'You ought to like this port, Gerald. As a matter of fact, Finchley told me it's exactly the same port as your Father gets from him.'
You can tell from this statement that Arthur Birling wants a great deal and worries a great deal about being accepted. He is just a man who really likes to please those in higher circles. He has also implied that he has a will to buy something that someone else with influence purchases as well. He is a weak man in this sense and doesn't want to get left behind in the 'purchasing game.'
This character appears to be quite willing to part with money if it keeps him up with the latest fad or designer accessory.
We find later on in the play that Mr Birling believes he is due for a knighthood. Generally, most people would be just happy if they were in this position, but he actually finds it as important because it would guarantee his social position.
'I have an idea that your Mother - Lady Croft - while she doesn't object to my girl feels you might have done better for yourself socially.'
Gerald's parents are upper class aristocracy and in that social circle, it is all in a name. The aristocracy hold a title which is inherited and the only other way to receive one is to be given it by the government or monarchy. Therefore Mr Birling finds the knighthood important, as it is a title. A title to say, 'if the government can accept me, surely you can too.' He has the money, the wife, the expectant son-in-law but the knighthood would be the icing on the cake. He means that when he becomes a 'Sir' Birling, he would be one of them and Gerald's parents would not have to feel ashamed, but proud that their son has married well.
'When you marry, you'll be marrying at a very good time…there's a lot of wild talk about possible labour trouble in the near future. Don't worry. We've passed the worst of it. We employers are coming together at last to see that our interests - and the interests of Capital - are properly protected. And we're in a time of steadily increasing prosperity.'
Here we discover traits of the hard-nosed businessman, to protect a factor of industry and trade - money!
How one could get from marriage, the join of love to business is hard to imagine. However, it's not if you are like Birling and you treat marriage as a convenient business arrangement. To Birling, love and affection are simply a bonus. Mr Birling seems to think that workers are like cattle. Herd them up and pull them tight - then they won't go astray and get wild ideas.
During the dinner party, Mrs Birling hands her daughter, Sheila some advice.
'When you're married, you'll realise that men with important work to do, sometimes have to spend nearly all their time and energy on their business. You'll have to get used to that, just as I had.'
Mr Birling does seem to present a certain air of power and control over his family. He has influenced his wife to say something that puts herself down as a woman. Her comment after all is hardly a troublesome for women's rights to be treated equally. Mr Birling is a man and this play was set during an era of absolute male power and the Birling's represented this 'male-friendly society.' Mrs Birling doesn't seem to want to change this because she has been taught this way growing up and her husband has reinforced this idea of male superiority. Mr Birling placed most of his attention and regard on his business, as a result he had not been as lovingly open to his wife as he could have been and now he has influenced her view on all men and marriage. In a chain reaction, he has taught his family that men are very important and women are primarily there to support them when needed.
'Just because the Kaiser makes a speech or two, or a few German officers have to much to drink and begin talking nonsense, you'll hear some people say that war's inevitable. And to that I say - fiddlesticks! The Germans don't want war, except some half-civilised folks in the Balkans. And war? There's too much at stake these days. Everything to lose and nothing to gain by war.'
This was his first view or belief, which has gone terribly erroneous and has contained verisimilitude.
He expresses his ignorance that wealth doesn't mean that war is never going to happen. He doesn't understand that some people want more than money, they may want something that money cannot buy. To say 'nobody' wants war is a very powerful and striking statement. He appears to be quite a clumsy man who says things without thinking first. He seems to believe that just because he thinks it won't happen it won't happen! By this we can assume that he is a man with a hint of arrogance, he lives in a closed society which is black and white. A closed world where everything is simple, everyone has the one goal in life, financial prosperity and everything is seen from 2D prospective, flat and plain with no complications. He is arrogant because he believes in himself so much that he believes he is always right.
However, this is not completely awful for a person's personality because a person may simply be naive. Then again he is more of an optimist than a pessimist, after all when some people say something won't happen, they really mean that they hope it won't happen.
When Mr Birling's son appears to comment on his Fathers statement of war, it is just one of many occasions where he treats his progeny like very young children.
'Just listen Eric, you've got a lot to learn yet.'
'I say there isn’t a chance of war. The worlds developing so fast that it'll make war impossible.'
In this we learn that when Mr Birling presents his views, he is very adamant. It is yet another example where he says things without care because surely nothing is impossible when war is concerned.
'And look at the way the auto-mobiles making headway - bigger and faster all the time. And then ships. The Titanic - she sails next week - forty six thousand eight hundred tonnes - New York in five days - and every luxury - and unsinkable, also unsinkable.'
The Titanic was another piece of history that did the reverse of what Birling said and this time he has dramatically 'put his foot in it.' The rumours say government had a huge part in causing it to sink - money was the agenda ahead of lives. Mr Birling works in a similar way, he is part of the bureaucracy and like it played a part in people’s fate on the Titanic, he played a part in Eva Smiths fate.
'In 1940 - you maybe giving a little party like this - your son or daughter might be getting engaged - and I tell you by that time, you'' be living in a world of Capital versus Labour agitation's and without all those silly little war scares. There'll be peace and prosperity and rapid progress everywhere - except of course in Russia, which will always be behindhand naturally.'
He seems to be mysterious but only when it suits him. He also seems to be deliberately prejudice or even racist towards Russia and its people.
He is very confident and when he states things, he says it in a manner that says, 'what I say goes.' Everything he claims will eventually go wrong. Birling is a man who believes that people, such as his workers who are locking for a better deal in life are just traitors. Traitors who oppose progress for their country, to him they stir up trouble and create unwanted publicity.
'We can't let these Bernard Shaws and H G Wellses do all the talking. We hard-headed businessmen must say something sometime.'
We learn from this that Birling doesn't like these two authors because they were two men who opposed Capitalist ideals and unlike Birling, did not believe it was the only way forward. His dislike comes from the fact that they were socialist visionaries who sympathised with the poor - workers. The same poor people who tried to take as little money as possible from Birling.
'You'd think everybody has to look after everybody else, as if we were all mixed up together like bees in a hive - community and all that nonsense. But take my word for it, you youngsters - and I've learnt in the good hard school of experience - that a man has to mind his own business and look after himself and his own - and —'
He knows that he has to look after number one - himself, because who else is going to do it? It is very significant that the Inspector arrives and rings the doorbell at this precise moment during Mr Birling's aggressive speech against the community and promotion of the individual.
It is as if the writer is thinking, 'right, you've had your say now it's my turn,' in the form of the Inspector though maybe. It stops Mr Birling dead in his tracks and shows that the writer can stop him and show him up at anytime he wants to, because Mr Birling isn't as powerful as he thinks he is.
'Perhaps I ought to warn you that he's an old friend of mine, and I see him fairly frequently.'
When the inspector criticises Birling about the strike at the factory, he turns on the offensive. Arthur Birling doesn't like appraisal especially from others considered lower than himself on the social scale. When his motives or values are questioned, he doesn't hesitate to use threats whether the person threatened is an inspector or his son.
'Look here, Inspector, I consider this uncalled for and officious. I've half a mind to report you. I've told you all I know and it doesn't seem to me as being very important - and now there isn't the slightest reason why my daughter should be dragged into this unpleasant business.'
Mr Birling reveals a side of him that is hypocritical; after all he is bossy as well. However, when he has tried to order his authority around to the Inspector, it hasn't worked and instead shown his easily frustrated nature. The business is only unpleasant because it shows his true colours.
He is a man who considers his daughter as still a young child and a piece of his property.
'You're the one I blame for this.'
This is a truly shocking statement from Arthur Birling; he says this to Eric, immediately after Inspector Goole has given a final righteous speech before leaving. After Sheila and Eric have accepted responsibility for some part in the cause of the girl's suicide, Birling turns round and shows he isn't ready and mature enough to do the same. He does what a child may do, dishing the blame on to the next immediate person, perhaps to ease the guilt off himself. He is not a man who is able to learn things like Sheila or Eric, he doesn't want to know about new ideas or new values, as soon as the Inspector leaves he immediately tries to get out of the situation. He is angry but he knows what he is saying. However, it makes it worse because he is blaming his own son.
Mr Birling is a very selfish man, a man who doesn't really know his children at all.
He hasn't tried to listen to him at all throughout the play often telling Eric off for supposedly interrupting his great long lectures, in effect he doesn't care about what his son thinks let alone why his son may think in that way.
'Yes, and you don't realise yet all you've done. Most of this is bound to come out. There'll be a public scandal.'
Mr Birling here conveys his self-obsession and becomes rather frantic about what other people will think of him and his public image. He doesn't want his reputation destroyed.
'You! You don't seem to dare about anything. But I care. I was almost certain for a knighthood in the next Honours List - '
He is again being a hypocrite, he cares about a titles medal but not a young girl’s life, most certainly because she was a lower-class worker, and she tried to defy him.
In conclusion Mr Birling is selfish, arrogant, self obsessed, and incompetent. He has no care for annoy other person around him, including his own family. He doesn’t even know his children or even his wife. All he cares for is his own well being, his social status and playing up to other people’s lives to be accepted which shows he leads a sad live.