Write about Sheila Birling – her role in the play, character and relationships
Sheila Birling is the well-off daughter of Sybil and Arthur Birling, sister of Eric Birling and is engaged to Gerald Croft. She is described as a “pretty girl in her early twenties, very pleased with life and rather excited.” Sheila is one of the only two characters in the play to truly change her views towards life and the social ladder in 1912.
At the beginning of the play, Sheila is shown to be happy and playful, telling jokes and making comments which are guaranteed to make one smile. Priestley has written in Sheila’s acting directions that she is often “(half serious, half playful)”. This is a result of her parents shielding her from the reality of the outside world, the harshness and the bitterness that the ‘lower classes’ feel. She seems very shocked when the Inspector tells her about Eva’s downward spiral, which is evidence of this. However, she is the only Birling to see Eva’s death as the loss of a fellow human being and the way in which it will affect the world around her, not just in terms of personal matters. She also seems shocked that not everyone is like her, being young, pretty and well-off. She is evidence of the gap in the social ladder between the lower class and the upper class. Sheila is what Eva could have been if she had been born to upper-class parents.
Sheila is shown to have flaws in her character – Eric refers to her temper when he says “she’s got a nasty temper sometimes”, she is possessive and suspicious towards Gerald and his actions, having “(…, possessively)” written in her acting directions and questioning Gerald as to what he was really doing over the summer. She acts in an overly childish way, exhibiting this behaviour specifically towards her parents, calling them “Daddy” and “Mummy”, even though she is a grown woman. Her behaviour at Milward’s shop also shows many faults, for example, being “jealous” of Eva’s good looks, which the Inspector helps Sheila to realise, and letting her temper get the better of her when she sees Eva smiling at Miss Francis (the assistant) after she found out that the dress did not suit her, and coming immediately to the worst conclusion possible: that the smile meant “Doesn’t she look awful”. In the confession of what happened in the shop, the reader also gets the impression that here, Sheila is not unlike her father and Gerald, in that she uses her family’s money and status to dominate the situation in the shop. She threatens to “never go near the place again and (she)’d persuade (her) mother to close (their) account with them” unless the manager fired Eva. This is the complete opposite to how we see Sheila behaving during the play; during the play, she seems conscious of other people’s feelings and compassionate, however, there is a complete lack of this much-needed compassion in the Milward’s situation.
