Social status was more significant to Mr Birling than the correct moral decision and we observe this when he says, ‘…make us look a bit ashamed of ourselves in public’, (p60). He also used that belief in this case and he was prepared to sack one of his best workers just so a strike similar to this one would never occur again. Eva Smith’s status meant that she was very poor and was left with no job and no money to support her self, but lady luck shone on her 2 months later and she found another better-paid job at Milwards, a local fashion store. Sheila Birling was a regular customer at Milwards and an incident occurred one day when she arrived into the fashion shop looking for a dress. However when she tried it on, she caught Eva smiling at the assistant and so Sheila began accusing her of being, ‘impertinent’, (p24) and making a mockery of how she looked in the dress. Sheila complained to the manager and demanded that if Eva wasn’t sacked from her job, then she would get Mrs Birling to close their account with them. Sheila used her high status to put down Eva, as she was part of the ‘working class’. By doing this the character of Sheila shows that she believed that it was acceptable to do this and in society, the ‘high status’ people really ruled over the ‘lower class’ and they believed that they could use their high status to their own advantage. Eva Smith was sacked in her job at Milwards because a ‘higher class’ woman was jealous of Eva’s good looks and so intentionally got her sacked from her job.
After another unfavourable incident, Eva Smith was now poor and had nowhere to live. She had become in a very bad condition and her usual hangout had become the Palace Bar. This was the place where she met Eric Birling and he was given the impression that she was a prostitute searching for money because Eva was a woman who looked like she was part of a ‘lower class’. Eric Birling treated Eva like a sex object and took her back to ‘her lodgings’, (p51) and raped her. Eva Smith stayed with Eric because she had no money and no place to live but what Eric was looking for in his part of the deal was sex. When Eric discovered that Eva was pregnant, he decided that their relationship was never going to work out and his mother would never agree to the marriage because Eva Smith was part of lower class. Eric’s actions showed that women in 1912 were not treated as human beings but as a man’s toy or object like where they can play with them and after they are finished with them, throw them in to the garbage.
Finally I will be discussing how Mrs Birling treated Eva Smith. Mrs Birling was part of the ‘Brumley Women’s Charity Organization’, a charity that supposedly was set up to help women of ‘deserving cases’, (p42). Eva Smith approached Mrs Birling because she was in desperate need of help and she had no one else to turn to but all Mrs Birling had done to Eva was hinder and she influenced the entire committee to dismiss her case. Mrs Birling admitted to being ‘prejudiced against her case’, (p43) because Eva Smith used the name of Mrs Birling when she was asked what her name was. Following that, Mrs Birling insisted that, ‘she only had herself to blame’, (p43). Earlier in the play Mrs Birling had said, ‘…we can understand why the girl committed suicide. Girls of that class’, (p30). This quote from the play conveyed to us that Mrs Birling believed that ‘girls of that class’, (p30) had no sense of responsibility in their own lives and that they were useless. She didn’t realise that without the so-called ‘lower class’ she would have had to be the one working in the factories and going from job to job. An additional reason why Mrs Birling refused to help Eva was because she had ‘begun by telling us a pack of lies’, (p46) however what Eva Smith had informed Mrs Birling was completely the truth. Mrs Birling refused to believe it because she was hearing it from the mouth of a ‘lower class’ woman and Mrs Birling had the idea that whatever ‘girls of that class’, (p30) would say, it would constantly be a pack of lies. Mrs Birling repeatedly was prejudiced to Eva Smith and another example of it was when she explained, ‘As if a girl of that sort would ever refuse money’, (p47). This quote showed us that Mrs Birling thought that ‘lower class’ people were as greedy and as shallow as her self for money, and that they would do anything to obtain what they required, even steal. Mrs Birling used her high status to her own advantage and so she influenced the committee to refuse a ‘girl of that sort, (p47) of any help.
In conclusion, we have seen numerous examples of Eva Smith being disadvantaged not only because of the fact that she was part of the ‘lower class’ but also because she was a woman. The characters took advantage of this to the limit such as when Eric pretended to care for Eva because he wanted sex and Mrs Birling when she refused to help Eva Smith because she was part of the ‘lower class’. The Birlings used their high status and their money to put down Eva Smith and she was rejected and turned down many times until she couldn’t handle it any longer. Sheila treated Eva Smith like dirt in Milwards and decided to put her high status to use because she was jealous of Eva’s good looks. The ‘lower class’ in the 1912 were very badly treated and the fact that she was a women just made it easier to break Eva Smith down. Nowadays there are many benefits for single women and it was just a shame that the class system of 1912 had many prejudices and snobs. How things would’ve been different for the life of Eva Smith if she were part of a high status family.
