At the beginning of the play Mr. Birling says, “The Titanic... unsinkable, absolutely unsinkable.” The 1945 audience knew the fate of the Titanic (being that is sunk on its maiden voyage), and so Mr. Birling immediately appears in a bad light, although his view was that of everyone in 1912, and so he is a stereotype of society then. Mr. Birling’s attitude is shown in his words, “...A man has to make his own way... has to look after himself” and, referring to the working class, “If you don’t come down sharply on some of these people they’ll soon be asking for the earth”. Mr. Birling has a selfish attitude towards life, and also an attitude to only care for himself and family, and basically forget everybody else, in fact, this is exactly what he tells a speech on at the celebration of Sheila’s and Gerald’s engagement, “... a man has to look after himself - and his family too, of course...” which gives the impression of the selfishness, and also greed. Another example of this is when he tells a speech about how it is the best day of his life, “Gerald, I’m going to tell you frankly, without any pretences, that your engagement with Sheila means a lot to me. She’ll make you happy, and I’m sure you’ll make her happy. Your just the type of son-in-law I wanted...” makes people think whether he wants them to get married for themselves, or for him, and whether it means a lot to him sentimentally, or a lot to him in the business world.
Birling’s first priority is to make money, “It’s my duty to keep labour cost down” and is also a social climber, and Sheila is engaged to the son of his “friendly” rival, which is why it could mean a lot to him in the business world because Gerald’s father is in a higher class than the Birling family. Sheila has a totally different attitude to Birling, and we see this emphasized as the play progresses. She is very happy with life at the beginning of the play, young, and attractive. Although later her happiness and love of her family are put to the test.
In relation to the death of Eva Smith, Mr Birling tries to “make everything better” by using his money, “Look inspector, I’d give thousands…” I think this may be a “domineering” attitude, because he wants to dominate people, and do all he can to do it, which reflects on how he treats his employee’s. In his factory, there are certain employees that ask for a pay rise, but Birling refuses to pay more than “the going rate”. Birling can afford the pay rise, but returns by sacking one member of the “strike” pack, Eva Smith. After this, Birling was blamed for starting the “domino” effect of Eva suicide, but refuses to accept the blame. When the inspector asks questions about his family, he tries to protect his reputation by acting the innocent to the questions, even though we know, that he knows the answers to the questions, but wont tell them, to protect his reputation. Mr Birling does not care one bit and in no way does he think that he is responsible for Eva Smith’s death. Mr Birling when he finds out about the death sticks to his morals and he is very stubborn. If he never found it out to be a hoax he might have questioned his morals but once he finds out that it is a hoax he just slips back into his old way.
Priestly makes Birling project the opposite views and opinions to his own; by making Arthur Birling such an ignorant and selfish character, the audience is prejudiced towards him, thinking that his opinions are pompus and arrogant. Therefore they tent to favour the attitudes of his children, Eric and Sheila, which are similar to Priestly's actual attitude. Without Mr. Birling's opinions and long-winded speeches, I don't believe the 'message' of the play would have been as effectively conveyed.
Kristy Vinton 11L.
