The first impressions we get of Mr Birling is that hes a very pompous and vain man

Before the inspector arrives Birling is portrayed as a very narrow minded, self-centred and vain man “and I say there isn’t a chance of war” and “the titanic absolutely unsinkable” The fact he makes these confident predictions helps the audience realize how idiotic and vain he is to make predictions that the audience knows is false, this is called dramatic irony Priestley uses the technique to help us realize how idiotic the upper class and in this case Birling is. Before the inspector arrives Sheila acts very curious, spoilt and we get the impression shes daddies little girl “(taking out the ring) Oh –its rather wonderful!” This implies Sheila is rather spoilt and if she wants something she’ll get it, kind of like a kid. In comparison we can assume how they would act towards the inspector before actually reading the scene and due to their age contrast there is a huge contrast in their characters.

When the Inspector arrives Birling views him as being disrespectful and views him as lower class so thinks he’s unimportant but soon his strong personality and confidence is soon knocked down by the inspector “Unless you brighten your ideas, you’ll never be in the position to tell anybody to go” and “that’s something this public and varsity life you’ve had dosent seem to teach you” This shows how low he thinks of the inspector and how he thinks that he’s more important because he’s higher class and the inspectors working class, but all of his confidence and feelsing are turned into self justification “if I’d agreed to this the demand for a new rate we’d have added 12% to are labour costs” this shows how hes know reflected on his decision and has justified it, this is then turned into anxiety as Erics and the rest of the familys involvement is found out and he can feel his “knightshood” slipping away which again shows how he only cares about himself and not Eva smith. As the inspector arrives and informs Sheila of her involvement her joyful,spoilt and perky personality is quickly changes to “distressed” and “miserable” These stage directions imply that she’s remorseful and devastated by her involvement of the young ladies death, Priestley does this to show us the power the inspector has over people, also how he effected the mind of the younger generation. In contrast they both change quite a lot when the inspector arrives but in comparison Sheila has changed for the better.

J.Priestley has presented them in this way to show the world that it was too late to change the older generation and this way of thinking caused a war but it’s not too late to change the views of the younger generation to prevent future incidents from happening, this is done as a political message.