Tension is created when Lady croft did not attend her son’s engagement to Sheila birling, this because Gerald’s parents didn’t want to be mixed with working class people. During 1912 there were also strong distinctions between upper and lower class. Since Mr Birling is a middle class citizen and the crofts are upper class so they are supposed to be rich and have more power. Lady Croft would disagree with her son marrying to a woman with a lower social status level.
Mr Birling is telling Gerald croft about his ambitions for the future. Mr Birling wants to have a chance of knighthood. The quotation says, “There is a fair chance that I might find my way into the Honours list. Just a knighthood of course.” This tells us that Mr Birling’s ambitious goal is to become a knighthood. Birling want respect and he is aware of his superior social class and status.
When each character hears about the news of Eva Smiths death, each has different reactions towards the news. Eric is deeply concerned about the shocking news. When the inspector say’s, “Burnt her inside out of course.” Eric says “(Involuntarily) My God!” The stage directions indicate that Eric is very shocked and disturbed hearing about the suicide of the young woman. Eric is probably imagining the pain and suffering the poor girl had to go through.
Sheila enters during the conversation between Gerald, Eric, Birling and the inspector. Sheila is curious because she says, “What’s all this about?” Mr Birling tries to hide what he has done by saying, “nothing to do with you, Sheila. Run along.” When Sheila finds out what has happened she gets very intimidated and anxious this is evident, “Oh how horrible! Was it an accident?” This is Sheila’s immediate reaction to the situation. After a short dispute between Eric and Birling, Sheila becomes apologetic. This is evident when Sheila speaks, “(Rather distressed) sorry! It’s just that I can’t help thinking about this girl- destroying herself so horribly -and I’ve been so happy tonight.” Here we can see that Shelia’s mood had changed because she was really happy and full of life because she was busy enjoying the engagement party, but when she heard of this trauma her mood has completely changed, as she is really shocked about what has happened and she is very upset. Here we can see the social attitudes between younger and older generations, the younger generation are more willing to change.
Eric’s attitude towards factory workers as in comparison to his fathers is different. During act one Eric and Mr Birling start to have arguments and has many disagreements over how his father treats the workers in his factory. Birling states clearly, “We are paying the usual rates and if they didn’t like those rates, they can go and work somewhere else. It’s a free country I told them.” Eric answers back sharply saying, “It isn’t if you can’t go and work somewhere else.” Eric seems to have a clear and a justified reason of the way Birling had treated Eva Smith. Eric also gives us a reason to why the workers would want higher wages he says, “No, I mean about this girl- Eva Smith. Why shouldn’t they try for higher wages?” Eric is accusing his father of making a very ridiculous mistake by sacking the poor girl just because she wanted a higher pay rise as they try for the highest prices. Eric thinks that what Mr Birling did was very unfair and was only for his own good. Additionally, we can see that Eric doesn’t have a strong relationship with his own father, since his father is a more of a socialist and political person compared to his son.
This also links with the attitudes between Eric and Birling. Mr Birling is very defensive as compared to Eric this is evident when Birling states, “They wanted the rates raised so that they could average about twenty-five shilling a week. I refused, of course.” Here Birling is clearly saying that he had the right to refuse the rates from being raised since he’s in charge. But Eric disagrees with what his father and says; “He could have kept her on instead of throwing her out. I call it tough luck.” Eric is saying plainly whatever he feels about the situation. Eric is less defensive because he is agreeing with the inspector. Also Mr Birling ignores problems and difficult situations, near the end when they realise that there was no real inspector Mr birling acts as if nothing happened but as for Sheila and Eric they are still recovering from shock. This is evident in the text when Sheila says, “well, he inspected us all right. And don’t lets start dodging and pretending now. Between us we drove that girl to commit suicide.” Here Sheila is getting agitated that its too late and what has been done and she still believes what happened to Eva Smith was still caused by all of them put together.
Inspectors Goole’s name is the same as a ghoul a spirit of even a ghost. The name makes the inspector sound ghostly and he seems very confident when he is questioning the Birling’s. When the inspector walks into the room he is seems to be a very big man when he isn’t. The inspector creates a purposefulness impression on the Birling Family. We then know that the Inspector has come for a specific reason and he is very sharp and has a lot of power over the Birling family. The inspector is also used to convey a message such as Priestley's views. He also makes it seem that socialism is the true and honest way to live your life. In this speech he also states that for the lower class, "Eva Smiths and John Smiths" there is a "chance of happiness" in socialism. The Inspector also makes the audience realise that they are "members of one body" and they should try their best to help people like Eva Smith in the future.
After they ring the police station Birling gets triumphant because there is no police inspector on the committee with the name Inspector Goole. When Birling is celebrating he says, “The whole stories just a lot of moonshine. Nothing but an elaborate sell! (He produces a huge sigh of relief.)” This over joys Mr Birling. Also during Gerald’s suggestion that Goole was a fake Birling speaks “eagerly, triumphantly, jovially and heartily” these stage directions indicate that Mr Birlings mood has changed from angry and bitter to relaxed and relieved and now he believes that all of Goole’s story was false and now therefore it has no meaning to him. This is typical of Mrs Birling’s selfish character. Here there is a difference between the younger and older generation. The older generation are more capitalists and more greedy because they want to own every thing, this is a typical example of Mr Birling he is a stereotypical character. Birling tries to laugh off the difficult situations in comparison to Sheila and Eric, who take things more seriously.
Birling cares of what the public think of him. He is scared of what people’s reactions will be toward the Birlings when all the lies and deceit have been unwrapped and the truth is revealed to the public. This is evident when Birling states, “Most of this is bound to come out. There’ll be a public scandal.” Birling is worried that all this public scandal is going to going to have a bad impact on his business and his desire to become a knighthood is shattered. The quotation states, “But I care. I was almost certain for a knighthood in the next honours list-” Birling clearly just cares about knighthood status and respect.
The inspector in not intimidated by Birling, he tries to frighten him by telling him about Colonel Roberts “an old friend of mine.” The inspector tries to somehow get each person in the Birling family to confess their role in Eva’s death he says, “It’s the way I like to go to work. One person and one line of enquiry at a time.” The inspector is very commanding in his speech; he tries to control Mr and Mrs Birling who are usually in control of everything and don’t like being controlled or bossed around by anyone, “(As Birling tries to protest, he turns on him) Don ‘t stammer and yammer at me, man. I’m losing all patience with you people. What did she say?” After the inspector acts aggressively the Mrs Birling replies and she is startled because no one ever talks to her like that since she has a social upper class status and he rather quickly intimidates her.
The Inspector makes some comments that create moralistic and defensive effect he says, “Sometimes there isn’t a much difference as you think. Often, if it was left to me, I wouldn’t know where to draw the line,” Here the inspector is telling Gerald that there is not any difference between a respectable citizen and a criminal, he doesn’t see how to separate them and how they are different from each other. Another moralistic quote is when the inspector says, “Its better to ask for the earth than take it.” This quote means that Eva asked Birling for a pay rise but she didn’t steal any money of Mr Birling. The inspector is implying this to the earth saying that its better to ask for something rather than just taking it. The inspector is also implies to what he think what Birling has done.
The Inspectors final speech is very moralistic he says, “We don’t live alone. We are members of one body. We are responsible for each other.” The inspector closes his speech with, “Fire and blood and anguish” It creates a prophetic and an apocalyptic tone and leaves us thinking about the speech he has just said. It is almost like a threat to the audience and causes them to recognize the value of Priestley's message.
Sheila reacts very differently to her father in response to her involvement in Eva Smiths death she is the most sympathetic person out of the Birling family. When Sheila realises she had a hand in Eva’s death she becomes very upset and distraught. This is evident when she says, “ And I know I’m to blame- and I’m desperately sorry- but I can’t believe –I won’t believe - it ‘s simply my fault my fault in the end she- she committed suicide.” Sheila is here holding herself solely responsible for the death of Eva; we can see that Sheila is a very emotional character in the production. But Mr Birling is getting very angry with the inspector he showed a photograph to Shelia, she starts crying. Also, Birling tires to bully and intimidate Inspector Goole by telling him that Chief constable “is an old friend of mine,” Then he threatens the inspector by saying, “I’ve half a mind to report you.” Here Birling is using his friendship with the chief constable to threaten the inspector so he will get scared and then Birling will get his own way and be in control of the whole situation but the inspector doesn’t let it bother him.
During the period there were many differences between men and women. Men seem to keep secrets to themselves for example Gerald is keeping someone as a secret mistress and Eric gets a women drunk and he isn’t married to her. Gerald and Eric are allowed to go to bars where they can meet ‘women of the town’ which is the euphuism for prostitutes. The society is very patriarchal where men dominate the society and women have a few rights. Like Sheila doesn’t go to bars to socialise with older men. Women are subservient to men. All a woman could do was getting married and a poor woman was seem a cheap labour as quoted, “If there weren’t factories and warehouses, wouldn’t know where to look for cheap labour.” It’s referring to the girls as cheap labour the girls who are from a working class status they are not treated with much respect by the upper class citizens.
Because Mrs birling is upper class she tries to single out the working class people when she talking about Eva, “We can understand why the girl committed suicide. Girls of that class- ” she is being very biased towards the lower class and disrespectable. Mrs Birling using other people as threats just like her husband, she is using other people as threats, “You know of course that my husband was Lord Mayor only two years ago and that he's still a magistrate.” She gets very angry when the inspector doesn’t find her threats threatening.
Mrs Birling tries to explain that it isn’t her fault that Eva is pregnant and she had no money. She put responsibility on the father of the child, which makes it very bad for her son, “Go and look for the father of the child. It’s his responsibility,” She tries to prove that she is not involved in the case and is trying to shift the responsibility to the father of the child. Mrs Birling is also annoyed that Eva had addressed herself as Mrs Birling this is evident, “That was one of the things that prejudiced me against her case.” Mrs Birling is even admitting she was prejudice towards the case.
Mrs Birling motives for her charity work is very selfish and she sounds as if she has no concern for women otherwise she wouldn’t have treated Eva so harshly. Mrs Birling says, “We've done a great deal of useful work in helping deserving cases.” She is just saying that to satisfy herself and the inspector. Even though she had turned down Eva’s case, which was very important since Eva was pregnant and there was no father for the child present.
Mrs Birling makes many comments to defend herself but she’s is just making it bad for Eric, without knowing. She does this by saying, “Secondly, I blame the young man who is the father of the child, she was going to have.”
Eva also didn’t want to take money form Eric because it was stolen, so she could not support herself and the child so she stopped taking money and she became poor. Mrs Birling has her own doubts she says, “As if a girl of that sort would ever refuse money!” Mrs Birling is very stereotypical because she just thinks that the lower class are really desperate for money and would never say no to money no matter if it was stolen of not. She judges people by their social class. Eva was from a lower class and did not take any of the stolen money, so Mrs Birling is wrong to think that such people are thieves.
The views of The Birlings and the Croft’s are the typical of people during that certain time era. There were characters such as Mrs Birling whose views are based on the social status of a person. The social and political views of a person vary form character to character. Overall, Birling is a very self centred character who is incapable of learning the moral lesson that Inspector Goole tried to tech him. Sheila is essentially the good character, as she will deeply regret what she had done to the girl. This was one of the ways Priestley wanted to show that human beings have a generous side to them. He also wanted people to develop a social conscience and that we are all the members of one body. An inspector calls is a play which conveys a clear and a moral message to the society. Priestley had used inspector Goole to send his views to the society to change.