Mr Birling does not treat the working class people as normal people who deserve wages and due respect; he just exploits them and pays them with great reluctance. His main aim is to achieve “lower cost and higher prices.” This again shows that he is very self-centred and only cares about himself; lower costs and higher prices means he would get more money, because he’d be paying less for goods as well as he’d be getting a larger profit from the public, who’d buy these items at expensive prices.
Mr Birling thinks he knows what the future holds, even though he’s wrong. He strongly believes he is correct due to his experiences as a hardhearted businessman. He thinks that Britain is thriving too much for their co ever to be a war – the play is based before the WW1. He also thinks that technology is progressing so much that he says to Eric: “Soon you will be living in a world that’ll have forgotten all these silly capitalist versus labour agitations and all these little war scales. There will be peace and prosperity and rapid progress everywhere.” He says, “The worlds developing so fast that it’ll make war impossible.” He says his ‘foretelling’ so positively as though they were facts – he is this sure of them. His other prophecy is that he believes that technology has risen so high that he thinks that the Titanic is unsinkable. However, the audience of this play know that he is wrong because by this time, Titanic has already sunk and there has been a world war.
The reason he thinks there won’t be a war is because he thinks that the lower class people have no power to cause a commotion or to cause a problem. He also thinks that capitalism will keep the world economy stable. He fails to see that a stable world is built on social fairness, not money.
Mr Birling detests socialists who advocate that people are responsible for each other and that everyone must be treated equally. He says, “A man has to mind his own business and look after himself and his own…” he suggests that to get anywhere in life, people should care about themselves only and not care about others. In opposite to this, socialists say that life only goes on with people helping each other. This shows that Birling has very selfish motives.
Birling tries many times to act socially superior than the Inspector, to intimidate him and faze him, but the Inspector is not fazed by his ridiculous behaviour. Firstly, he introduces his son-in-law to be, who is the son of titled parents, but the Inspector is not affected by him being of even higher status, and tells Gerald to stay also, meaning he would also like him to be questioned, or listen to the other questions.
Birling tells the Inspector he doesn’t like his “tone” again, treating the Inspector lower than themselves, but again the Inspector remains cool, saying, “It’s my duty to ask questions.” Birling also tries to ask the Inspector how he gets along with the Chief constable, Colonel Roberts, then mentioning their friendship – suggesting he is a law abiding citizen who gets along with police men. However, the Inspector brushes this off and ignores him. Then Birling tries once more with the Inspector and tells him “I’m a public man”, again presenting himself as a dutiful, law abiding individual who could not possibly be a criminal, but the Inspector takes no notice of his snobbish behaviour and reminds him “Public men have duties as well as privileges.”
Birling believes that the working class people have no right to go on strike, they should be happy with what little they receive. He says it’s his duty to keep labour costs down and if they dislike it then they “Can go work somewhere else.” However, he and the Inspector both know that the working class cannot find a job that easily, and Birling goes on to say that all the workers soon came back to work as they needed the money. He explains that a few workers had gone on strike and as a punishment he sacked the ringleader, one of whom was Eva Smith, to ensure that no one thinks about going on a strike again. Birling says that if the workers were not controlled, “They would soon be asking for the earth”, to which the Inspector replies, “Its better to ask for the earth than to take it.” This also shows that the Inspector is very sharp witted, quick and clever at his replies – he knows his job well. Birling obviously dislikes this, and this is why he repeatedly objects to the Inspector’s questions trying to get him to leave. He is very worried about protecting his family, but much more importantly, his reputation. Spoiling his reputation would mean there would be a public scandal resulting in him not receiving his knighthood.
When he finds out the Inspector was a hoax he goes back to being as he was before, acting as though nothing has happened, but he does admit that the Inspector gave him a scare. However, he says that the Inspector being false “Makes all the difference.”
Birling does not care much about the feelings of his family – he only cares about their reputations. This is shown in many places throughout the play, but most clearly at the end when he forgets Gerald’s transgression of cheating on his daughter, and instead tells him, “You’ve argued this most cleverly and I’m most grateful.” He has no concern for his daughter’s feelings. He just wants Gerald as his son-in-law. He has not changed at all.
A reason for his not changing at could be that he is an older man who is very stuck in his way; he will not change, where as Sheila is younger and can change more easily. Birling thinks he’s a “Hardhearted businessman” who is very experienced and knows what he is talking about and will not change. Reality he is proud, selfish, and short-sighted and will not change.
At the beginning of the play, Sheila Birling is presented as a spoilt, childish and naïve character. She wants everything her own way and gets upset or angry when things are not to her liking. For example, she gets agitated simply when a dress does not suit her as much as it suited the other girl.
Sheila is very excited at being engaged to a rich man who can provide her with a rich, materialistic life, and a high social status. However, she is more in love with being in love than being in love with Gerald. This is shown when she reacts over excitedly at receiving the engagement ring.
Another place where Sheila is portrayed as an innocent child is when Mr and Mrs Birling and Gerald all advice Sheila to leave the room so she doesn’t hear the wrong things and lose her innocence. However, she disagrees and prepares herself for the worst.
Sheila is also a very delicate person and is affected very easily in comparison to her father. When she learns of Eva Smith’s suicide, she reacts very sensitively by saying, “Oh, how horrible” and she feels extremely sorry for the young girl. Also, when she finds out she could be responsible for her death, she runs from the room tearfully in distress.
Now, unlike Birling, she sees Eva Smith as someone like herself. She has learned that the working class are young individuals like herself who deserve to be treated as people rather than just cheap labour. Sheila is ashamed and humiliated after realizing what she has done. She admits that she had abused her power because she envied Eva Smith.
Sheila realizes that it is no point hiding the facts from the Inspector as she tells Gerald, “Why you fool – he knows. Of course he knows.” She also tries to warn her mother she can’t hide from the Inspector, as she tells her, “Mother, do stop before it’s too late.” She understands that they must all be honest with this Inspector, “It’s crazy. Stop it, please, Mother”, and she also says…”But we really must stop these silly pretences.” She also begins to side with the Inspector because she knows that ultimately, the Inspector will get the truth out of all of them. She helps the Inspector by telling the family he knows anyway. She has the most insight in the family, and she eventually begins to rebuke her family members by opposing them. For example, she says, “Mother, I think it was cruel and vile”, and also “If you’re not telling the truth, why should the Inspector apologise?”
Mr and Mrs Birling are holding onto a pretence and are proud and do not want to be proven wrong. Unlike Sheila who has become humbled through this conversation in the evening.
After the family discover that the Inspector was a hoax, Sheila still does not believe he came to trick them; she thinks he came to teach the Birlings and Gerald a lesson about unselfishness and caring for others rather than themselves. She says that the facts are still the same, that the family were still very selfish and uncaring.
Sheila is the character who has learnt the most. Her refusal to retake the engagement ring shows that she has matured at the end of the evening. She approaches Gerald in a different manner, as she now understands that she doesn’t know Gerald properly, the way she should. She has to start all over again to get to know him. She realises that she and Gerald must be honest with each other if there’s to be any relationship between them. She says, “You and I aren’t the same people who sat down to dinner here. We’d have to start all over again, getting to know each other…”
There could be many explanations for why Sheila Birling responding to the Inspector’s “call£ and why her father Mr Birling did not. Sheila reacted very positively and understood the Inspector because the Inspector was asking at her lever; a level that she would understand.
Sheila is more of a sensitive character and is very vulnerable; someone can very easily make her change her views. Since she is still young, and she is not set in her ways, she has not yet created her own philosophies and ideas as her father has; she can be influenced by the opinions of other, especially as this Inspector had an imposing presence and also used very emotional tactics to convey his message.
As proven at the end of the play, the “Inspector” was in reality not an Inspector. The author leaves us in suspense as to who this may be.
I believe, Mr Goole could be a socialist who has been studying the case of Eva Smith for many years and now realizes all the trouble she has gone through, decides to teach the Birlings a lesson, as to show them how selfish they are.
He could also be a prophetic character from the unreal world, like for example, an angel or a fairy come on behalf of the poor oppressed young Eva, again solely to teach the family a lesson.
Mr Goole could also be a friend or relative of Eva Smith who cares about Eva and is very upset and angry about how she has been treated, therefore comes to avenge her oppressors in some way.
He could be some sort of prophet or messenger come from God to avenge the poor girl and to teach the Birlings something important.
He could be a polite Inspector from another district who came to work on the case.
J.B. Priestley is a sociologist and in the play, the Inspector expounds many socialist ideas about having a fair world, etc. Therefore, the Inspector is representing Mr Priestley as a sociologist to convey his message to viewers.
The Inspector’s voice is also the author’s voice; all the author’s ideas and philosophies are portrayed as correct with the help of the Inspector and Mr Birling, who is a capitalist and proven wrong at the end of the book.