As a young woman in 1912 Sheila was supposed to take on the secondary role in the marriage. The women were supposed to be “seen and not heard” in the relationship and they were expected to behave like good housewives example cooking, cleaning, looking after the husband, and not getting involved in business.
When Sheila attempts to discuss business with the men, they treat her as though her thoughts are of no use or interest to them, laughing off the possible good or bad suggestion a women makes to business. When the men are discussing business, the women are not very pleased with it and try to change the subject.
Mrs B: “Now, Arthur, I don’t think you ought to talk business on an occasion like this.”
Sheila: “Neither do I. All wrong.”
We imagine that whilst the women are saying this, the men would be thinking, that it is not a woman’s place to speak of business and that it is “out of their league”.
When the inspector starts revealing the truth about Gerald, Mr Birling is not as shocked as one would expect him to be, in fact we get the impression that Mr Birling is under the impression that all young men have affairs,
Birling: “Now, Sheila, I’m not defending him. But you must understand that a lot of young men-“Although he didn’t get to finish his sentence, this indicates that he didn’t think it such a rare thing for a man to have an affair at Gerald’s age.
Sheila’s reaction to the news that the young girl had committed suicide, in my opinion was that she was shocked that someone around her age could commit suicide.
Sheila: “Sorry! It’s just that I can’t help thinking about this girl - destroying herself so horribly – and I’ve been so happy tonight”
The news of this girl committing suicide had ruined her day. She must have been thinking how could this girl do such a thing, what was so bad about her life that she would choose to take it away, and that something really bad must have happened to her. Sheila must have thought how bad it would be, if it happened to her, and how all her family would mourn over her death, but this girl had no one to do that.
Sheila was shocked to realise that she had contributed to the death of Eva Smith. We must bear in mind that at the time she had got Eva Smith fired, she felt bad, now she realise that it could have contributed to her death, she feels awful.
Sheila: “- but I felt rotten about it at the time and now I feel a lot worse”.
This indicates that she feels guilty and at this time she feels responsible, until later when she finds out that she is not the only one who contributed to Eva Smith death.
When Sheila realised that her father was involved in the death of Eva Smith, she was appalled at his behaviour towards women and commented that women are equal members of society and are not just a source of cheap labour.
Sheila: “But these girls aren’t cheap labour - they’re people.”
This is a dramatic device that Priestley has used well in the play to add effect. The fact that he emphasised the word “people” is showing to the audience that she doesn’t believe in the difference between men and women in the 1912 society.
Sheila realised that Gerald was having an affair from his reaction to the inspector saying the name of Daisy Renton, and we imagine she must have been curious as to the circumstances of this affair, that is why later she wants to stay in the room while the inspector is going into the details of the affair even when her mother has instructed her to go to bed. She was appalled that he had an affair but her father was not interested in this matter.
Sheila doesn’t really care that the inspector is not a real police inspector, she just cares that they have finally got to the truth. However the other people feel as though they have been taken for a ride.
Mrs B.: “Well I must say his manner was quite extraordinary; so – so rude – and assertive–“
Birling: “then look at the way he talked to me. Telling me to shut up – and so on…”
After they find out that inspector Goole is a fraud, the family is basically split into two split between the older and younger members, firstly there is the slight alliance of Mr and Mrs Birling. But Sheila and Eric are more regretful at the fact she actually died they don’t worry about the fact that a fraud told them but the fact that it happened. This suggests that the older generation– Mr and Mrs Birling don’t actually care much about the death, but more about it destroying their public reputation. Where as the younger generation care more about the death and the emotional effects it has.
Sheila has now learnt that weather people are rich or poor or upper/lower class that no one is better then anyone else, and she has opened her eyes to the fact that the world is a harsh cruel place. As well as the differences between the sexes there is also a huge difference between the lower class and higher class, and there is no middle class, therefore compromise.
At the beginning of the play Sheila is just an average woman in her time just looking forward to life and her engagement, and she thinks life is great. But later in the play, driven by guilt Sheila’s personality changes from the women that just follows orders as it was custom for the women of 1912, into a woman that is not scared to share her true feelings like nowadays men and women have equal rites and she turns against her family when they try to deny their part to play in the death of Eva Smith, justifying this by telling them that a girl has died.