How does Priestly present Mrs Birling?

Priestly has set out Mrs Birling originally, when the inspector comes to her house she greets him with a warm welcome. A quote to show this is: ‘(smiling, social) Good evening, Inspector.’ From the stage directions we can see she is happy, joyful and seems to be in a good mood.However gradually throughout Act II Priestley does present Mrs Birling’s character to mirror the original description and the audience are reassured that their original impressions of Mrs Birling’s character were right all along. During Act II Priestley presents the character of Mrs Birling through her use of language and tone, her reactions towards her daughter Sheila, and her harsh viewpoint of Eva Smith. All of these factors that Priestley has used to present Mrs Birling’s character combine and reach a climax at the end of her interrogation by the Inspector in Act II resulting in her true character being revealed to the audience. At the beginning of Act II when Mrs Birling greets the Inspector with with a warm welcome she is merely maintaining a cool and superficial exterior for the Inspector so that she feels in control. She introduces herself as if the Inspector should know who she is. A quote to show this is: ‘(same easy tone) I’m Mrs Birling, y’know.’  From this quote we can see that her tone of voice is easy as she is relaxed but it is also snobbish and full of self-importance. She does not feel threatened by the Inspector and her casual language shows this. However just like Mr Birling when he says, ‘And to that I say fiddlesticks! The Germans don’t want war.’ - she has no idea of what is to come. Mrs Birling is proved to be very foolish as she believes she is above the law yet she will later be involved with the ‘crime’. Priestly, so far, has the given the effect that Mrs Birling is snobbish and thinks too highly of herself. Priestly has also shown that she is in a high class because of the description of the dining room in the stage directions and of her. A quote to show the description is: ‘The dining room of a fairly large suburban house, belonging to a prosperous manufacturer. There is sophisticated vocabulary here such as ‘prosperous manufacturer’. This gives the effect that she and her family are sophisticated to.Priestly also shows that she did not seem to be guilty or ashamed about turning Eva away but was worried about the scandal of it all. Even Mr Birling was shocked at her treatment of Eva. This suggests that she cares more about her appearance and pride than her morals. A quote to show this is: ‘(dubiously) I must say, Sybil, that when this comes out at the inquest, it isn’t going to do us much good. The Press might easily take it up -’ … ‘I did nothing that I’m ashamed of.’ Priestley has purposefully used her interrogation with the Inspector to show her cruel nature.