When Sheila heard about the girl’s death, she begins to be more caring, and her character starts to change. “Oh-how horrible. Was it an accident?” this quote is showing that she starts to be caring, and she starts asking more questions to know more about the girl maybe she could help. The dash means that she paused, and this shows how shocked she is.
Sheila’s reaction to questioning was quite strong, “but these girls aren’t cheap labour-they’re people” Sheila was standing up for these girls, she’s doing what she believes is right, and she doesn’t agree with what her dad said, he didn’t care about Eva Smith when she wanted to get paid more money so he fired her, he was talking like they weren’t people, she’s saying this like she knows how these people feel.
Sheila begins to feel that the inspector was blaming her and the family, so she got angry and said “what do you mean by saying that? You talk as if we were responsible?” she starts to defend herself and her family, because she cares about them all and she doesn’t want any of them to be in trouble, and get hurt.
After the inspector was gone, Sheila was quite confused “that’s all” she said this like she wanted to be asked more questions, and she’s not sure that she did the right thing by saying the truth about what she did to Eva Smith, it’s like she expected to be asked more questions or something else happens like get blamed for it and goes to jail, and she feels like she disserves it.
When Sheila heard that inspector Goole wasn’t a real inspector, she said “(bitterly) I suppose we’re all nice people now.” Bitterly shows that she’s being sarcastic, and she didn’t mean what she said, she meant the opposite. She said this because when they said the truth about everything it makes them nice people, but it doesn’t, and she thought that they all were a nice and a perfect family, but her thoughts were wrong after she heard what everyone in her family had done.
Sheila’s character changed from a girl who had a perfect life, to a caring girl. She couldn’t keep the truth from the inspector because he seems to know it already.
Mrs Birling sounded very posh and heartless when I read her first quote “a rather cold woman”.
Mrs Birling was very calm when the Inspector arrived “My husband has just explained why you’re here, and while we’ll be glad to tell you anything you want to know, I don’t think we can help you much” this quote shows us that Mrs Birling doesn’t care about whatever the inspector wants, and she doesn’t want to help much, because she knows that she doesn’t have anything to do with this girl. She thinks that it was Eva’s fault for using her name (Mrs Birling) and she should find the real father of the baby. She didn’t want to take any responsibility about Eva.
When the inspector begins to ask Mrs Birling the questions, she answered angrily. “Well, come along-what is it you want to know” this shows that she wants the inspector to ask the questions as fast as possible because she wants him to leave quickly; she’s wasting her time for nothing. This suggests that she doesn’t care about the poor girl, and she doesn’t want to help. She has other stuff to do in the house which is better than this waste of time.
When the Inspector leaves Mrs Birling was ashamed of her son Eric, because of his drinking problem. “(Coming to life) I should think not. Eric, I’m absolutely ashamed of you” Eric has brought shame to the family and she’s going to be embarrassed if people will know about it, so she gets angry. This tells us that she loves Eric and he’s the youngest, and she didn’t expect this to happen from him.
When Mrs Birling hears that Inspector Goole wasn’t a real inspector, she was surprised and worried, “I felt it all the time. He never talked like one. He never even looked like one.” She didn’t know that he’s not a real Inspector; if she did she should’ve said it. She was trying to look like she wasn’t fooled by him, like everyone else did.
Mrs Birling’s character doesn’t seem to change in the play; it stays the same cold woman.