Birling may seem to be old fashioned in comparison to the young Gerald because when he offers him a cigar he refuses it for a more modern cigarette saying ‘can’t really enjoy them’, This shows that he wants to stick with his more affluent life style with the more expensive cigars.
Throughout the play Birling comes across as a very arrogant person and a social climber by the showing off of material wealth. He introduces his prospective son in law to the Inspector as “Mr Gerald Croft – the son of Sir George Croft – you know, Crofts Limited” endorsing the fact that he mixes in high social circles.
Birling loves to show off his wealth and status to Gerald. You get a glimpse of this when he offers him cigars and port. ‘Good port…exactly the same port as your father’. Birling feels that he is in competition with Gerald’s father and wants to show that he can achieve the same or better than him.
He tells Gerald confidentially when they are alone that he feels that Gerald’s mother thinks Sheila could do better and shares with Gerald the fact that he has had a ‘hint or two’ that ‘I might find my way to the next Honours List.’ He then plays the title down by saying ‘just a knighthood, of course’. By doing this it makes him seem less below the already knighted Sir George Croft indicating that they will be on a more equal footing when he achieves his title, he makes him self sound so important already that a knighthood is only something small and not very important to him as he already sees him self as being so big and powerful in his eyes.
Alcohol is a huge part of Birling’s life and a symbol of affluence. We find out a great deal about Birling and his obsessions with social status from the brief exchanges about port, at the beginning of the play. He tries to impress Gerald by informing him that it’s the same port his father drinks and he obtains it from the same supplier, which underlines the fact that Birling discusses knowing Sir George Croft with others to exaggerate the fact that he knows influence people.
The Inspector when interrogating Birling creates a dramatic image to exaggerate the fact that she is dead. Then later on he tries to show Birling and he has the same views and beliefs in these type of women to get Birling to talk ‘like all of these women who get into various kinds of trouble’ the Inspector asks Birling first before the other people in the family, because he considers him to be the head of the house. When the Inspector first arrived Birling thought that he was looking for a search warrant because he was a Magistrate so does not consider for a moment that there should be any trouble which he would be involved in. This shows his social standing particularly when he tells the Inspector ‘I was an alderman for years – and Lord Mayor two years ago – and I’m still on the Bench.’
Birling does not believe in the socialist view he thinks that everyone should look out for themselves. ‘We can’t let these Bernard Shaw’s and H.G Wells do all the talking’. In 1912 when the play was set, authors were writing about socialist’s views and opinions and Birling did not like this. He had very low views on the authors as he doesn’t want to let them tell people what is right. Birling considers himself to be Upper Class because of his wealth but is probably still Middle Class because he is still working and living in a ‘fairly large suburban’ house. He does not like people who are in lower classes such as Eva Smith and other factory workers in his employ. We can tell this as he doesn’t have much sympathy for Eva Smith after she has died. He shows no feelings of sorrow as he doesn’t think it affects him. He only starts to care later on in the play when he fears that it could affect his knighthood.
The play has a theme of dramatic irony, when Birling talks of the Titanic claiming that she was unsinkable when in fact she sank on her maiden voyage a week later, Priestley does this to show that no matter how much Birling thinks he is right he can be wrong. He does this with the Titanic so that the audience will instantly pick up on it and realise what he is saying isn’t all true, even though he thinks it is.
The author J.B Priestley was brought up in a socialist way so he based all his negative opinions of capitalism upon Birling character. This was done to that Priestley could get his point across how to stop wars and fights from happening. In the time that the play was set it was a patriarchal society; Sheila shows this in the play after her mother questions where Gerald was the previous summer during the 1912 men were never questioned by women. This way of thinking would add to the self importance of Birling character as he would have expected to be looked up to by the rest of his family.
The Inspector’s role in this play is to show how one person can bring out all the Seven Deadly Sins in the characters which he is interviewing drawing a comparison to the original morality plays of the late middles ages but showing a much more modern view which the audiences of post war Britain would relate to.
The contrast between Sheila and Eric, Birling’s children with Birling himself shows that they are trying to be themselves not what Birling wants them to be. He criticises Sheila’s choice of words when she describes Eric as ‘squiffy’ at the beginning of the play saying ‘the things you girls pick up these days’. He then shows a difference between Eric and Birling when Eric says that he would not have sacked Eva Smith for asking for more money telling his son that he should learn a few more responsibilities. Birling clearly feels that there is a difference between his views and those of his son and daughter and Priestley shows this in these ways.
