He is a snob and wants everything to evolve around him. He evolves around money and believes that money should evolve around him, but, in reality, he is a pompous prat and doesn’t have a clue. He talks to Eric and Gerald with airs and graces about how this is “a very good time/A time of steadily increasing prosperity,” He believes that they are living in the heart of technological advances and uses the Titanic as an example of this. How wrong could he be? Birling describes the great ship as being “Unsinkable, absolutely unsinkable,” (Page 6). This shows how the middle classes had all the power and authority in society, but didn’t have the knowledge or understanding to use it wisely, as the Titanic sank, losing 1500 lives, on its maiden voyage! He also claims “The Germans don’t want war,” the audience will be able to see the irony of this, as it was first produced in 1945, not long after WW2 ending, so the audience can see that he gets everything totally and utterly wrong.
The Birling family are important in society, but not quite ‘in’ with the elites, and in a quiet chat with his daughter’s fiancé, Birling confesses that he feels, Gerald’s Mother, isn’t particularly pleased with the engagement, “Lady Croft believes you could have done better for yourself socially-” (Page 8). Birling behaves like this as he has a desire to be better and his creeping to him. “There’s a fair chance I might make it into the next honours list,” (Page 8). The Birlings have wealth, power and are recognised in society, but it is only recently acquired. The Birling’s are not part of the long-standing aristocracy. Therefore, they do not have the sense of responsibility that goes with this wealth; they only have a sense of importance.
Birling sees life as money, the more he can make, the better life is. His political philosophy is “A man must make his own way – has to look after himself, and his family, if he has one.” (Page 9). In other words, Birling is a firm believer in looking after number one and as long as you and your family are all right – nothing else matters.
It is also very important to note that Birling is very supportive to his wife throughout the play and the two always back each other up when stating an opinion. In the initial stage direction, Mrs. Birling is described as “a rather cold woman,” and that she is “her husbands social superior.” Therefore, she has a view of life where she looks down on others. There are lots of examples of snobbery throughout the play, “A girl of that class,” “You know of course that my husband was a Lord Mayor only two years ago and he’s still a magistrate.”
Eva then went on to be employed at Milwards, a designer fashion department store, working with new trends and high-class people, but all this came to an end when Sheila Birling entered the store. Sheila had the defenceless girl thrown out just for smiling about how horribly awful she looked in her desired dress whilst trying it on. “I caught sight of this girl smiling/she was pretty/looked as if she could take care of herself. I couldn’t be sorry for her.”
Sheila was angry, upset and jealous, so she used her power and influence as a regular and high-valued customer at the store to get her dismissed. She is the character that probably changes the most throughout the duration of the play.
Sick of living life as Eva Smith she decided to conceal her true identity whilst ‘working’ on the street and to changed her name to Daisy Renton.
With being unemployed, she inevitably ends up in the Palace Bar, a regular pick-up point for prostitutes, as a last resort for money. This is where she met Gerald, they became intimate and, for a while, he kept her as his mistress, using her for sexual pleasure. Although she did have some feelings for him as the Inspector claims “At least he had some affection for her and made her happy for a time.” (Page 56). Gerald also returned the feelings and genuinely cared for Daisy. The affair lasted for a few months; he gave her somewhere to stay and showed her affection, but it all had to come to an end as he had to leave on business. As soon as the relationship became an inconvenience for him, he discarded her and crushed the last little bit of delight and happiness that was left in her life.
Just as she thought life couldn’t get any worse, she met Eric Birling. He was an alcoholic and they also met in the Palace Bar. There was no feeling there, it wasn’t ‘making love’, and he just used her for sex. Feeling life couldn’t get any worse, she was actually grateful to him! She soon fell pregnant, and, although he didn’t love her, he felt inclined to offer to stay with her and support the baby. He gave her stolen money from his Father’s firm to maintain her daily life, of which she refused after finding out the source. Daisy also believed that he was too naïve and inadequate to bring up a child.
Eva/Daisy was vulnerable at the time she met Eric, but she still realised that their ‘love’ was a major sham. Although he was a kind-hearted gentleman, she believed he still had a lot more lessons to learn in life, before he would be able to nurture a child and he would definitely not find them at the bottom of an empty bottle.
Their relationship came to an end. Having no one else to rely on, she turned to a local organisation set up to help ‘women in need’. This was when she came into contact with Mrs. Birling. Sybil, an arrogant and social superior woman, was a member of the board and simply refused and abandoned her case, like the times before. She admits that she had felt “prejudiced against her”, and used her power and influence over the women, just because she addressed herself as Mrs. Birling. Sybil claimed “She impertinently made use of our name/no claim to the name,” when in fact she did! Not only had the girl been seeing her son, she was also carrying her Grandchild!! This is just another example of the elder Birling’s selfishness, ignorance and self-concerned arrogance.
When questioned by the Inspector, Sybil passes the blame over completely to the baby’s Father, not knowing that it is her own son. “Look for the Father of the child, it’s his responsibility/If the girl’s death is due to any, then its down to him/he ought to be dealt with very severely/confess in public.” (Page 48). The Inspector believes he also is the “Chief culprit.” Although, on page 22, the Inspector does claim “If you’re easy with me, I’m easy with you."
Before the Inspector leaves, he gives one last speech, which could possibly be the most important piece of dialogue in the play and sums up all Priestley’s ideas into one speech “I don’t need to know anymore. Neither do you. This girl killed herself and died a horrible death. But each of you helped to kill her. Remember that. Never forget it.” (Page 55). The final words that he leaves with the Birling’s “One Eva Smith has gone – but there are millions and millions of Eva Smiths ad John Smiths still left with us…” Adam and Eve were the first people according to the Bible and the names John and Smith are some of the most common names today. So what the Inspector is saying is that you have done wrong in the past, but you still have a chance to change your ways. In the course of your life you will touch hundred’s of other peoples lives, so think about how you treat people, because small things can have a large snowball effect. Gerald claims that “there were probably four or five different girls.” He sees that all these actions could have resulted in suicide, but he still believes that many different women could play Eva. This is probably another point of Priestley’s, that Eva probably was different women, because this was how many lower class women were treated at that time and there was a lot of people in this situation at the time of the Inspector calling.
He warns the Birling family that “The time will come when, if men will not learn that lesson, they will be taught it in fire and blood and anguish. Good night.” In hindsight we can see that the “fire and blood and anguiosh” that the Inspector was describing happened in the case of the First World War. This had started because the countries of Europe, instead of existing together had formed themselves into two camps, with the countries within them allied together. Serbia was Russia’s ally, who was also on the side of Britain and France, who had both promised to protect Belguim. Austria and Germany (and later Italy) were also allies. When Austria attacked Serbia, the Russians declared war on Austria and the Germans invaded Belgium, send Britain and France into battle. The result was a hellish war in which millions died. Had the countries been able to live together then there would not have been a war. The fact that the play was written in the midst of the Second World War suggests that Priestley was saying that the lessons of what happened in World War One had not been learnt, for which World War Two inevitably occurred.
The genre of this play would seem to be a murder mystery, written in a literal and ‘sensible’ manner, which you believe could happen in real-life, only if you take the book at face value. You could argue the fact that the Inspector was just a normal man, with little bits of information from here and there within the public and help form Eva/Daisy, had plotted and schemed the whole thing up. As the characters argue:-
Mrs. Birling “He never talked like one. He never even looked like one.”
Birling “That definitely wasn’t a police Inspector at all.”
Inspector – “I’m losing all my patience with you people,” (Page 56). A real police Inspector wouldn’t be able to speak to you like that, or he could lose his licence.
Stage directions - Sheila [to Inspector] stares at him wonderingly and dubiously.
Sheila (Slowly) “You mustn’t try to build up a wall between us and that girl. If you do, then the Inspector will just break it down. And it will be worse when he does.” (Page 29).
Sheila - “Somehow he makes you.” (Page 37).
Birling – “Look at the way he spoke to me. Telling me to shut up and so on/I mean, they don’t talk like that.” (Page 59).
“It doesn’t matter now, but was he a real police Inspector?” says Sheila. She believes it doesn’t matter, the important thing is that they all did something that could have contributed to result in an Eva situation. Mr. Birling doesn’t believe this, he thinks that if Goole wasn’t a police Inspector he will benefit more from is, as it won’t get out and result in a scandal.
To be on the safe side, the family even phones up the infirmary and police station and all the results come back clear, giving them a sense of security. Then the play flips right over into the mysterious, as the phone rings again and it’s the infirmary warning that “A girl has just died - on the way to the infirmary,” a suicide case, “A police Inspector is on his way – to ask some questions…”(Page 72). This is how the play ends, leaving you yearning to find out what happens next and how this could have happened. This also makes them seem conspicuous as if they have just phoned up, then they will look suspicious. If the Police Inspector had just left after questioning the death of a girl, how could she have just died? Time in this plays an essential part and it ends just like the girl, cold, suddenly and with a lot of unanswered questions.
If you take the play from a supernatural angle, the Inspector could have come from the future questioning them on their past, or it could be the spirit of the unborn child inside Eva, forcing them to look at themselves.
Sheila realises that there is something about the Inspector and warns her family about him. Even when she finds out that he could be a fraud, she doesn’t change her mind about the situation and still believes “he inspected us”. Her moral values lie with the Inspector and she tries to help the investigation along as much as she can, everyone else wants to conceal the fact that they are messed up in the scandal, but she wants to help as much as possible. This character probably changes the most in her ideas and behaviour the most throughout the duration of the play, as she shows the most maturity in reacting with the other characters. Sheila goes from the happy, carefree, newly fiancée of Gerald, to the complete opposite change of attitude and breaking off the engagement. The co-operation with the Inspector is portrayed clearly, as she is keen and eager to the investigation run smoothly. She realises that she has done wrong and tries to correct the error of her ways, to relieve her guilt. There is a lot of conflict between the two generations as Arthur disagrees, “It makes all the difference.” [Whether he is a real Police Inspector or not], Eric agrees with her “No, Sheila’s right. It doesn’t.” (Page 59).
Sheila seems to contradict her parent frequently, which leads Mrs. Birling to remark to the Inspector that “You seem to be making a great impression on the child.” The Inspector’s response to this comment is proved true, “We usually do.” The younger characters – Sheila, Eric and Gerald to some extent, are able to see the Inspector’s message and realise he is right. Once she sees her parents steadfastly returning back to their old ways, she stands up to them, saying “Your beginning to pretend now that nothing really happened at all.” Sheila is quite dubious, throughout the ‘interview’ as she claims, “You know, you never showed him that photograph of her.”
Or perhaps it is a shared opinion with the Inspector. Sheila, coming from a family of that class, would have led a fairly sheltered life and kept away from the “real world”. So, naturally it would be an accepted opinion that any member should feel socially superior, but Sheila’s cut from a different cloth. So as soon as she finds out that she is not the only one who feels this way, she is ready to step back and take a look at her life. Sheila shares the same view with the Inspector and then feels adequate in expressing herself. She is used to her Father’s speeches and this could explain her lack of interest when he leaps into a great lecture on his views of the world and has to be reminded to pay attention, “Are you listening?” (Page 6).
Everything can be then explained and we can look at things in a different light: - he could have used different photographs. Sheila – “You know, you never showed him that photograph of her.” He could also have used bits of information from here and there. Birling – “Somebody put that fellow up to coming here and hoaxing us/there are people in this town who dislike me enough to do that.” (Page 63).
“You’re the one I blame for this.” This shocking statement comes from Mr. Birling, whilst addressing Eric, his own son. He hasn’t tried to listen to him all the way through the play “Yes, I know – but still…” and “Just let me finish Eric…” Birling is a very selfish man, a man who doesn’t know his son at all. Eric had managed to hide a drinking problem for many months without him even noticing. Mrs. Birling seems set in her ways ad shows very little sign of wavering from it during the action and the absolution.
Gerald is the character whose opinions are difficult to judge, because unlike the other characters he has a motive for stating ideas that are different to what he actually believes. Generally, Gerald attempts to do and say what he hopes Mr. and Mrs. Birling will agree with and he also attempts to please Sheila, though he is not particularly successful. Gerald comes out of his “interview” with the Inspector better than any other character, because he did not do anything to Eva/Daisy that harmed her in the way that other characters did. Indeed, had he not been engaged to Sheila his conduct would have been entirely acceptable for a normal relationship. However, the fact that he was means that he is thought of as very low esteem by Sheila and her parents after he tells the details of his affair. When Sheila gives Gerald back the ring in Act 2 he would doubtless have wished to get back in favour with Mr. and Mrs. Birling.
This state of mind means that he appears to finally come out on the side of Birling and he does whatever he can to be supportive towards them. Privately one feels that Gerald feels that same as Eric and Sheila, but he cannot afford to agree with tem if he wishes to get back in favour with their parents, as this is the only way he can hope to restart the engagement with Sheila. This is shown in has destruction, in which he is constantly prompting Birling to cast doubt on each part of the tale. He is also not afraid to telephone the infirmary to confirm that there was no dead body there, despite Birling’s reservations about it being rather late to be doing this. Another example of Gerald’s wish to avoid upsetting Birling further is when he refuses Sheila’s offer to tell him about, as Sheila puts it, “our crimes and idiocies.” Consequently Gerald’s conduct is probably biased and hiding his true opinions.
The Inspector’s surname is Goole, which is also a play on words, because, when you think about it, the words Ghoul and Ghost are other forms of the word. This mysterious quality and connection, also gives an insight to the supernatural as a Ghoul is a spirit which takes fresh life from corpses, so there is a close connection with his reason for being there, questioning these people and forcing them to look at themselves. Priestley describes the Inspector, when he first appears on stage, in terms of “massiveness, solidity and purposefulness,” (Page 11). This symbolises the fact that he is an unstoppable force within the play. The Inspector is a Catalyst, a substance or person that causes change without being involved in the process, which means that he is their conscience. Although he never directly uses that word throughout the play, this is his direct intention. “To understand what happened – that’s why I’m here.”
The Inspector possesses supernatural, God-like powers, as he seems to know what each character has done without being told. As she says “We hardly ever told him anything he didn’t know.” (Page 60). The Inspector is a firm socialist, “We don’t live alone…members of one body…responsible for each other.” He also has an efficient of controlling the conversation throughout the play, words and phrases such as “stop”, “I don’t want”, “sharply” and “harshly” to do this.
Priestley wrote the play to make you think about how you treat people and to think about your actions and the consequences that they have on the rebound. The play was first produced in Moscow in 1944; the whole play is a metaphor of the history of Britain from the 20th century to the end of WW2. This is important, as the hidden meaning of the play is that we all have to look after one another, not as Mr. Birling believes. With his every man for himself’ attitude, you just have to look at his political philosophy to see that everything Birling is for, the play teaches you to be against. The play subconsciously forces yourself to question how you conduct yourself and to treat people as you would like to be treated yourself. This is the hidden meaning of the play and uses a clever pull on ideas to put over Priestley’s point of view. This play has an obvious unreality, is a great read and has a brilliant twist at the end.
Even if this play does venture into the paranormal and border on the unbelievable, it doesn’t matter because it has been written for a purpose and is symbolic. The play is about social conscience, so if you were to choose between a thick history book on social conscience, or you could read this modern drama, you would choose this because it is written in a fun and imaginative way. The play helps you to relate to the characters and become emotionally involved, making special bonds with characters and having personal favourites. In my opinion, this is an excellent and effective piece of modern drama, even though it is set in the 1912; it ends on a brilliant cliffhanger, is well crafted and captivates its audience.
The different generations play varied roles in this play. The younger Birlings are more readily able to accept their responsibilities, whereas the older, supposedly more wiser generations seem to pass the blame over with regards to taking the burden of guilt. Sheila and Eric show more maturity in accepting the blame rationally than trying to scheme up another source to place the blame. This siding with each other is ironic as in the first scene they spend most of the time annoying each other. Birling, Sybil and Gerald all share the same opinion. Gerald is probably biased, as he wants to get back in favour with Sheila’s parents. Together they represent the powerful employing class; the people with power who are also responsible for WW2 breaking out.
Birling passes comment on his children “the famous younger generation who know it all. And they can’t even take a joke.” He is making a mockery out of them, but it is this generation at the time of the Second World War who will be learning the lessons. But they are also the generation with ideas, who brought in the Labour party and brought about the NHS, social services and the United Nations.
Birling seems to have a dim view of education, probably because he did not experience itself. He criticises Eric for his life at University, saying, “the public-school-and varsity-life doesn’t seem to teach you [responsibility]” Ironically it appears that it is Birling who seems unable to grasp the notion of responsibility for other people.
The play carries a sexist attitude, where it is thought more important that men should have an education than women. Several times in the play Birling asks Sheila and Mrs. Birling to leave the room so he can speak in private. At the start of the play, Sheila and her mother go out of the room and leave Birling to talk about issues he does not want them to hear, such as his worries about Gerald’s mother and his desire to talk about business issues.
This denying access of the truth means that women are a lot more naïve and innocent than the men. For instance, Sheila appears to be very ignorant of business matters when Birling talks about them in Act 1. Another example of this ignorance is the fact that neither has heard of the Palace Bar, where both Gerald and Eric met Eva/Daisy whilst the men definitely do.
To answer the question of “Is the play really a metaphor?” I can conclude that the answer is yes. In my interpretation of the play, there is no right or wrong person to blame for Eva’s death and this is this message that Priestley wants to put across. The fact that the Inspector didn’t really exist doesn’t really matter, the way that one family’s actions affected a poor young girl still remains a fact. Mr and Mrs Birling don’t think they have done anything wrong and go back to their old conceited ways once the inspector is disproved. Actually, I believe that it should make the visit an even more dramatic experience for them. It gives the inspector a supernatural quality, sent as a messenger from God to change the way these people lived their lives. Arthur Birling represents Priestley’s hared of businessmen who are only interested in making money. Priestley leaves the play unclosed, leaving the audience to think about the play and draw their own conclusions. This is a very good tactic by Priestley, as it makes people think about what they saw, hopefully making them realise that aspects of their life should be changed for the good of humanity.
Now that you can see whom the Inspector had an effect on and whom he made no impact on at all. He had a tremendous effect on Sheila and not so much on Birling. The play promotes a socialist idea through the Inspector very well. Overall it is a very clever play, making the audience think, not just of themselves, but others as well. Priestley touched the conscience of me and made me realise that every action has a reaction. Even if the only person it has affected throughout the world is me, through his beliefs and teachings, I could put his practise into my preaching and help benefit others.