What is the importance of Mr. Arthur Birling as a character in the play in the play An Inspector Calls?

by tasnzari09 (student)

GCSE English

An Inspector Calls

Act 1

When is the play set?

In 1912.

Who is a “heavy-looking, rather portentous man in his middle fifties”?

Arthur Birling.

Who is “not quite at ease, half-shy, half-assertive”?

Eric Birling.

Who is “very pleased with life”?

Sheila Birling.

Who is “very much the easy well-bred young man-about-town”?

Gerald Croft.

Act 2

What does Sheila give to Gerald before he leaves?

Her engagement ring.

Who says this and to whom? “I feel you’re beginning all wrong”.

Sheila says this to Mrs Birling.

Who says this and to whom? “I never take offence”.

Inspector says this to Mrs Birling.

Who condemns whom here? “I think it was cruel and vile”.

Sheila condemns her mother Mrs Birling here.

In what 3 ways does Gerald described Daisy when he first meets her that made her look “totally out of place” at the Palace Bar?

Young and fresh and charming.

Act 3

What is the mood in the dining room at the start of this act and why?

The mood is to be light, playful and happy. This is because to create a great contrast between the inspector arrives and after his arrival.

What effect do this evening’s events have on Birling family and their relationships?

Their relationships became restrained and the celebration became a terrible nightmare and their lack of responsibility towards community.

Why does it “not much matter” to Sheila whether the Inspector was a real policeman or not?

She learns of her responsibilities to others less fortunate than herself and becoming more mature and sensitive.

Why does it matter a “devil of a lot” to Mr Birling?

Mr Birling just cares about his appearance, status to the community as he is so selfish and he wants to protect himself and his family.

Who says “it’s what happened to the girl and what we all did to her that matters?

Eric Birling.

Arthur Birling

A successful business man, a magistrate and someone who is active in local politics, Mr Birling has also had the honour of being Lord Mayor of Brumley. He hopes that all this will lead to him being given a knighthood and therefore becoming more socially acceptable to Sir George and Lady Croft, particularly considering his humble beginnings. His description is of a ‘heavy-looking and portentous man’. This description helps to give an impression of him being of a threatening appearance. He is pleased about the engagement of Sheila to Gerald Croft, as he believes it will be good for his business. It is central to the play that his attitude to business and the fact that a man should ‘look after his own’ is discredited by the confessions that the inspector brings about.

He is described at the start as a "heavy-looking, rather portentous man in his middle fifties but rather provincial in his speech."
He has worked his way up in the world and is proud of his achievements. He boasts about having been Mayor and tries (and fails) to impress the Inspector with his local standing and his influential friends.
However, he is aware of people who are his social superiors, which is why he shows off about the port to Gerald, "it's exactly the same port your father gets."He is proud that he is likely to be knighted, as that would move him ...

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He is described at the start as a "heavy-looking, rather portentous man in his middle fifties but rather provincial in his speech."
He has worked his way up in the world and is proud of his achievements. He boasts about having been Mayor and tries (and fails) to impress the Inspector with his local standing and his influential friends.
However, he is aware of people who are his social superiors, which is why he shows off about the port to Gerald, "it's exactly the same port your father gets."He is proud that he is likely to be knighted, as that would move him even higher in social circles.
He claims the party "is one of the happiest nights of my life." This is not only because Sheila will be happy, but because a merger with Crofts Limited will be good for his business.
He is optimistic for the future and confident that there will not be a war. As the audience knows there will be a war, we begin to doubt Mr Birling's judgement. (If he is wrong about the war, what else will he be wrong about?)
He is extremely selfish:
He wants to protect himself and his family. He believes that socialist ideas that stress the importance of the community is "nonsense" and that "a man has to make his own way."

He wants to protect Birling and Co. He cannot see that he did anything wrong when he fired Eva Smith - he was just looking after his business interests.
He wants to protect his reputation. As the Inspector's investigations continue, his selfishness gets the better of him: he is worried about how the press will view the story in Act II, and accuses Sheila of disloyalty at the start of Act III. He wants to hide the fact that Eric stole money: "I've got to cover this up as soon as I can."

At the end of the play, he knows he has lost the chance of his knighthood, his reputation in Brumley and the chance of Birling and Co. merging with their rivals. Yet he hasn't learnt the lesson of the play: he is unable to admit his responsibility for his part in Eva's death.

Themes

However, right from the beginning there are great hints about the social issues that the play will cover. Mr Birling's off beam speech at the beginning clearly indicates that this play is not your ordinary Agatha Christie style mystery. The deliberate way that JB Priestley makes Mr Birling reel out mistake after mistake is building an idea of an arrogant, middle class man who could easily represent a lot of the society that Priestley was living in at the time. A normal detective story can often build up a character showing him/her to be arrogant and pompous like Mr Birling, but it is the specific incidents that he mentions that is the first indicator that this play is more than a petty mystery. Birling proudly boasts that his friend will travel on the "absolutely unsinkable" Titanic, that he knows for a fact that "there isn't a chance of war" and that in the near future there will be "peace and prosperity ... everywhere." Of course Mr Birling could not have been more wrong, within two years after his futuristic speech the most devastating war ever broke out affecting the whole world and the indestructible Titanic sank to its death in the Atlantic along with the majority of its passengers. Of course, as the play was written and shown in 1945 all of this would be clear to the audience. This shows that Priestley has deliberately made it obvious that Birling is wrong about many social issues and that “An Inspector Calls” certainly has more to it than meets the eye.

The second sign that this play is a social critique is the fact that Inspector Goole is not an ordinary inspector. In fact, even from him introducing himself it is clear there is something out of the ordinary about him as Goole is not a common name and it sounds odd when spoken. From the outset he does not behave in the respectful manner Mr Birling expects from a senior law enforcer. This is obvious when Mr Birling states that he refused the girls who "wanted their rates raised ... to twenty five shillings a week." To this the Inspector asks why and Mr Birling, shocked at his impertinence retorts, "Did you say “Why". Another example is when the Inspector asks Sheila to remain in the dining room and Mr Birling angrily states that he thinks this request is "uncalled for and officious." The Inspector also seems to already know most of what has happened and it seems as if his only purpose of investigating the family is to reveal to them what he already knows. Sheila and Eric are the only ones who pick up on this, with Sheila telling Gerald "you fool, he knows. Of course he knows. And I hate to think how much." The fact that neither of their parents notices this shows how the gap between the generations is widening, which is the third reason why the play is a social critique.

The second theme in An Inspector Calls, centred on negatives about capitalist people is that of Pride and Status. J.B. Priestley attempts to create an impression throughout the play that pride will always come before a fall for those people with a capitalist attitude. Moreover, Priestley is looking to make a point to his audience by showing that capitalist people are too proud to show or admit that they made a mistake. This aspect of capitalist people relates back to the Lies theme, because the Birling family are too proud and self-obsessed to realise that they made a mistake. They refuse to admit to it and therefore this results in many lies been told! Only by abandoning false pride can characters arrive at an honest relationship with themselves and each other - but some are unwilling to do this. There pride has become an indulging self-perpetuating fantasy. Some of Priestley's characters, in the play attach a very high importance to their own social status. Furthermore, it is so precious that nothing must threaten their image amongst the rest of society. For them, a high social class, which they are, insulates these characters form the unpleasantness of reality. Characters begin to get particularly worried at the prospect of their actions been made public; they are terrified by a scandal which could irretrievably damage their status among their society and community. The characters get so worried by this because Eva Smith is working-class citizen, considered by capitalists to be of no importance and to have little value. The characters from the Birling family would not like the general society to be aware that they had contributed to the death of someone of a lower-class. It would be deemed to be poor for their image.

What is the importance of Mr. Arthur Birling as a character in the play in the play An Inspector Calls?

In the beginning of the first act we see the whole family happy, content, and pleased with themselves and none so much as Mr Birling. He describes this evening as one of the happiest nights of my life', and uses it as an opportunity to give speeches on what he views as important. He talks of business, and he obviously has hope for business in Sheila's marriage. He is assured in this aspect, with no worries of strikes or silly little war scares'. He has control of everything in his house as the head, and has high hopes of a knighthood. Everything is going well for him.

A spot on this happy scene is the slight tension beneath the surface. Mr Birling, as we have seen, is a social climber and worries about his social status. He mentions to Gerald how he can see that Lady Croft thinks he can do better, and is anxious to impress with the mention of a knighthood. He also seems to be trying to show himself as upper class in the fact that he even the same port as Sir George Croft.
The first part of act one and the happiness of Mr Birling is concluded with his speech to Gerald and Eric, “a man has to mind his own business and look after himself and his own”.

The happy atmosphere of the beginning of the play comes to an abrupt stop with the arrival of the inspector. Mr Birling sees nothing special about this visit at first, and expects the inspector to behave according to the rules of his own society. He tries to win the inspector to his side in this way by offering him port and trying to intimidate him with talk of having been a mayor, playing golf with the Chief constable and introducing Gerald as of Crofts Limited. The fact that Mr Birling lives in this world of business and upper class rules mean that he soon begins to dislike the inspector when he refuses to abide, or even care for these rules.

By Zarin Tasneem

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