Mr. Burling an avid capitalist who embodies “everyman for himself” and thrives on “lower costs and higher prices”. He is a pompous snob and considers himself blameless. He has a blind faith in technology, believing it will make the world perfect and that there’ll be peace. “there isn’t a chance of war. The worlds developing so fast it will make war impossible.” Mr. Burling perceives the world through capitalist eyes, “man has to make his own way- has to look after himself- and his family too… But the way some of these cranks talk and write now, you’d think everybody has to look after everybody else, as if we’re all mixed up together… community and all that nonsense.” This really sums up his and many other capitalists views. This is what the inspector is avidly against. The inspector turns up just as the previous quote was said.
The inspector is greeted with unkindness and snobbery no one in the household thinks that they can have anything to do with the girls death. They are all capitalists and consider themselves blameless. The younger generation, are the only to learn a lasting lesson from what happened. Sheila feels shock, horror and empathy after she is inspected. She feels she and her family are to blame for the girl’s death. Although initially she did feel it had nothing to do with her. But what do her parents think? Can they except their blame to a part of this girl’s death? No they can’t they still believe it’s the girls fault, “I don’t suppose for a moment that we can understand why the girl committed suicide. Girls of that class - ” Mrs. Burling said this. She perceives herself as above all others. She uses her class as a way out, as she thinks being in upper class makes you a saint, someone who neither sees nor speaks no evil. She uses hers and her family’s contacts to intimidate others to leave her alone. “My husband was Lord Mayor only two years ago and that he’s still a magistrate - ”. In many ways Mrs. Burling is worse than Mr. Burling because she was brought up with a high-class family she sees how the public perceives you as the only thing that matters. Due to this she got involved with a woman’s charity designed to help women who needed it. She turned away a scared young woman, Eva Smith, because Eva Smith used Mrs. Burlings name. If you feel scared and vulnerable would you use a name you could be recognized by? She doesn’t even feel bad about this she blames the father. It was definitely an immense shock for her when the young man she had been slandering for getting this girl pregnant is actually her son. When Eric hears about what his mother had done he is furious “you killed her- and the child she’d of had too - my child – your grandchild – you killed them both” Mrs. Burling is distressed when she hears this and finds it difficult to know what to say. Yet she still doesn’t accept her own guilt in the girls death. Eric’s outburst shows he may have felt that becoming a father would help him grow up. Eric learned a lesson for life during he’s inspection where he confesses up to stealing to help provide for the girl. The younger generation show respect towards the inspector, where as the parent merely show contempt.
Gerald is much like the older generation of Burlings. To begin with he feels no compassion to what happened to the girl until he realizes he knows the girl. At this point he is very upset and feels compassion as he thought he was in love with her when they where together. This makes him much like the younger generation that feels shock, sadness and compassion. He then goes and takes a walk to “clear his head” He sure did, by the time he got back the inspector had gone and he was thinking of ways to which this could all be a lie.
In conclusion this book shows hope at the end that the younger generation of society as a whole will get away from the capitalist views of their parents and begins to think about others and give socialism a stronger chance to prosper. Socialism is the fairest way to run society as we are responsible for each other. We should learn from our past mistakes and stand together as a world wide society and help those in need. How can we not? If we did stand together as a world wide society surely there wouldn’t be any wars and poverty in third world countries would be no more? If the author came back today, would he be happy at what he finds? A world with money and great technology, yet people still starving to death? In most cases society is still strongly capitalist. One of the few thing he would be happy of in England is that we do have a welfare state so that the “millions and millions of Eva Smiths and John smiths” would have money. Also everyone is now educated to a good standard so the Eva Smiths and John Smiths would have the chance to get a job with good prospects.
