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Gerald
Explore Priestley’s presentation of Gerald in the play?
Gerald is character who seems to be stuck in the middle of the two generations – the
older and younger thus Priestly presents him solely as the middle generation. It’s
increasingly evident that this physical liminality extends to his ideologies and attitudes
as well as on the one hand he feels guilt like the younger generation but on the other
hand tries his best to brush off his feelings and act masculine as would’ve been
expected by men in 1912. Priestly also depicts Gerald as having less flexibility and
impressionability compared to the younger generation to represent how ignorance
and arrogance increases throughout the generations. Over the course of the essay
we are going to explore several different attitudes and ideologies of Gerald such as
his physical appearance down to his behaviour and misogynistic views.
From the offset we learn of Gerald’s status and misogynistic attitudes. We are alerted
to the fact that he’s of a higher class than Mr Birling since Mr Birling makes every
attempt to try and impress him. Gerald is an attractive man as the stage directions
depict him as an ‘easy well-bred young man-about-town.’ The phrase suggests his
high status and fashionable socialite. Attached to this phrase is also a plural
connotation as Priestly foreshadows Gerald’s disloyal nature through the use of ‘man-
about-town’ as we later learn he physically goes around town, into the Palace bar in
search of female companions who look ‘out of place’ in hope to make them his
mistress. The audience in 1945 would have thoroughly been disgusted by his
behaviour and lustful desires as there was a labour government who were about to
revolutionise Britain by creating the welfare state which was designed so that it was
the governments job to look after the health, education and housing of their citizens.
Priestly makes it evident that Gerald is an experienced micheton as he’s being
interrogated by the inspector he gives a vivid description of hating ‘those hard-eyed
dough faced women’ reinforcing his familiarity with bars. In 1912 pre-war this
behaviour would’ve been acceptable and would’ve been seen as something men
were allowed to do, and women being inferior in a patriarchal society had to ‘get
used to that.’ Gerald’s outlandish description of prostitutes amplifies the fact this isn’t
a one off for him, as the verb ‘hate’ could only be generated through experience.
The superficiality exhibited by Gerald shows how if they don’t meet his standard he
instantly dislikes them. Gerald’s condensing view on women alerts the audience that
Gerald’s so called ‘rescue’ is just a façade and he merely takes her captive rather
than leaving her with Alderman Meggarty. The audience may favour Gerald
believing that he really was doing it out of care for Eva as we came to the evaluation
if Gerald doesn’t like a woman he moves on, but he stayed with Eva showing that he
did genuinely care and this view can be reinforced through the structural use of his
dramatic exit. Alternatively the audience may dislike him due to the fact he should’ve
been seeing Sheila and as we begin to favour Sheila more and more throughout the
play we side with her views and thus criticise Gerald for his behaviour evermore
throughout the play. Through the use of this comparison that some of the audience
may like and dislike Gerald, Priestly presents Gerald as completely ambiguous. It may
perhaps of been Priestley’s intention for Gerald to be neither hated or loved and to
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