The Inspector is shown in the play to be final, significant, decisive and strong minded. He knows what he’s doing. He’s intelligent, he speaks when it’s necessary and in addition he is in control, for instance, he shows the photograph of Eva Smith to the person he is referring to. Not anybody else ‘(INSPECTOR takes a photograph, about postcard size, out of his pocket and goes to BIRLING. Both GERALD and ERIC rise to have a look at the photograph, but the INSPECTOR interposes himself between them and the photograph.)’ He’s not the head of the house hold or an upper class figure, but he stays in control unlike Mr Birling. Mr Birling is narrow minded & nonsensical, Gibberish within form of lectures. He talks about historical periods/ events which happened ‘the titanic & said that it will be unsinkable, absolutely unsinkable’ but in fact, what he said was incorrect. The Titanic actually did sink. Priestly presents these two characters to reflect what’s happening in his society in that time. Mr Birling is obviously portrayed to be the higher class (with little things such as having a butler, being friends with people with a higher social status and playing golf) & Priestly makes them come across as a self centered, cold hearted, nonsensical man. This portrays what he thinks about the upper class where as The Inspector is caring but stern, purposeful as well, he represents the middle working class. Priestly portrays The Inspector as if he was a messenger, to deliver his ward to the upper class & society. He wanted to make the audience see what was happening and the effect/consequences of the strong class divisions and to give his opinion of what he thought of the divisions.
Mr Birling is revealed to be inconsiderate, stuck up character. You can see this by what he says ‘Nothing to do with you – run along’to Sheila and to the inspector‘I don’t like your tone’ (rather angrily impatiently and sharply). All of these show his emotions & personality because he’s a capitalist, he is used to luxury and he’s grown up to look down on the lower class. The stage directions gives us, ‘the readers’ a visual image of what Mr Birling’s doing whether it’s the way he talks, walks, facial expression, body language or style. Mr Birling body language seems to be stiff, enclosed just by how he is described in the text by the use of language for his character. ‘She looks attentive’ just after Mr Birling mentions ‘this concerns you too’ compared to him, The Inspector is a purposeful, stern & observing. He looks at everybody and judges everyone by ‘looking hard at each person’, as if he was scanning the person’s database of personality & history. He is purposeful ‘Creates at once an impression of a massiveness, solidity & purposefulness.’
Priestly wants us to feel different emotions towards them. He wants us to make us see where they are coming from, what their problems are & to feel how other people reacts with them e.g. Sheila. Sheila is Mr Birling’s daughter & even though she added another situation/sin on top of all that’s been happening to Eva, unlike the others, she shows remorse when she says: ‘no, not really, it was my own fault’. ‘she looks at it closely, recognises it [the picture of Eva] with a little cry’ and then runs out. Sheila is different to the others because she is the only one that shows remorse & guilt and confesses that it was her ‘own fault’. Overall he wants the audience to feel each character’s personality, attitude, and their way of seeing thing. if the reader gets that, they will see his message.
At first the mood of the house is calm, formal, subtle & joyful because they are celebrating the engagement. Everything is going according to plan; they have all had a good dinner, are celebrating a special occasion & are quite pleased with themselves’.
The room is bright and nothing rude has been said but, when the inspector comes in, the whole atmosphere and mood changes & goes the opposite. Its starts quite dark, dull, definitely serious. He creates a ‘heavy impression’ by just being himself. Someone with authority or someone to be with the law is always not good, so when that someone visits, people will start to feel uncomfortable and slightly distressed. The topics changes to Eva. The inspector jumps right to the point saying ‘(two hours ago a young woman died in the infirmary…she’d swallowed a lot of strong disinfectant. Burnt her inside out…’, that girl being Eva. He tells the truth and he says it how it is. Because the family are upper class, they would not expect this behaviour, they are not used to anybody speaking to them in that manner, so the react shocked and offended. Eventually the celebration party turns into a confession meeting. After everything has happened in act one, all the family sins come out and all are dreading about what’s going to happen next.
Mr Birling has the control of the household at the start. You would expect this because he’s the man/head of the family (father & husband), he earns the highest salary in the family, he’s a man & he is an honourable man (seen by his family and friends) because of his wealth, business & social status. Everyone pays attention to him. He’s also respected by his family, but when the inspector comes in, the authority instantly flips over to the inspector because he is a representative of the police and the law ( ‘the Inspector needs not to be a big man bit he creates at once on impression of massiveness, solidity and purposefulness’ ). When people sees this they will always set the person below the authority figure, in this case, Mr Birling is the underdog and the inspector comes out on top. They would want to know why he is there, what does he want to know and try to get him away as soon as possible. Even Mr Birling abides and obeys him as any other person in the room. This brings down his control level. The inspector also holds control by little thing he does for example: He only shows the photograph between himself and Mr Birling. Everybody else wants to see it but he refuses and does this for a reason, To show an act of authority. Another act is when he lets each character admit their sins towards Eva Smith, but not at once. He controls them by asking questions & they unravel themselves, there story & they realize they are wrong, to a certain extent he has the ability to make Sheila breakdown (‘she almost breaks down, but just controls herself)’and so he has a play of their emotions Just towards the end of act 1.
Mr and Mrs Birling contribute to Eva’s death by having a large negative impact on the reasons why. Mr Birling sacked Eva for going on strike and standing up for her opinions… for a little pay rise. Mr Birling escalates the situation into a bigger thing then it is. It makes him do drastic things. This is the same with Mrs Birling. Both of them refuse anything to do with Eva & her death. They define responsibility whatsoever with her. They are more cold-hearted, uncaring than Eric and Sheila. Eric and Sheila show sympathy and remorse, for instance, Sheila and Eric show remorse & devastation when they recognise her from the picture or her name/s (Eva Smith/Daisy Renton) ,(QUOTE). They totally understand and take responsibility for what they did wrong.
Eric Confesses on what happened with him and Eva & he turns out to be the most honest & he has the most positive impact then others (quote).
Mr & Mrs Birling thinks that the investigation that the inspector carries out is ‘inappropriate’ & (quote). They’re not used to being questioned, let alone with an inspector. Sheila doesn’t really act shocked but because she’s so isolated and protected she has become young, naive, innocent, vulnerable and blind to the real society and she doesn’t see the consequences of the actions that she does, she doesn’t see the affects, therefore she is not used to being involved in theses conversations, let alone an investigation.
Eric, however, takes it as a shock when he realises the situation and how Eva felt about him in their relationship that they had. Sheila and Eric feel some sort of indication of remorse & regret by being worried and not refusing the blame compared to Mr and Mrs Birling who doesn’t show any respect or guilt. They are absolutely fixed on they’re ‘not responsible for it’. They do not show any signs of that.
The audience are expected to feel negative emotions and thoughts towards Mr & Mrs Birling because by them not caring about their contributions towards others. Mr Birling has a snobbish personality and feels like he has got the right to look down on everybody and disrespect them. towards Mrs Birling, I think a negative feeling to her would be expected. She too, is as bad as Mr Birling, because she chose not to help Eva smith because of her pride and shame. Both of them represent the upper class and they are represented as bad. For Sheila, Eric and Gerald, the audience will have a feeling of sympathy because they realised what they did wrong and they took responsibility.
I think the audience feel changed by the ending result because everything is unravelled and they all eventually realise what they have done. The hint of mystery i.e. the inspector and the actual situation with Eva themselves gives a mysterious edge to it As a reader I feel towards Eva, a sad, sympathetic feeling towards her because if back in time, women were being treated like that, its not pleasant although towards Eric and Gerald I feel that there is hope, hope that they don’t become like Mr Birling. They actually show a caring side to Eva. Sheila, I thought she was a spoilt young woman and overprotected by her parents but now she has had reality check. I like her better than I did before.
By Radicka Norman 10.2
