The Birlings have an attitude problem and this is what makes them different from the middle and lower class.
The Inspector acts as a catalyst to bring responsibility to the family as he reveals secrets and lies.
Mr Birling is a man who is into his expanding business and makes a lot of money out of it, and because has money, he thinks he is upper class. Mr Birling is a mean person and thinks he is richer and therefore bigger than anyone else, which I believe, make it sounds very snobbish. He also believes that he will be knighted very soon, which means he has high expectations of himself - this is the part of society which doesn’t care about anyone else e.g. he wants his daughter Sheila to marry Gerald so he can have a part of the Croft’s business, not so his daughter can be happy.
Mrs Birling is very much the same, but possibly worse because she is a snob and has a lot of money, but is very selfish. Mrs Birling thinks that she is right and cannot be wrong because of this high class she thinks she is in. She is the cruel snob of society.
Gerald Croft is probably slightly less of a liar in some respects because he is in the upper class but not very high in it, his father owns a very large business called Crofts LTD. In other ways he is even more of a cheat than the others because he had an affair and he said he was working, but at least it was for a good reason because he was the one who was actually looking after Eva Smith (or as he knew her Daisy Renton). Gerald is the upper class person who thinks that because of who they think they can do what they want.
Eric lied when he stole money from his father’s office because he told the secretary or whoever was around that he was allowed to take it. Also he was giving the money to Eva Smith and not telling her that it was stolen and then got angry when she refused it (she had found out one night when he was drunk). He is the sort of person in society who ends up on the streets with no home or money because of their excessive drinking. He will eventually ruin his life and he will regret it deeply later in life, as he is only young.
The whole family in general symbolises a whole society each one represents a different part of society and could build up a town, a country or even the whole world.
Priestly was fascinated by the idea of time and used this as a ground base to build his stories onto. His theory was that of the philosopher and writer P.D Ouspensky, that time is a series of circles in a vertical row and if you are intelligent you will move up a circle and the intelligent people will all, be at the top and the less intelligent people will be at the bottom.
Priestley used this idea to get across the message that there is no escape from the responsibility of actions taken by people.
Inspector Goole is trying to help the Birlings and Gerald Croft by making sure they don’t repeat their mistakes.
The Inspector in some respects is just the characters conscience in order to make them change their minds about life.
The characters in the play do have some hope and the inspector is there to help them but only they can decide if they want to be helped.
Sheila and Eric are the only characters who learnt there lesson and they would be the ones who have a hope for the future.
Priestley made the inspector have a lot of authority, maybe too much but this is very clever because it makes him seem less like a real inspector and gives that feeling that tells you something is not right.
