People who have contributed to Eva Smiths emotionally affected life up to the point where she committed suicide.

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An Inspector Calls

Eva Smith lead a very traumatic adulthood because of the constant catastrophes she has encountered. There have been a number of people who have contributed to Eva Smiths emotionally affected life up to the point where she committed suicide.

Arthur Birling was a rich man and only seemed to care about his family and how well his business was
progressing, in other words how much money he was earning. He didn't care about any of his workers, and didn't know them at all, as it quotes in the book, 'I have a couple of hundred workers under me, who keep changing' (Act 1, page 12, line 16.) Therefor this shows that there was no personal relationship with Arthur Birling and Eva Smith until after the strike. Arthur Birling states that all the workers had just come back from their holidays and had become very restless, and then just decided to demand for a pay rise or they would go on strike. Of course he denied it, so all the workers wouldn't come back. After a while they were all begging to come back because they were becoming poor, so Arthur Birling let them all back and fired the ringleaders, one of whom, Eva Smith. Eva Smith was now out of work for two months, and was earning no money. She hadn't any savings so she became half starved. Also both her parents were dead so they couldn't offer her help. This may be another reason why she committed suicide, maybe because her parents were dead also. She had few friends who couldn't help her, and she was feeling very upset and ill. So to round up the events linked between Arthur Birling and Eva Smith, I would say that even though the fired her, it isn't the end of the world, and she is cable of finding another job as we find out later.

Sheila Birling, the daughter of Arthur Birling, understands the effect she had on Eva Smith. Whilst one day
at Milwards, Sheila was experimenting with some dresses and hats, and she new very well they didn't suit her so she asked Miss. Francis how it should be worn. Miss. Francis asked Eva Smith to put it on and show Miss. Birling how it was worn. Sheila saw Eva Smith laughing at her, so Sheila was very rude to them both and then went straight to the manager and complained that Eva Smith was being very disrespectful and
impertinent. She said that if Eva Smith was here the next time Sheila walked into the shop to buy clothes, she would walk out immediately and never shop there again, and tell her mother to close her account with you. It seems a pathetic reason to be sacked, but customers and clients always come before the assistant. As they say, 'The customer is always right!' I think that Sheila was jealous of Eva Smith, so just to show off her power, she got her sacked from her last decent job. Being fired from your last and second job is very
painful. All these incidents are adding up, and resulting in an enormous and heart breaking situation at the end.

Gerald Croft has a large contribution, as he had an affair with her and just abandoned her when he felt like it. It all started when he saw her one night at the stalls bar in the Palace Theatre, and started talking to her because she was being harassed by a large fat man, that Gerald knew. After awhile Gerald persuaded her to come back to Gerald's, just too talk, as friends! So she did. Two days later when they met again, on purpose this time, he found that she was completely penniless, half starved and no whereto live, probably because she couldn't afford the rent in her old placement. So Gerald allowed her to move into an apartment, which his friend had trusted him with, while Gerald's friend was away on business in Australia. A couple of days went by, and Gerald was going around to the apartments often to see Eva, and things progressed to Eva
becoming Gerald's mistress and Gerald being the most important thing in Eva's life. Eva was madly in love with Gerald, but knew herself that it couldn't be, as they were both from very different classes, but she still loved him. He didn't feel the same way as Eva felt about him, because it quotes this in the book. If she ever found out that Gerald didn't love her, her heart would be broken once again!

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Gerald eventually ended their relationship, but it was no surprise, as Eva already knew that this situation would occur sometime or other. Since there was no relationship anymore, Eva had to move out of the
apartment, and she went to live at the seaside. She said she needed to live there where it was quiet and she had time to think about everything that has happened. I don't think Gerald had a great part to do with Eva committing suicide, as she had already knew at the beginning that their relationship wouldn't, and couldn't be! So it wasn't much of a ...

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