Mr Arthur Birling is a self made man whose priority is to make money, ‘It's my duty to keep labour cost down’. Birling is cunning in a way, for he has welcomed Gerald Croft whose dad is a very successful business man, and if he has the Crofts as his family, then he has more change in gaining money by joining the 2 different companies as 1, for he doesn’t have to lower the costs of products to gain more customers than the croft company. Mr Birling always thinks for himself, for he doesn’t care for Eva Smith, but just wants his Knighthood. The funny thing about Mr Birling is that he thinks the whole world evolves around money and that anyone would accept it and take a bribe, ‘Look, Inspector - I'd give thousands’. I believe that Mr Birling represents Priestley’s hatred towards businessmen who are only interested in the money going up.
At the start of the play Sheila is very pleased with life. Sheila’s response to the tragedy of Eva Smiths death is very sad and she has learned from her behaviour. She is upset for the death of Eva Smith’s death, and takes blame for her death. She is very distressed by the girl's suicide and thinks that her father's behaviour was also unacceptable. When Sheila finds out the death of Eva Smith, she says she never meant to harm her, and knows her behaviour was very bad. Not only is Sheila prepared to admit her faults, but she also appears to be keen and anxious to change her behaviour in the future, 'I'll never, never do it again'. Sheila remains calm and mature about the breaking up of her engagement with Gerald. From the inspector hoax, I believe that Sheila has learned her responsibilities to others and the less fortunate than herself.
The key words I would use to sum up Mrs Birling’s character would be cold, unfeeling, socially correct, self – important and out-of-touch with the reality of life. Mrs Birling is described as a ‘rather cold woman and her husband’s social superior´. Her coldness and lack of conscience make her unsympathetic, while her keen awareness of the rules of polite behaviour (shown, for example, in the way she rebukes her husband for his comment about the quality of the meal) makes her seem out of touch with what really matters. We can clearly see that her refusal to help the girl could easily have been what finally led to her suicide. Yet it is only when she realises that Eric was the child’s father and so her actions had resulted in the death of her own grandchild that she begins to show any signs of weakening. The speed with which she recovers after the Inspector’s departure emphasises how cold and unsympathetic a character she really is.
Gerald is the next character to be interrogated by the inspector. Gerald is a calm and sensible person, favoured very much by Mr and Mrs Birling and although a few years his senior, liked by Eric also. The audience should see him as a self-assured, well-mannered man who constantly at ease with the world and generally a nice person.
His involvement with Eva smith or as she is now known, daisy Renton, started out very honourable. His tale starts in a bar where he spots daisy being cornered by a drunken Alderman Meggarty. He then learns of her homelessness and offers a flat for her to live in for the moment. He gave daisy everything which she craved for at that point in her life, a home, food, money and the thing which she craved the most of all; companionship.
Eric Birling was associated with Eva due to his relationship with her. Eric is seen as immature and surrounded by the bubble protecting him from the real world, much like his sister. Eric met this girl at the Palace Bar, a place renowned for young ladies who wanted to find young men. Eric, although immoral and irresponsible in his actions, did offer to support her and was even prepared to go and steal from his own father's business in order to do so. It was considered very wrong to steal from anyone, let alone your own family in this era and any actions resembling this at all, even for a perfectly acceptable reason was extremely frowned upon in society. Eric also continued to feel guilty after learning that there was no Eva/Daisy, just as his sister did.
There are many things that make this story be told as a drama. This is because of the way when you read it, you can feel the situation that everyone is in, and the only real way you can see their reactions and emotions is by watching the play. Also there is great detail in the story that also pictures the play in your head as you read through the story
