Eric Drinks too much Sheila is a spoilt little brat and Mrs Birling (Sybil) doesn’t know much about her family and we are shocked to find out she doesn’t know about Eric’s drinking problem.
We find out that Mrs Birling really doesn’t care much towards other people as when Eva Smith well Daisy Renton came to her committee for help Mrs Birling used her power to turn her down.
“I wasn’t satisfied with this girls claim-she seemed to me to be not a good case…she said the father only a youngster-silly and wild and drinking too much. There couldn’t be any question of marrying him it would be wrong for them both…All a lot of nonsense-I didn’t believe a word of it.”
She says to the Inspector, She then finds out the Father was Eric.
Eric comes in and tells them all the story of him being drunk and telling her if she didn’t have sex with him he create a row, he told them how she wouldn’t marry him once he had made her pregnant so he stole money from his Fathers office and gave it to her until she would take no more.
Everyone is shocked to hear Eric’s story, but the Inspector tells them they must learn to live with there guilt and then leaves Eric blames his mother for Eva’s death and the reader finds out that Eric also cares a lot about others and says he can’t tell his Father anything. Gerald comes back in and claims the Inspector wasn’t real he said he met a police officer down the road that had never heard of him before. They phone Chief Constable Roberts and find out there is no Inspector Goole.
Gerald explains his photo theory of how only one person saw the photograph at a time so they don’t know if there’s more then one.
Sheila refuses to marry Gerald and is still nervous, she is still on the Inspectors side so to calm her down they phone the infirmary to make sure, the infirmary confirms them no girl has come into the infirmary tonight by drinking strong disinfectants Sheila calms down a little and is about to go off to bed when the phone rings confirming a girl has just died on the way to the infirmary and there will be a police Inspector coming around soon.
I feel that in my conclusion I should point out a very interesting quote from the Inspector on page 11 when he says “Two hours ago a young woman died in the infirmary. She had been taken there this afternoon.”
I quote this because at the end of the story they had only just found the girl on her way to the infirmary, which must conclude to whom the Inspector was I personally think he was someone to warn them that we must look out for one another that each thing we do has it’s consequences but it is still a mystery of how he knew what had happened and what was going to happen.
J B Preistley made me and everyone else who reads the play think of what they do and how they do it, the drama and atmosphere of shock, horror and suspense carries with the reader throughout more than just the time when they are reading but follows them everywhere, we can think more about our actions just as much as we can relate to Eva Smith.
By Lorraine Hallett
