Mr Birling’s wife, Mrs Birling is not his social equal; she is of higher status and actually married below herself, because even though Mr Birling is wealthy he is ‘new money’ a ‘self made man’. This means that he was not born into a life of luxuries but has earned it and maybe is still getting used to it. Because he is a ‘self made man’ he is constantly trying to prove to people that he is capable of being just as important as someone such as Mr Croft of ‘Crofts Limited’. He proves this by buying the same port as Mr Croft and making it known to Gerald, who of course is the son of this factory owner. However, as Mr Birling strives to become all the more important Mrs Birling can see straight through him, he would never be able to fool her. She stops Mr Birling mid-sentence ‘Arthur, you’re not supposed to say such things-’ this is probably to save his and more importantly her embarrassment in front of Gerald.
When the inspector starts to question Mrs Birling she gets very defensive, not giving too much away but the more she convinces herself she did nothing wrong the more she reveals to the inspector. She starts off giving short answers to the inspectors questions such as just a simple ‘Yes,’ or ‘Possibly,’ until finally she expressed her prejudices against the girl’s case. Even when she has revealed what happened and why the girl was turned away because ‘I didn’t like her manner,’ and ‘She impertinently made use of our name,’ Mrs Birling had no guilt. The inspector used the same tone as he had with the rest of the family ‘You have no hope of not discussing it, Mrs Birling,’ but unlike the previous whom had been accused Mrs Birling replied with ‘If you think you can bring any pressure to bear upon me, Inspector, you’re quite mistaken. Unlike the other three, I did nothing I’m ashamed of.’ Unlike the three who had been questioned, Mrs Birling stood her ground and wasn’t going to let the inspector intimidate her and maybe the fact that she wasn’t ashamed or remorseful for the girls death makes her the most cold and selfish character of the play. As the play progresses it becomes apparent that Mrs Birling knows little of the lives of her family and that of the lives of other folk outside her home. First she is disgusted by a well known womanizer ‘And surely you don’t mean Alderman Meggarty!’ It is likely that Alderman Meggarty’s shenanigans were well known, they were certainly known by Sheila and Gerald, only Mrs Birling didn’t know and this shows she lived a very sheltered life. When she realises her son Eric’s involvement with the girl she refuses to believe it ‘I don’t believe it. I won’t believe it.....’ She will only believe what she wants to, this applies to her son and also to Eva Smith, having first introduced herself as Mrs Birling, Mrs Birling decided she was not worthy of help and would not believe a word she said.
Mr and Mrs Birling both join in their happiness and relief at the end of the play. Once they realise the inspector was a fake they are nothing but amused and accuse the children of being ‘hysterical’ and ‘over-tired’. Because the inspector was a fake it meant that they were in the clear, their reputation would not be harmed and they could go back to leading their everyday lives as if their influences on this girl meant nothing. Mrs Birling didn’t even give a thought by the end of the night that she most probably contributed to the death of her own grandchild. Whether they both disregarded the same girl or not, neither of them can see that what they did was wrong and Mr Birling accuses his children of being ‘Know it alls’ as well as saying ‘they can’t even take a joke’.
I think JB Priestley was telling the audience through the character of Mrs Birling that everyone needs to open their eyes to our society. Not to look at the world and say it’s fine when it quite obviously wasn’t and isn’t.
Mr and Mrs Birling are comfortable in their life and they are now content with the fact that their only daughter, Sheila, is engaged to the son of a wealthy factory owner. Gerald Croft the ‘well bred young man-about-town’ is witty, charming, pleasant and everything that any parents could ask for from a son-in-law he is also liked by Eric although Gerald is a few years his senior. Gerald’s involvement with Eva Smith is when the class distinction of the time becomes apparent. Although to start off with it looked as though Gerald was doing the decent thing by helping a girl in trouble, the inevitable happened when Eva became his mistress. The question that should be asked is if Eva wasn’t so pretty and ‘young and fresh and charming’ would Gerald even have considered helping her from the grasps of Joe Meggarty? My guess is no, for right from the beginning of his story he makes his first impressions of the girl known ‘But then I noticed a girl who looked quite different. She was very pretty- soft brown hair and big dark eyes.’ He doesn’t start by saying he saw a girl being cornered by Joe Meggarty and being pestered he starts by describing the girl, and that was probably what he saw first, this pretty face.
Gerald could be described as a younger Mr Birling, for when Mr Birling was telling of his involvement with Eva Smith Gerald continues to agree with him and then says ‘Yes I think you were (justified). I know we’d have done the same thing.’ You can definitely imagine Gerald to grow up just like his potential father-in-law. The similarities can also be seen at the end of the play. Gerald goes out of his way to prove that Inspector Goole was not a real inspector and even though he did feel guilty about the way he disregarded Eva Smith this guilt quickly disappeared. He doesn’t realise that what he did to Eva was still wrong and immoral and just because the inspector was a fake the fact still remains that he used this girl and treated her with no respect.
As far as Gerald’s relationship with Sheila goes he too sees her the same way as Mr Birling does. Immature and hysterical and like Mr and Mrs Birling he doesn’t see how Sheila matures throughout the play. At the end of the play he expects Sheila to take him back because the inspector was a fake, he forgets that he still had an affair and was unfaithful to his fiancé.
I think through Gerald, JB Priestley was getting across the fact that someone of a lower class doesn’t deserve lower respect. He wanted everyone to be treated equally despite their class and social background.
Eric is the son of the family and starts off the play by being quite quiet and making the occasional sarcastic comment. He obviously doesn’t take his family seriously, laughing and making fun of Sheila, you can also imagine him sitting at the table with a drink and just rolling his eyes at his family’s conversations. However, when the inspector arrives, Eric’s first reaction to the news is ‘My God!’ this shows he was actually concerned and disturbed by the news, unlike Mr Birling who just wanted to know what it had to do with him. Eric’s involvement with Eva was maybe more serious, as he was the man who got her pregnant. However, Eric did not abandon Eva in the slightest; he continued to help her and even stole money from his own fathers business. This could have got Eric in a lot of trouble if caught but he was willing to take a chance in order to help Eva.
Eric was certainly never close to his parents and this is shown when Mr Birling confronts him about the money, Eric replies with ‘Because you’re not the kind of chap a man could turn to when he’s in trouble.’ Such a response indicates that Eric never looked up to his father and that the relationship with his father isn’t going to improve much after the play ends. Another factor that proves he was not close to his family was his drinking problem and the fact that his parents had no idea. The only conclusion I can come to as to why he drunk so much was because he was bored, bored of his day to day life and drinking made it seem more interesting. Like his sister Eric felt he played a part in Eva’s suicide and I imagine he will always feel guilty for taking advantage of her.
Sheila is the daughter of the family; she is described as being ‘very pleased with life and rather excited’. After all she is going to be the future Mrs Gerald Croft and to top off the evenings celebration she receives a ring from her beloved; ‘Is it the one you wanted me to have?’ Whether or not this is the ring Sheila actually wanted she is perfectly happy with it, because Gerald wanted her to have it and I imagine she would do anything to please him. Although Sheila appears pleased and content, at the beginning of the play she can’t help to comment on the absence of Gerald the previous summer ‘except for all last summer when you never came near me, and I wondered what had happened to you.’ Of course that is the summer when Gerald was involved with Eva, even though Gerald says he was working all summer Sheila quite obviously doesn’t believe him ‘Yes that’s what you say.’ Although Sheila appears to be a ‘doormat’ I can imagine ‘last summer’ is a topic she will bring up occasionally just to remind Gerald of his previous sins even though Sheila doesn’t actually know what happened.
Sheila’s involvement with Eva Smith is the fact that she got Eva sacked from her job at Milwards, a clothes store where Sheila shopped regularly. At the time Sheila probably didn’t think anything of it that she had just lost a girl her job, but then again she probably didn’t know what it could lead to. However I think Sheila was most distraught over the whole business and could not understand why a girl would end her life in such an awful way. Once she realised who Eva was Sheila was overcome with guilt and this is when she begins to mature. It is now that Sheila realises what one action could do to someone’s life and as the inspector states ‘She feels responsible. And if she leaves us now, and doesn’t here any more, then she’ll feel she’s entirely to blame, she’ll be alone with her responsibility, the rest of tonight, all tomorrow, all the next night-’. This statement is completely true and it is like he is saying that his work is done with Sheila and that he has got someone to admit that what they did was wrong and someone who is willing to accept the blame.
Throughout the play Sheila continues to mature and when it comes to Gerald she knows that their marriage is off and I highly doubt she will take him back, for this whole news has changed her for the rest of her life. Towards the end of the play Sheila realises that her parents are wrong and also that her future husband is exactly the same and begins to have the same qualities as her brother by making sly, sarcastic comments such as ‘I suppose we’re all nice people now.’ She try’s to make her parents understand that whether or not the inspector was real they all did unforgivable things ‘And don’t let’s start dodging and pretending now. Between us we drove that girl to commit suicide.’ Even when it is revealed there was no suicide Sheila still does not forgive herself ‘If it didn’t end tragically, then that’s lucky for us. But it might have done.’
To me Sheila is the most complex and decent character of the play. It is she who makes all the final comments that sum up the whole evening and it is she who accepts the guilt.
Through Sheila and Eric I think JB Priestley was saying it is up to the new generation to change their ways otherwise society will not progress. He makes the youngest characters the ones who accept what they did and it is probably them who will go on to think about what they did and change their lives for the good.
‘An Inspector Calls’ was Priestley’s way of fighting for what he desired most, altruism, the principle of living and acting for the interest of others. This is what people were doing during the Second World War, people didn’t care if they were working with people they normally wouldn’t even talk to, they just wanted to help. The whole play still appeals to today’s society, have we learnt from the First and Second World War? Quite obviously we haven’t and maybe when writing the play JB Priestley was hoping we would.
