To what extent do you feel that the Characters are changed by the Inspectors visit? How do various attitudes, in your opinion, reflectSocial, Cultural and Historical values, both of the time in which the playis set and in the time in which it was wr
"You and I aren't the same people who sat down together before dinner"
Sheila [to Gerald], An Inspector Calls, Act II
To what extent do you feel that the Characters are changed by the Inspector's visit? How do various attitudes, in your opinion, reflect
Social, Cultural and Historical values, both of the time in which the play
is set and in the time in which it was written?
An Inspector Calls, by J.B. Priestly, is the story of the visit by an Inspector to an apparently normal family, the Birlings. They are celebrating Sheila Birling's engagement to Gerald Croft, who is also present, when the Inspector arrives telling them of the suicide of a young girl called Eva Smith. At first they deny any knowledge of the girl, but as the play goes on the Inspector manages to show that they all helped kill her. Mr Birling had her dismissed from his factory for demanding a small increase in wages; Sheila ordered her to be dismissed from her job in a shop simply because of her pride; Gerald Croft kept her as his mistress before leaving her suddenly; Eric Birling (Mr & Mrs Birling's son) also had an affair with the girl and stole money to keep her living; and Mrs Birling used her influence to deny help to Eva Smith when she needed it most, driving her to suicide.
After the Inspector's visit we can see which of the characters have learned their lesson from what the Inspector has said and which are steadfastly clinging to their old beliefs. The differing attitudes between the older and younger characters are shown by their conversations following the Inspector's departure.
It is Birling's speech in Act 1 that sets the scene for the action in the play. Birling is confidently talking to Eric and Gerald about what he thinks about the future. He thinks of everything in business terms (for example, he says to Gerald that he hopes that his firm and Gerald's father's will become partners) and also is a man who thinks that a man should make his own way in life and does not believe in living in a "community.• He disregards the people who preach this philosophy of everyone living together and looking after each other as "cranks.•
It is at this point that the Inspector enters the play, interrupting Birling in his speech. In this way he can be seen as Priestly's response to Birling's opinions and he soon begins to tear down the ideas that Birling thrives on.
On hearing of Eva Smith's death Birling is at first dismissive of what has happened, saying that he does not see what the events have to do with him. Birling also repeats his earlier opinion on community, telling the Inspector that he "can't accept any responsibility• for what happened to her, even though it may have been a chain of events. He believes that if everyone was responsible for each other, "it would be very awkward.•
When asked why he dismissed Eva Smith for asking for a relatively modest wage increase, Birling tries to defend himself by citing financial reasons. He is surprised when the Inspector asks why he refused the increase as he is sure the Inspector will agree with him. Birling again shows his disregard for other people when he says that if Eva Smith did not like working at his company she could "go and work somewhere else - it's a free country• This view is undermined when Eric points out that "it isn't if you can't work somewhere else•.
As the Inspector's interviews with the other characters Birling becomes more and more agitated and stage directions to describe his mood such as "bothered, angrily and sharply• show that he is not in a good frame of mind. He appears to be slowly learning his lesson but is getting very angry as he sees that all he believes in is wrong. As he discovers the revelations about Eric's theft of the money he becomes more and more desperate, and just before the Inspector's departure he says he will give "thousands• to keep the story quiet. Birling is told by the Inspector that he is "offering the money at the wrong time• and Eva Smith will make him pay "a heavy price• in terms of emotion, not money.
After the Inspector's departure Birling admits that he has "learnt a lot• from his visit. However, he immediately singles out Eric as "you're the one I blame for this [the scandal]•, so he still seems to have little notion of community as he should, if he had learnt anything, be saying "we're the ones to blame for this•. Instead he seems to be shifting blame from himself. We can also see that as soon as the characters begin to construct doubts about the legitimacy of the Inspector he tries to find a way out of his predicament. As the story unravels he becomes "excited• on discovering that the Inspector is not real and soon he has managed to put the whole episode out of his head, despite protests from Eric and Sheila who try to tell him that "you still haven't learnt anything.• Birling is far more concerned about what may happen if the news comes out in public than whatever he did to Eva Smith and makes fun of Eric and Sheila for "not being able to take a joke•. However, the phone call he receives at the end of the play is not at all funny to him.
To sum up, from the play we can see that when Birling preaches his "every man for himself• philosophy he is very assured that he is right. The Inspector's questioning manages to make him change his mind slightly although he is still sure of what he believes in. When he sees a chance to get out of the embarrassing situation he has been put into he grabs it with both hands and manages to forget the lesson he has learnt during the evening.
Sheila is probably the character who changes the most during the play. At the start of the action she is very happy about her engagement, "pleased with life and rather excited•. However, even at this point we pick up some of the qualities in her that are so marked later in the play, such as her clear stating of opinions which can be seen when she half-teases Gerald about his absence during the summer and her opinion of wine drinkers. Sheila's reaction on receiving her engagement ring from Gerald show her state of mind:
"Sheila: Oh - it's wonderful! Look - Mummy - isn't it a beauty? Oh - darling!•
Sheila appears to be inattentive over her father's speeches at the dinner table and has to be told to listen. This suggests that she neither find his opinions interesting nor agrees with them, which may point to her future conduct in the play.
Sheila's explanation of her conduct when interviewed by the Inspector shows how naive and thoughtless she was up to that point. However, unlike Birling she feels very upset about her conduct, shown by her running out of ...
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"Sheila: Oh - it's wonderful! Look - Mummy - isn't it a beauty? Oh - darling!•
Sheila appears to be inattentive over her father's speeches at the dinner table and has to be told to listen. This suggests that she neither find his opinions interesting nor agrees with them, which may point to her future conduct in the play.
Sheila's explanation of her conduct when interviewed by the Inspector shows how naive and thoughtless she was up to that point. However, unlike Birling she feels very upset about her conduct, shown by her running out of the room sobbing when first shown the photograph of Eva Smith. She also swears that she will "never, never do it [behaving like that towards others] again to anybody•.
This is a turning point in the play for Sheila. Almost at once she sheds her image of being a naive and ignorant young lady and takes on the most profound understanding of the Inspector's message. During the rest of the play she often makes several cutting remarks during the other characters' interviews' with the Inspector. For example, when the Inspector is talking to Mrs Birling she warns her mother not to block herself from Eva Smith in her answers to his questions:
Mrs Birling: ...And in any case I don't suppose for a moment that we can understand why
the girl committed suicide. Girls of that class --
Sheila : Mother, don't--please don't For your own sake, as well as ours, you musn't.---
Mrs Birling: Musn't - what? Really, Sheila!
Sheila : You musn't try to build up a kind of wall between us and that girl. If you do,
the Inspector will just break it down...
Incidences such as this, where Sheila is clearly contradicting the opinion of her parents, lead Mrs Birling to remark to the Inspector that "You seem to be making a great impression on the child•. The Inspector's response, that "we often make an impression on the young ones• is proved to be true. The younger characters - Sheila, Eric and to an extent Gerald, are able to see the Inspector's message realise that he is right. However, the older characters are too entrenched in their beliefs and still stubbornly cling to what they believe in.
Sheila appears to understand that the Inspector already appears to know all the facts and will force them to admit the truth sooner rather than later. In her conversation with Gerald he claims that he will be able to keep the truth of his affair with Daisy Renton a secret from the Inspector. Sheila calls Gerald "a fool• and correctly tells him that the Inspector "knows about everything.•
After the Inspector's departure Sheila, supported by Eric, tries to make her parents understand what the Inspector has taught her. As they show no sign of having learnt their lesson from the night's events, she despairingly says "you don't seem to have learnt anything•. When the Inspector is exposed as a fake she endures the ridicule of her parents yet steadfastly clings to her beliefs. She would doubtless find the final phone call very satisfactory.
In summary, during the course of the play Sheila changes from a rather naive and ignorant young lady into a person who can fully understand the Inspector's message and see that he is right. She is the person who becomes the Inspector's ally during the questioning and agrees with him the most.
Mrs Birling is perhaps the character who remains most resolute in her beliefs during the play. From start to finish she believes steadfastly in her husband's opinions, out-doing even Birling himself in her refusal to listen to alternative notions. Throughout the action she only once shows the slightest sign of wavering.
It is very noticeable that Birling is very supportive to his wife throughout the play and the two always back each other up when stating an opinion. When Birling is ranting and raving after the Inspector's visit he blames virtually everyone except his wife (and himself), showing his respect for her.
In the initial stage directions, Mrs Birling is described as a "rather cold woman• and that she is "her husband's social superior•. She therefore has a high point in life where she looks down on others, whilst never having experienced the life that they lead. This means that Mrs Birling is immediately prejudiced against Eva Smith, dismissing her death with the comment "Girls of that class...•. and she ignores Sheila's warning about building up a "wall• between herself and the Inspector. Further examples of this snobbery are shown when she tries to impress the Inspector with the positions that her husband holds:
Mrs Birling (to the Inspector) I realise that you have to conduct some sort of inquiry...but
you seem to be conducting it a rather peculiar and offensive manner. You know
of course that my husband was a Lord Mayor only two years ago and he's
still a magistrate --
When Mrs Birling is questioned on her conduct in regard to not giving Eva Smith/Daisy Renton any charitable money, she is still unsympathetic towards her, saying "she only had herself to blame•. She still maintains that she has "done nothing that I am ashamed of•, even though the Inspector warns her that she will "spend the rest of her life regretting what you have done•. Finally, she states that, "you have no power to change my mind•, showing that she has learnt nothing from the interview. She tries to shift blame onto others by blaming Eva and the young man who was the father of the baby.
Mrs Birling is shocked when she discovers that this "young man• is actually her son Eric and when he screams at her she begins to waver for the only time in the play. The stage direction describes her as "very distressed• and she begins to moan "No - Eric - please - I didn't know...•. However, she soon recovers and joins Birling in condemning Eric, saying that "I'm absolutely ashamed of you• to him. She also, like Birling, is delighted when the Inspector is exposed as a fake and even tries to pretend that she "knew• all along that this was so(!). This is absolutely untrue as she was as taken in by the Inspector as much as all the others. This behaviour appears to be her way of restoring her faith in herself and her beliefs after the knock given to them by the Inspector.
When the whole story about Eva Smith is shown to be untrue, she is able to believe that the whole story was a joke, and is "most grateful• to Gerald for showing her that the Inspector was not real. One gets the feeling, more than with any other character in the play, that faced with a similar set of circumstances again that Mrs Birling would behave in exactly the same way again. This idea is given credence when, after Sheila sarcastically remarks "We can all go on behaving just as we did•, Mrs Birling takes her comments as her true feelings and says "Well, why shouldn't we?•, showing that she has learned absolutely nothing from the night's events.
To summarise, Mrs Birling not only shows that she has not changed at all in her opinions at the end of the play but she shows very little sign of wavering from it during the action either.
Eric is a character whose ideas have changed considerably at the end of the play. When we first meet him, he has had rather too much to drink (or "squiffy• as Sheila puts it). He appears to agree with but has little enthusiasm for his fathers' ideas until the Inspector arrives. This is the point in which his ideas about Eva Smith change and he begins to criticise his father and mother in a similar manner to Sheila, although not in such as sophisticated a manner.
The reason for this early change is due to the fact that Eric, of course, has been seeing "Daisy Renton• until very recently, and his instinctive exclamation of "My God!• shows he knows whom the Inspector is talking about when he mentions the murder for the first time. We can see this by his initial anxiety about the girl's fate, for example when he asks Birling "Is that [Eva's dismissal] the reason she committed suicide, Father?•. When Eric hears the tale of events that began with his father's dismissal of her he is disgusted by what he did and begins to distance himself from his opinions. Interjections such as:
Birling ...I said they[the striking workers] could go and work somewhere else. It's a free
country, I told them.
Eric It isn't if you can't go and work somewhere else.
show Eric's opinion of his father's conduct. This means that Eric soon finds himself having a similar opinion as Sheila about their parents' ideas - although for different reasons. Sheila is distressed that her parents do not seem to have heeded the Inspector's warning, whilst Eric is angry that the actions of his parents have led to the death of the woman who was to have his child and is understandably upset at their "don't-care• attitude. This drawing together of ideas is ironic as in the first scene Eric and Sheila spend most of their time annoying each other.
Eric's return at the beginning of Act 3 is greeted with fury by Birling, who bitterly tells him that "you're the one I blame for this• and is joined by Mrs Birling, who is "also ashamed• of him. This throws Eric into a wild rage in which he shouts at his mother for turning help away from Eva Smith when she needed it most. Birling dismisses Eric as a "hysterical young fool.•
After the Inspector's final message Eric seems to gain clear understanding of the principle of the community (note that the Inspector commented that "we often seem to make the greatest impression on the young ones) and reminds his parents that "I'm ashamed of you as well - both of you•. He tries to assist Sheila in making the elder family members see the lesson that they have been taught, but to no avail. Eric finally severs his links with his father's ideas on community when he savagely criticises Birling's description of people like the Inspector as "cranks•, stating "I didn't notice you told him [the Inspector] it's every man for himself.• As Birling tries to talk about preventing a scandal, Eric warns him that "you're starting to pretend than now that nothing's happened.•
To sum up, Eric changes from a young man who reluctantly accepts his father's ideas into one who is able to see that they are totally wrong and is not afraid to criticise them out aloud.
Gerald is a character whose opinions are difficult to judge, because unlike the other characters he has a motive for stating ideas that are different to what he actually believes. Generally, Gerald attempts to do and say what he hopes Mr & Mrs Birling will agree with and he also attempts to please Sheila, though he is not particularly successful.
Gerald comes out of his "interview• with the Inspector better than any other character, because he did not do anything to Eva/Daisy that harmed her in the way that the other characters. Indeed, had he not been engaged to Sheila his conduct would have been entirely acceptable for a normal relationship. However, the fact that he was means that he is thought of in very low esteem by Sheila and her parents after he tells the details of his affair. When Sheila gives Gerald back the ring in Act 2 he would doubtless have wished to get back in favour with Mr and Mrs Birling.
This state of mind means that he appears to finally come out on the side of Birling and he does whatever he can to be supportive towards them. Privately one feels that Gerald feels the same as Eric and Sheila, but he cannot afford to agree with them if he wishes to get back in favour with their parents, as this is the only way that he can hope to re-start the engagement with Sheila. This is shown in his systematic destruction of the Inspector's story, in which he is constantly prompting Birling to cast doubt on each part of the tale. He is also not afraid to telephone the infirmary to confirm that there was no dead body there, despite Birling's reservations about it being rather late to be doing this. Another example of Gerald's wish to avoid upsetting Birling further is when he refuses Sheila's offer to tell him about, as Sheila puts it, "our crimes and idiocies.• Consequently Gerald's conduct is probably biased and hiding his true opinions.
In the plot of An Inspector Calls, the characters respond to the message that they are given by the Inspector in different ways. Sheila and Eric fully understand the idea that, as the Inspector says, "We all live as one body. We don't live alone• and unsuccessful try to persuade their parents of the merits of this arguments. Birling and Mrs Birling stubbornly cling to their beliefs and Gerald also comes out on their side, although this could be a result of him trying to make the elder Birlings happy with himself.
As well as teaching a moral lesson about community, An Inspector Calls reflects many of the historical, social and cultural attitudes that were prevalent both in the time the play was set (1912) and the time in which it was written (1944). In this way the play is Priestly's comment on the values of that period.
Cultural and social attitudes of the time the play is set in are prevalent in An Inspector Calls. There is a marked difference between the attitudes of the attitudes and values of the older characters in the play and the younger ones.
The course of the play centres on Birling's belief, stated by him in Act 1 in various speeches to the other characters, that "a man has to make his own way in life•. Birling has no time for the notion of "community• and comes across as a hard-headed businessman with no time for anyone apart from himself and his family. This is why he is unable to accept responsibility for what happens to Eva Smith/Daisy Renton, and the Inspector - who arrives in the middle of one of Birling's speeches - can be seen as Priestly's response to his ideas.
Both Birling and Mrs Birling have a certain snobbish streak in them, which is shown several times in the play. At the start of the play Birling is worried that Gerald's mother feels that he, Gerald, "may have done better for himself socially", whilst Mrs Birling discriminates against Eva Smith with a dismissive "Girls of that class..." remark, showing her disdain for her. Both Birling and his wife also try to use the fact that Birling has a prominent position in public affairs to try to influence the Inspector into relieving the pressure on him, for example when Mrs Birling reminds the Inspector that "my husband was an ex-Lord Mayor, you know". Mrs Birling also used her social influence to deny charity to Eva Smith. There is also the question of marriage - it is acceptable for the similarly classed Sheila and Gerald to marry but not for Eric and Daisy.
Initially, the Birlings all feel very secure and believe that they can do no wrong. The opening stage directions state that they are all "pleased with themselves.• Later on, in his speech to Gerald and Eric, Birling states that he is sure he knows what he is right because of his "experience•:
Birling ...We can't let these Bernard Shaws and H.G. Wellses do all the talking. We
hard-headed business men must say something sometime. And we don't guess -
we've had experience - and we know.
Although Sheila has been able to see that all is not perfect in the world of the Birlings after her interrogation with the Inspector, the older characters and Gerald still believe that what they are doing is right. Gerald's remark, at the end of Act 1, "We're respectable citizens, y'know• shows the level of self-delusion. By the end of the play the two older Birlings have still managed to keep up their self-deception whilst the audience can see that they are a very dysfunctional family.
Birling has appears to have a dim view of education, probably because he did not experience itself. He criticises Eric for his life at university, saying that "this public-school-and-varsity-life doesn't seem to teach you [responsibility]•. Ironically it appears that it is Birling who seems unable to grasp the notion of being responsible for other people. Birling believes that when he was young "they worked us hard...and kept us short of cash.• An interesting point in the story is that whilst Eric has had an education and Sheila apparently has not, at least not to such as high a level, yet she seems a lot more sensible and mature than Eric by the end of the play.
This sort of sexist attitude, where it was thought more important that men should have an education than women, is shown throughout An Inspector Calls. Several times in the play Birling asks Sheila and Mrs Birling to leave the room so he can speak in private. At the start of the play, Sheila and her mother go out of the room and leave Birling to talk about issues he does not want them to hear, such as his worries about Gerald's mother and his desire to talk about his business issues. Both Birling and Gerald initially try to shield Sheila from the Inspector's questioning, and when Sheila recognizes the photograph and runs out of the room Birling angrily asks the Inspector "Why the devil do you want to go upsetting the child like that?• Birling also tries to shield his wife from the gritty details of what the characters have done and when the story of what Eric has done he orders Sheila to "take your mother out of the room•
This denying of access to the truth means that the women are a lot more naive and innocent than the men. For instance, Sheila appears to be very ignorant of business matters when Birling talks about them in Act 1. Another example of this ignorance is the fact that neither has heard of the Palace Bar, where both Gerald and Eric met Eva/Daisy whilst the men definitely do. Mrs Birling seems particularly unaware about matters such as Eric's drinking and the behaviour of certain people she knows, such as Alderman "Joe• Meggarty:
Gerald ...Old Joe Meggarty, half-drunk and goggle-eyed, had wedged her into a
corner with that obscene fat carcass of his --
Mrs Birling There's no need to be disgusting. And surely you don't mean Alderman
Meggarty?
Gerald Of course I do. He's a notorious womaniser, one of the worst sots in Brumley.
Inspector Quite right.
Mrs Birling Well, really! Alderman Meggarty! I must say, we are learning something
tonight.
Birling's attitude towards industry forms the cornerstone of his one man for himself' philosophy. He finds it hard to resist talking about his business ideas, even when celebrating his daughter's engagement, as he describes the time that they are marrying in "will be a time of increasing prosperity•. However, his idea of increasing prosperity does not extend to Eva Smith. Having admitted to denying her a miserly wage increase "because we'd have added twelve per cent to our labour costs•. He is dismissive towards the workers' strike, describing it as "a pitiful affair•. In these days there were no trade unions for workers to express their views and Birling, who believes workers should know their place, thought Eva Smith had "far too much to say•. Of course, with no trade unions, there was no way for her to say anything whilst being backed up by a powerful body. As the Inspector comments, "if there weren't [poor people], the factories and warehouses wouldn't know where to look for cheap labour. Ask your father.•
There is also a lack of charity for Eva Smith which is very apparent, and again would not happen today because then there was no National Health Service or Social Security. The only place that an Eva Smith could go for help was a charity such as that of Mrs Birling's. However, it becomes clear from the interview of Mrs Birling that her philosophy is charity rather than being charitable.
Historical attitudes of the time are also reflected in the plot of An Inspector Calls. Most of these stem from Birling's early speeches in Act 1, where he makes a series of grand predictions about the future:
"There's a lot of wild talk about possible labour trouble in the future. Don't worry. We've passed the worst of it.•
"There'll be peace and prosperity and rapid progress everywhere.•
"A friend of mine went over this new liner - the Titanic - 46 800 tons and unsinkable, absolutely unsinkable.•
"There isn't a chance of war•
These grand predictions would have seemed particularly bitter and ironic to the audience who first watched the play in 1944. During this period the world was going through a disastrous war and Birling's wildly over-optimistic prophecies would be seen to be totally wrong. The audience knows that, with hindsight, all that Birling believes in is about to be torn down.
Birling predicts that in twenty or thirty years' time that there will be peace, greater prosperity and happiness everywhere. In fact, the world was about to be plunged into the carnage of the First World War - the chances of which Birling dismisses as "fiddlesticks!•, followed by another war twenty-five years later. Birling's comment that "the Germans don't want war• would seem particularly ironic because Germany was heavily involved against Britain in both of these wars. Birling also thinks that Britain is in for a time of "increasing prosperity• when in fact in a few years the economy was to be devastated by the Great Depression with thousands of job losses.
Birling also has a misguided faith in the progress of the future and its creations. He claims that the liner Titanic - designed and built by people like Birling - is "absolutely unsinkable• and stresses the size of ship, 46 800 tons. However, a few weeks later, the "unsinkable• ship was at the bottom of the North Atlantic Ocean with the loss of 1600 lives. Again Birling's visions have been shown to be totally incorrect.
Birling has no time for the idea of socialism and workers' rights, saying that noone should worry about "labour trouble• in the future. This is shown in his disregard for the strike conducted by Eva Smith because there were no trade unions in those days to fight against him. He dismisses Russia, where the communist movement was growing strength, stating that it will "always be backward•. Another place in the play where he disdain for any movement representing equality is when, after discovering the Inspector is not all he seems, he dismisses him as "a Socialist or some sort of crank - he talked like one•. Birling was not to know of the rise of the Labour Party in Britain or the Russian Revolution of 1917.
In his closing speech the Inspector warns about what will happen if his message about men living together in a community is not heeded:
Inspector ...We don't live alone. We are members of one body. We are members of one
body. And I tell you that the time will soon come when, if men will not learn
that lesson, then they will be taught it in fire and blood and anguish. Good night.
In hindsight we can see that the "fire, blood and anguish• that the Inspector was warning about happened in the case of the First World War. This had started because the countries of Europe, instead of existing together, had formed themselves into two camps, with the countries within them allied together. Serbia was Russia's ally, who was also on the side of Britain and France, who had both promised to protect Belgium. Austria and Germany (and later Italy) were also allies. When Austria attacked Serbia, the Russians declared war on Austria and the Germans invaded Belgium, sending Britain and France into battle. The result was a hellish war in which millions died. Had the countries been able to live together then there would not have been a war. The fact that the play was written in the midst of the Second World War suggests that Priestly was saying that the lessons of what happened in the First World War had not been learned.
In summary, An Inspector Calls details the differing attitudes of the Birling family to the events leading to Eva Smith's death and how they accept the responsibility for their actions. The older characters are too rigid to change but the younger ones are able to see their faults and accept what they have done is wrong. The play also reflects various cultural, social and historical, which reflect on the time both in which the play is set in and when it was written.