The arrival of the inspector changes the atmosphere of the room entirely by him asking direct questions and nearly all of them aimed at Mr Birling. This is also shown by the lighting change in the room when the inspector arrives from pink and intimate This shows Birling's attitude towards the workers and exposed what he really thinks about the lower class people around him. This is shown when Mr Birling is doing a speech about his life he says how, “A man has to make his own way” and this really shows how birling is self-centred and doesn’t care about the community around him. This is also shown on page 9 where Birling lectures, “community and all that nonsense”. Mr Birling is a strong conservative which is the hatred of J.B Priestly. We can see this by his attitude to the community as I’ve mentioned before and how he mentions many times about himself “I’ve always been regarded as a round useful party man”.
These questions start with Eva smith and what she has to do with Mr birling. He says that, “she was one of my employees and then I discharged her,” which was said in a very straight and assertive tone. The inspector then says that she had died earlier that day. The inspector then asks Mr Birling on what grounds he had dismissed her on; Mr Birling then replies “they were averaging about twenty two and six, This was not wrong but after this she was faced against a strike from Eva smith and a couple of others who asked for a raise of 4 bob which was not a lot in a weeks pay. After this the inspector asked what did he say and Mr Birling answered “I refused of course,” which again shows that Mr Birling does not care about the people around him and has no sympathy over Eva's situation at the time, Mr Birling does not show any signs of sympathy or sadness over the death of Eva. Mr Birling then asks what happened to Eva after and then jumps to a conclusion and says, “Get into trouble? go in the streets” which implies that she become a prostitute, which shows that he does not think highly of them. Priestly shows us how other characters statements but mostly Birling who talks most in act 1. An example of this is when again Birling says something morally wrong by saying, “if you don’t come down sharply on some of these people they’d soon be asking for the earth.” This quote is about his workers and has some truth In it but the inspector comes back with a very moralising statement saying, “but after all its better to ask for the earth than to take.” This shows that the inspector isn’t intimidated by Mr Birling and is in the right.
Another way priestly shunts capitalism is by showing how both Eric and Gerald have different views on the situation. Gerald fully supports Mr Birling by saying “you couldn’t of done anything else.” This is the exact opposite of Eric’s responses to Mr Birling's statements, which is, “he could. He could have kept her on instead of throwing her out” and “why shouldn’t try for higher wages?” this shows that the views of the older and younger generation is changing and that Eric who is the younger one, questions and disagrees with Birling’s attitude towards the workers which shows that the young generation does not want capitalism in the country and wants socialism which later became true in Britain. Gerald, being the slightly older one had grown up with capitalism and being on the good side of it, did not mind. Another reason for this is that Gerald wants to get on the good side of Sheila’s father so reluctantly backs up and agrees with Mr Birling. Priestly is clever in showing this by letting the reader read between the lines.
In this essay I have shown how workers were treated badly not only in Birling’s factory but also all over capitalist Britain and the people like Eva smith changed that through their strikes. Not only Birling did affect the life of Eva smith badly in this play, but the rest of the family all had a little bit to do with her. At first Birling fired her, then Sheila got her fired from her second job, after this Gerald, who is Sheila’s fiancé, takes Eva in and gives her a roof over her head and money. After a while, she becomes Gerald’s mistress but he has to leave her for a business trip. Mrs Birling plays her part by refusing Eva aid in bringing up her child on the grounds that she had impudence in calling herself Mrs Birling and the father should take responsibility for the child. An ugly twist then develops in the fact that we find out that Eric is the father of Eva’s baby, which makes Mrs Birling speechless. After all of these events, Eva could not take life any more and committed suicide.
This play shows how many people like Eva are pushed around in capitalized society. People like Mr Birling always pushes around people like Eva who don’t have a name and need a job to get by and essentially are bullies. At the end of the play the inspector makes a speech and summarises why capitalism is wrong and that people like Eva smith are always neglected, this speech sums up the plays message perfectly. It also finishes off the message between the lines through the play about how hard capitalism is and how socialism is good and leaves the audience or reader in agreement with priestly because of his brilliant writing skills and persuasion.
