To what extent was each character responsible for Eva's death? (Inspector Calls)

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To what extent was each character responsible for Eva’s death?

An inspector calls was written by j b priestly to show his audience that in real life everyone has responsibilities and morals and that everything that a person does has a consequence whether or not its good or bad, there is a consequence. He had written this play after World War 2 and had seen the catastrophe and wanted people to understand that we all have a responsibility for one another and that we are members of on body.

The Birlings are a family which represent society. When they act irresponsibly there are consequences which hurt others, in this case its Eva smith, a young working class woman who stands for millions of other women like her. The Birling family are a rich upper class family who are stuck up and think they are better than everyone else. Each member of the family is partly responsible for the death of Eva smith; they all acted irresponsibly towards her and these actions had consequences which drove Eva to suicide.

Sheila is responsible for Eva’s death because when she goes to milliards she is trying on some clothing and when Eva tells her that she does not look good in it and because Eva is an attractive girl, she is jealous of her and uses her status to get Eva discharged from milliards. When the inspector calls and Sheila realises that she is partly responsible for the death, she is shocked and feels upset and when the inspector shows Sheila a picture of Eva, Sheila looks at it closely, recognises it with a little cry and gives a half stifled sob and then runs out. Sheila also realises what she has done and ‘felt rotten about it at the time’ and now feels a lot worse. Her reaction to the truth is somewhat emotional; she doesn’t keep her feelings within her and lets is all out about how responsible she is and can accept her responsibility, ‘if I could help her now I would.’ Sheila is really feeling the guilt by the time the inspector is interrogating her and wants to help the investigation in any way she can. Sheila learns from this ordeal dearly as she realises what a mistake she has made and that she would do as much as she can to help out in the investigation. She is ashamed of her parents and not proud of herself at all and has learnt not to punish others as a result of your own feelings; in Sheila’s case, jealousy. Sheila is like the inspector in the way that he uses intuition and is very perceptive and is able to analyse the situation she learns that it’s important. Even though she had bad parenting, she is different and is able to criticise her parents.

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Eric on the other hand is very responsible for Eva’s death. Technically Eric is the one that helped her most but also possibly the one that hurt her most and most responsible. Like Sheila, Eric is a child that has had bad parenting and there was a lot of pressure on him that when he was older he was the one to take over the factory but he didn’t show any interest in doing so whatsoever.

Eric first met Eva when he was at the palace bar, he liked the look of her and they had a ...

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