From this statement alone you can see just how much Mr Birling’s life revolves around money and power.
Birling strongly believes that “a man has to make his own way – has to look after himself – and his family too, of course” This quote shows just what is important to him and in the order of importance they are. He believes he has to care for himself above all else, his family is merely an afterthought. He does not, at any point, consider the harm he might cause other people because of this attitude. He is confident that his success is due to the fact that he is a “hard headed man of business”. This means that when business is concerned his only worries are that of how much money he is making and how much more money he can make. He has no concern for the people’s lives he affects in doing this. His views on how people should look after themselves and no one else is also shown when he says “you’d think that 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” This shows, once again, how ignorant Birling is, and how much he does not care about the effect any of his actions have on others. It is a significant part of the play as when the Inspector leaves the house he contradicts it by saying “with their lives, their hopes and fears intertwined with our lives, and what we think and say and do. We don’t live alone. We are members of one body.” This shows how different the views of Birling and the Inspector are. It is also the moral of the play, that we are not just single people, we are a community.
Priestley uses Birling to represent Capitalist views and the Inspector to represent Socialist views. Priestley uses the Inspector to represent what he believed him, he shows him as the all knowing, wise man with a lot of patience and as the one who tries to teach Birling a lesson. Whereas Priestley uses Birling to symbolize everything he was against, he shows Birling as a business man who is only interested in making money. The play is written in 1940 but set in 1912. This has an impact on who the audience perceive Birling. Priestley hopes that this will be negative perception. This is because in the play Arthur makes several speeches where he makes predictions about the future. “We’ve past the worst of it”, “you’ll hear some people say that war is inevitable. And to that I say – fiddlesticks! The Germans don’t want war. Nobody wants war”, “I’m talking as a hard-headed, practical man of business. And I say there isn’t a chance of war.”, “the Titanic – she sails next week – forty six thousand eight hundred tons - forty six thousand eight hundred tons – New York in five days – and every luxury – and unsinkable, absolutely unsinkable.” All of these quotes add up to great dramatic irony, as the audience of this play will of course know that the WW1 happens and that the Titanic sunk on its maiden voyage. Also throughout these speeches, whenever Arthur is interrupted he just continues to make his point, he isn’t concerned of what other people might believe only in what he considers to be.
“Eric: “Yes, I know – but still –”
Birling: “Just let me finish Eric. You’ve a lot to learn yet.” ”
This shows just how much he believes he is above the rest of his family.
Mr Birling does not change throughout the course of the play. His children, Sheila and Eric both seem to learn a lesson from the Inspectors visit. Eric at the beginning of the play it is obvious that Eric is an immature boy. He seems uncomfortable in his surroundings, never completely at ease. When Gerald and his dad are talking before the Inspector comes in, about what the nature of his visit could be, Gerald makes a joke “Sure to be. Unless Eric’s been up to something” This comment makes Eric act suspiciously and makes him more nervous than he already was. This shows that Eric has some secrets. By the end of the play Eric shows that he sees the mistakes he made. He acknowledges the error of his ways and takes responsibility for what he did and seems to learn from them. When the family discover that the Inspector was not who he claimed to be, Eric still believed that what they had learnt changed a lot, that everything would not go back to as it once had been and he accuses others in the family of pretending that nothing had ever happened. At the beginning of the play Sheila is very happy with her life and she behaves like a spoilt brat. But towards the end of the play she appears to a have a conscience and regrets her behaviour. She seems to be genuinely remorseful and seems to have learnt something from the events of the evening. She feels worse about what happened to Eva than the others, she realises the effect that her actions had on someone else, and she sees the error of her ways and tries to accept responsibility for what she did. Sheila also does not change her opinion on the events of the evening when the family discover that Inspector Goole was a hoax. She truly understands what had happened, and realises that they all have to change there ways. Mr Birling, however, shows no remorse at the end of the play. Through the duration of the play his only concern seems to be how all this will appear to other people. He is anxious about how all this is going to affect his public image. He doesn’t want the story to come out publicly as it will ruin him. This is a very shallow response and it shows how little Birling cares about the deeper issues brought up by the Inspector. He can’t understand the Inspector asking them to see that all of them are in some way responsible for Eva’s death. He cannot see that all people are in some way responsible for one another. He doesn’t understand why Sheila and Eric are so upset. Especially when they discover that Goole was a fraud, he just passes of the events as a joke and nothing has changed for him. He ignores the shameful things his family has done. He is happy to believe that everything is just as it was a few hours ago. He is selfish and self-centred and can’t see why his children can’t go on living as they did before.
He imitates the inspector saying “You all helped kill her” then points towards Sheila and Eric, laughing, as he remembers their faces once the Inspector had said that. Then he repeats what the Inspector had said about the younger generation “Now look at the pair of them – the famous younger generation who know it all” mocking his children because they actually feel some regret for their actions. This is an example of pride coming before a fall as a moment later the phone rings and he is panicking.
