"Is it the one you wanted me to have?" She even knows the ring will be exactly as it was planned. Because Sheila has always lived this way, she tends to be ‘thoughtless’. This is not because she intends to be unpleasant to other people; she simple does not think about the world around her, and that others may not have life as easy as she does. This is exactly what happens when she gets Eva Smith sacked from Milward's. She has been protected from the ‘real world’ by her parents. But in the same way that she was protected from the world outside her family, her mother doesn’t live in the real world either, they are all living in some kind of ‘empire’ that they created but doesn’t really exists and its all result of their arrogance and ignorance.
When she enters the room after the inspector has arrived, she doesn't know he is there. She acts surprised to see him, and says, “Oh - sorry. I didn't know." She asks what the Inspector is doing there, saying, "What's all this about?" She does not expect it to be anything either very unpleasant, or anything involving her. When Mr.Birling says, "Nothing to do with you, Sheila. Run along." It shows that he is trying to protect her from having anything to do with the situation. It seems that Sheila is protected a lot from unpleasant things like this, and has always been. The Inspector tells Sheila what has happened, and she is shocked. She says, "Oh, how terrible" - In an interested way she asks, "Was it an accident?" It is obvious the news has upset Sheila, because the stage directions in front of what she says are "rather distressed". This shows that she is sensitive, as at that point she doesn't even realize she knows this girl. Sheila listens to what her father says about Eva Smith and she does not agree with his attitude towards the girl "But these girls aren't cheap labour- they're people," as she starts to compare herself with Eva Smith, even imagining herself as being Eva Smith and going through all the events that happened to her. We can clearly see this when Sheila keeps on questioning Inspector, if she was pretty, young, just like her.
There is the very beginning of Sheila standing up against her parents, what comes as a chock to the older Birlings, "I think it was a mean thing to do. Perhaps that spoiled everything for her," her parents would never think that their daughter would say something like this against them (Mr. Birling in this case), especially in front of someone else that is not in the family, it means for him to assume responsibility in Eva Smith’s death, something that he would never do, because he considers himself as a well-succeeded rich industrialist who is arrogant, doesn’t and will not accept any social responsibility towards ‘unpleasant’ facts like the death of Eva Smith. This is what differ the older Birlings to the youngsters, Sheila and Eric: “Why shouldn’t they ask for money?” the fact that his own son is questioning him on his acts is a big chock, as in his mind they should be supporting him, not standing up against him and giving Inspector the ‘moral’ to be there inspecting him. Because them both realize their part on Eva Smith’s death, and both are open to the idea of responsibility, of accepting their responsibility on what they’ve done, on recognizing their mistakes and then learning from that. Sheila and Eric represent the part of society that is really willing to change, they are the only hope and way of changing something in the society.
Priestley was part of this society that is willing to change something because on his play he supports Sheila on giving her strength by the inspector. When Birling realizes that the Inspector took control of the situation he tries to threat the Inspector by showing his superiority, the superiority that he believes he has and the Inspector just doesn’t respond to them as Birling expected him to, as well as Sheila and is from the Inspector that Sheila gets the understanding of Eva Smith’s death, she is the first one to understand what that night is all about and on understanding that she realizes she must change from the shallow naive girl to a woman that is aware of the world outside her own life and mature enough to start thinking for herself instead of depending on her parents for everything, which is what her parents and also Gerald doesn’t realize. By then, she is far more mature then she was before, and she knows Gerald is hiding something. But because now she feels morally superior than him she even says things like "Oh don't be stupid" and being the only one in there who understands the Inspector, she knows that she doesn’t actually needs everyone else’s confession to ‘work out’ what the situation is because the Inspector knows it already and she knows that: "Why - you fool - he knows. Of course he knows." There she makes it absolutely clear that she knows what is going on and that is not that difficult to work out what happened.
Sheila’s character has changed so much from before when she didn’t really care with everybody else’s life that now she not only assumes her responsibility on what happened and give the others a moral lesson, she also tries to protect the others from their own blindness of ignorance, like her mother when she is trying to push her responsibility to the father of the child that Eva Smith was carrying and only Sheila understands that the father of the child is Eric, so she says: “Oh, please mother, stop – stop!” “Don’t you see?” It is obvious to Sheila that all of them are involved in some way or another, but this is not so obvious for her mother that tries push her responsibility away also by accusing Eva Smith of using a name that wasn’t hers but this was actually about Mrs. Birling having her pride hurt by Eva Smith using Mrs. Birling as a false name, which didn’t make the ‘real’ Mrs. Birling very happy and uses that to try to put the blame away from her saying that Eva Smith lied but so did she. Mrs. Birling would not confess that she was being prejudist when denied Eva Smith’s case, even when Mr. Birling, her own husband, realizes it and starts to worry about the scandal, as usual. When the ‘whole story’ is done in between the family, the older Birlings start to discuss it and argue about who should be blamed the Inspector says that they “will have time to share the responsibility between” them after he say what he needs to say, and Birling comes with all of his materialist thoughts saying “I’d thousands” to Eva Smith in the beginning when she first asked for money, and then he could maybe save Eva Smith and his family from the scandal, which is all that he thinks about and he makes it evident when they find out that the Inspector wasn’t a real inspector, and, of course, he is delighted to know that the death of Eva Smith never happened, when Eric and Sheila that are the only ones who learned the lesson try to show them they shouldn’t feel any better he says: “They’re so dammed exasperating” “They just wont try to understand our position” because he is pleased with himself again like he was in the beginning “We were all feeling so pleased with ourselves” and he finishes thinking that Sheila and Eric are “the famous youngster generation who know it all”.
Mr. Birling, Mrs. Birling and Gerald react fairly in the same way to the ‘announcement’ of the Inspector being a hoax. But Sheila and Eric who are the ones that understand what the Inspector was all about go completely against them, as Sheila makes clear when she says bitterly: “I suppose we are nice people now” and Eric reminds the older Birlings of their acts “I did what I did, and mother did what she did”, nobody has been save from the responsibility of their acts, and Sheila could not forget what everyone in that house did once to a girl, named Eva Smith, Daisy Renton or whatever name, they were people that had been threat in some way or another for every single one them, which is what Mr. Birling doesn’t care about anymore, and asks Sheila to forget everything that has been said and accept Gerald’s ring back what she doesn’t do because she knows it would be wrong, her character changed so much and her parents don’t realize it and still treat her and Eric (that changed his character as well) as children, and try to patronize them as they used to do before.
Sheila changed from a selfish, spoiled, excited, newly engaged girl, into a caring, responsible and open-minded person. Out of all the Birlings, and Gerald Croft, Sheila changes the most. She learns from the Inspector, and understands the purpose of his visit – To warn them of what will happen if they do not change their ways. In his final speech, the inspector says, "If men will not learn that lesson, then they will be taught it in fire and blood and anguish." The Inspector is the voice of Priestley in this play, and Sheila who is the one that is never going to forget the Inspector’s words “Fire, blood and anguish”. She points out to her parents and Gerald that there are moral considerations which should be more important than superficial worries about status and public embarrassment, trying to make them realize that it can be real, and if they don’t learn now, they will to taught again and again till the day they change the way they act towards other people.It is evident throughout the play that Sheila demonstrates far more compassion for human life, and a lot less prejudice over class boundaries than her parents or Gerald, and she is more conscientious than any other one of them. The events of the play obviously affected her, and she has learned from the evening with the Inspector where the others have not about the way she should treat other people, especially those whom she might previously have considered 'lower' than her.
