How does priestly present Sheila in “an inspector calls “? Focus on her at the beginning of the play and then consider how she has changed in the final part of the play.
An Inspector calls is a play set in 1912 Edwardian England, in this time period there was a large social divide between upper class and lower class. “An inspector calls” is about a Higher classed family having a strong connection with a young women who has commit suicide, with a suspicious inspector uncovering the plot throughout the play. All the way through the play the writer Priestly shows the characters on a personal journey he shows how they change from stuck up un-caring upper class members of society to understanding, guilt ridden human beings. In this essay I hope to show this through the character Sheila’s journey and her part in the play by covering her original state in act one to her rejuvenated state in act three.
At the start of the play we have the whole Birling family sat round the table and Gerald the fiancé of Sheila, having a conversation. In the opening to the play the audience would see what Sheila looks like , and if its anything like priestly describes in the book “Sheila is a pretty girl In her early twenties very please with life and rather exited” this makes the audience see Sheila as an innocent girl a some what average happy and nice girl that the audience wouldn’t mind being friends with but then she speaks “ I should jolly well think not Gerald, I’d hate to know all about port like one of those purple faced old men!” this shows Sheila’s true character (a some what spoilt girl with quite a foul vocabulary” we continue to get a bad view of Sheila and she shows to be just like her stuck up ,rude upper class mother. As the first act continues but we also see the characteristics of a love struck young women in Sheila’s character when Gerald shows her a ring “oh its wonderful Gerald, look mummy isn’t it a beauty (she kisses Gerald hastily)” page 5. But even though love struck feature is a nice characteristic we are still left thinking that Sheila isn’t the person we’d love to love as she is still posh, spoilt, and foul mouthed and the list goes on.