How is social responsibility presented in each character of "An Inspector Calls"?

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Inspector calls, practice essay:

 How is social responsibility presented in each character?

 Priestly presents responsibility in each character differently. He does this, so the audience can see the outcome of each character and how they chose to react to responsibility, Priestly does this because he wants the audience to learn to accept responsibility too.

 Priestly uses the character Mr Birling to present the older generation who are capitalists. Priestly presents Mr Birling as arrogant and how he thinks he knows everything, Mr Birling says the titanic is “unsinkable” but the audience knows that this isn’t true. Priestly does this so the audience can see that arrogant people like Mr Birling don’t actually know what’s best. Mr Birling says to Eric “you have a lot to learn” which is Ironic because Mr birling has the most to learn as he refuses to accept any responsibly for what he has done, as he says “I have done nothing I am ashamed of” this shows his attitude of a strong believer in capitalism that “a man should look after himself” and not anyone else especially women and the lower class. Priestly presents Mr Birling like this so the audience realises the older generation are stuck in their ways and can’t accept responsibility for their actions, because in their view they are always right. Priestly presents Mrs Birling in a similar way, Mrs Birling doesn’t accept responsibility because she doesn’t like the lower class and believes it is there fault they are in the situations they get into, for example she say’s “girls of that class” which shows she is like her husband and won’t have anything to do with accepting responsibility or the lower class.  Mr and Mrs Birling don’t change throughout the play because the audience knows they will never change the older generation, but the younger generation might accept the responsibility and change, which is what priestly wants the audience to realise by presenting Mr and Mrs birling badly it influences the audience to relies they don’t want society to become like Mr and Mrs Birling, (capitalists)

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 Priestly uses the character Shelia to present a young capitalist changing into a young socialist. At the start Shelia say’s “you talk as if we are responsible” but after listening to the inspector and his views she realises that she was partly responsible and say’s “If I could help her now I would”. Priestly presents Shelia as intelligent. For example, she says to Eric “your squiffy” this shows she picks up that her brother has a drinking problem and her parents are oblivious to it.  Shelia is a very important character because she represents Priestley’s hopes for the future ...

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