There are six main characters each representing a part of the society. Arthur Birling is rather portentous. He is a prosperous manufacturer and very rich. He is a “heavy looking man” in his middle fifties with fairly easy manners but rather provincial in his speech. His wife is about the same age “a rather cold woman and her husbands social superior”. Sheila is a pretty girl in her early twenties, very pleased with her life and rather excited. Gerald croft is “a well-bred young man about town”. Eric is the son of the Birlings, shy and “assertive”. The Inspector is an unknown mysterious character who is the catalysts of the events; he is described as creating “an impression of massiveness, solidity and purposefulness”.
He speaks carefully, weightily and has a disconcerting habit of looking hard at the person he addresses, which breaks down the Birlings later on in the play. Each of the Birlings and Gerald have something to hide, but none are aware of the fact that every one is involved, except for the inspector, who uses dramatic irony to make sure they confess their guilt.
At the beginning of the play, Arthur Birling is holding a family dinner party to celebrate his daughter’s engagement. At this stage, Arthur Birling is happy and relaxed. He is not behaving the way he usually does towards guests (Gerald Croft) and is not setting a good example or a good impression of the play. His cold stern wife notices this tells him off “you’re not supposed to say things like that”. This shows how cold Mrs Birling is. Even on a happy family occasion, she is strict on the rules and regulations.
Gerald Croft is giving a first impression of himself towards the rest of the family. He has to be careful and please Sheila. Even though she is in doubt about him because of his unexplained absence “for all last summer when you never came near me”. Gerald satisfies her with an excuse but he himself knows he was with Daisy Renton. He also has to please Mr Birling for social reasons. Equally, Mr Birling is careful in front of Gerald for financial gains. He sees His daughter’s engagement as a business deal, which he wants to benefit from. As the Crofts name is bigger than the Birlings, Mr Birling wants to combine the two for financial gains. He expresses his desire by saying “your father and I been friendly rivals in business for some time now – though Crofts Limited are bigger and older than the Birling Company – and now you have bought us together, and perhaps we may be looking forward to a time where Crofts and Birlings are no longer competing but are working together for lower costs and higher prices. This proves how Mr Birling is greedy and selfish. He is investing his daughter.
This Investment and greed shows he is very satisfied with himself leading him to ignore his guilt of driving Eva Smith to death. At this stage he shows how wealth has made him a “rather
Portentous man”, by having a grand toast on a family occasion. Eric doesn’t like this and wants to celebrate the occasion in a way that opposes his father’s upper-class status. He doesn’t want to go through toasts and speeches “well don’t do any, we’ll drink their health and have over and done with”. This shows his father has not had a lot of influence in his upbringing. He has been concerned too much with his business and wealth leaving his children adopting ways of life which he opposes e.g. talking against elders. Because of Mr Birling’s neglect of his children’s upbringing, they could not talk to him about their problems which made those matters worse.
What J.B Priestly is trying to say about people/parents of like the Birlings, is that they are concerned with their lives only and, what they benefit from. That is why their children are left to deal with their own problems. They don’t feel comfortable talking to their parents. Eric says this at the end of the play when his parents want a scapegoat and blame him for everything including their own misdeeds ignoring their own guilt. They tell him he should have come to his father when he was in trouble. Eric clearly tells Mr Birling what sort of father he is to his children “you’re not the type of father a chap would come to when he is trouble”.
Mr Birling was looking for a knighthood, because of his service as a magistrate and a lord mayor. He expresses all this by talking to Gerald “so well I gather there’s a good chance of a knighthood. So long as we behave ourselves, don’t get into court”. Now the audience are unaware of what Birling has done that could get him into court. Because of his civil service, Mr Birling thinks himself to know everything. The audience know he is wrong because he is talking about what the future holds (future as in the audience’s time of the 1940s). The audience know what has happened. He predicts the Titanic is unsinkable; there will not be a war.
Capital .v. Labour will be finished. He is wrong in each case. This is how Priestly creates dramatic irony. Mr Birling continuously tells every one of his social superior by contentiously mentioning himself being a “hard headed business man”, which proves he is a show off.
Sheila and Eric a still young and learning that’s why they are easily changed by the Inspector. They know their mistakes and try to conceal them. Both want a happy life, thinking nothing has happened. They wanted to let out their guilt that’s why they are not changed by the fact that the inspector was not a real inspector after all. Both continuously say, “It doesn’t matter if he wasn’t a real inspector after all. Sheila and Eric both represent the younger generation.
Gerald is the same age as Sheila and Eric, but his reaction is more like the senior Birlings. This is because he leaves half way through the inspector’s enquiries. He realises that the Inspector is a mysterious character who is not here to bring any justice but to change the way the Birlings who represent the society. He succeeds in changing the younger future generations and not the older generations. However, Gerald is still guilty and regrets what he has done.
Eva Smith represents the working class. J.B Priestly through Eva Smith tries to show the struggle of a working class woman. He shows how each of the Birlings and Gerald use Eva Smith/Daisy Renton for a period and then throw her away like some rubbish. The audience are shown how the actions of Capital upper-class people destroy young people’s lives and in Eva Smith's case if the problem persists, are forced to commit suicide. J.B. Priestly shows the impact the upper-class people have on working-class people. The neglect to the needs of the working-class peoples lives has lead to factors such as Capitalism .V. Labour. The working class people are not treated as humans by the Birlings specially Mr & Mrs Birling.
After realising what Eva Smith’s Relationship is with Eric, and therefore with the Birlings, Mrs Birling doesn’t like Eva Smith, so she refuses help even though she has realised what Eva Smith has been through. She pretends nothing has happened. However, she doesn’t know Eric was the father of the child and when the inspector questions her, she tells him her opinion “I blame the young man who was the father of the child she was going to have. If, as she said, he didn’t belong to her class and was some drunken young idler, then that’s all the more reason why he shouldn’t escape. He should be made an example of. If the girl’s death is due to any body it is due to him”. However she backs her self by trying to say her deeds were alright and not wrong “The girl asked for assistance and we carefully looked at her claims, she seemed to me to be not a very good case so I used my influenced and refused. Later on, she admits that “I didn’t like her manner, she’d impertinently used our name. The above quotations tell the story of why she was refused for the very last time.
The Inspector knows each of the Birling and Gerald’s role in driving Eva Smith to commit suicide. He makes sure no one backs out or tells lies. I don’t think he is a real inspector, because he wasn’t moved to make any arrests or when Mr Birling said “I was an older man for four years and Lord Mayor for two years ago- I’m still on the Bench, I know the officers pretty well. Mr Birling is trying to say look don’t waste my time or your jobs in danger. Instead, the Inspector leaves, leaving Mr Birlings position in the society and for a knighthood threatening. He leaves with a speech aimed at concluding Eva Smiths death. Some points which J.B Priestly says through the inspector relate to the morality of the play. Some of these points are “one Eva Smith gone but there are millions left, with their lives, hopes and fears, suffering and chance of happiness all intertwined with our lives. We are members of one body; we are responsible for each other. And I tell you a time would come when, if men not learn that lesson they will be taught in hell and blood and anguish”.
J.B. Priestly is speaking through the Inspector. Hell could mean as in an after life punishment or as in the world will be hell to live in (WW2). J.B. Priestly is trying to tell the morals of the play in this speech. He is telling people what was the world like years before the war and how we are effected by people like the Birlings and what impact Capitalist had on us. He is telling his audience that their social problems are still not solved.
Mr Birling gave a speech to Gerald and Eric saying “the way some of these cranks (the Inspector) talk and write, you’d think everybody has to look after everybody, as if we were mixed up together like bees in a hive, community and all that nonsense, I’ve learnt in the good hard school of experience – that a man has to mind his own business”. Then the inspector arrives at a stage where Mr Birling is saying every man is for himself. He talks about his own experience; this could be when Eva Smith rebels. The inspector proves him wrong by telling him his own past like an angel.
After the inspector leaves slowly everyone realises the inspector was a fake. This matters a lot to Mr Birling and Mrs Birling. Their position is less likely to be affected. “Public scandal is less likely”. They won’t be portrayed as murders in the media and Mr Birling still has a good chance for a knighthood. They start to pretend nothing has happened. Mr Birling starts to say things like “By Jingo a fake”, this shows how happy he is that his position is not in danger any more. He is not the least bothered by the fact that he had some part in the death of Eva smith. He also says “They just won’t try to understand our position or to see the difference between a lot of stuff like this coming out in private and a down right public scandal”. He also wants to laugh the matter off. He is laughing when he repeats the Inspectors phrase of you helped kill her. “You’ll have a good laugh over it”, he the says, “Look at the pair of them – the famous younger generation who knew it all. And they can’t even take a joke”.
Eric and Sheila realise it doesn’t matter if the Inspector was a fake or not. They think that they cannot start “pretending” again and they did what they confessed. The real thing that matters is not to repeat the past and help people like Eva Smith, reduce their problems. J.B. Priestly is trying to say that we cannot let the younger generations make the same mistake. Every one is represented in the play and everyone can learn. J.B. Priestly message is that “we are part of one body caring for each other carrying responsibilities if one part is hurt then everyone suffers. We can’t ignore our responsibilities.
The Inspector is J.B. Priestly speaking to his audience. The Inspector comes in at a happy time, takes everyone into account and leaving making everyone feeling guilty but only changing Eric and Sheila. After his departure they realise he was a hoax. They calm down and pretend nothings happened but because this is a cycle and they could have hurt more than one Eva Smith, the audience are left guessing as another inspector visits them for the same reason. This suggests they are guilty for more than one crime.
