To what extent can the tragedy of Eva Smith be blamed on the society in which she lived?

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Jason Thurgood        11/3        01/05/2007

                        Drama essay on ‘An Inspector calls’

To what extent can the tragedy of Eva Smith be blamed on the society in which she lived?

In this essay I will explain who I feel is most responsible for Eva Smith's death, by examining each character's contribution to the tragedy. I will also illustrate to what extent her death can be blamed on the society she lived in.

In 1912 the society in which Eva Smith lived was very strict with a class system that split England up into wealthy and poor people with no classes dividing them. The sailing of the titanic was one of the feature points for that year. The navy was unchallenged and there were no help from the state to support the poor, no DHSS or NHS and the average life expectancy was around 46. There were advances in technology mass media being one, the developing of motorcars was introduced but only available for those who were rich enough to afford one. Trade unions had also started to gain power in the society, there were strikes from coal miners about work costs and conditions and the campaign for women’s rights had begun.

I will demonstrate what I think Mr Arthur Birling had to do with the death. He is a pompous, self-serving business man who seems to have a high opinion of himself. Mr Birling states ‘for lower costs and higher prices’. From this quote you can tell that all he is interested in is his business, money and himself and couldn’t care less about anyone or anything. He also says ‘I gather that there is a very good chance of knight hood’ this also tells us he is snobby and vain, and thinks his stature and class make him the best and his knighthood is what he really cares about. When the Inspector starts to ask him questions about Eva Smith he seems to remember her quite well and gives the Inspector a lot of information about her, he even said himself that ‘she was a good worker….’ And was told by the leading operator in his factory that she was ready for promotion. He told the Inspector that it all started to go wrong for her when she came back from holiday in August, he said that her attitude had changed quite dramatically and she seemed rather restless within herself. Then out of no-where Eva and a group of girls asked Mr Birling for a pay rise of twelve and a half shillings, so that they could average twenty-five shillings a week. He had refused their demand and told them that it was ‘a free country…’ and if they wanted to go and work somewhere else they could. He basically was telling them they were sacked and to go and find another job. The women then decided to go on strike but as Mr Birling told us that the strike didn’t last for long maybe a week or two, as they were all broke. At this time there were no work benefits so the workers had no help and just did what they were told to do. There was a class system and because the workers were lower class they had to respect their superiors i.e. their bosses.  That was the last Mr Birling had seen or heard of Eva smith. I feel that Mr Birling is mainly to blame, as he had started a chain of reactions from sacking Eva.

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Sheila Birling. She is a pretty young girl in her early twenties; she is also well educated and has a rather pleasant and excited outlook on life. You can tell this from the beginning of the book, where the family are having dinner, Sheila’s language and behaviour shows us that she was brought up in a high class way, the words she uses also state this like ‘I should jolly well think not’ and she refers to her parents as ‘mummy’ and ‘daddy’. Just from these two quotes it shows you that she has be taught proper English, she uses ...

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