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?

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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?

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 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:

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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 ...

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