GCSE AQA English Literature Essay: An Inspector Calls - Gender Roles
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How Did Priestley Present the transformation of Sheila in An Inspector Calls
An Inspector Calls wais a play that was published in 1945, after the two
extremely brutal wars, in which Priestley argues for with a far more fair
society upholding integrity and equality. Priestly portrays noble and serious
theme that seemed unfit for the situation thena a clear transformation of one
of the main characters – Sheila, by via profiling changes on in her political
tendency, characteristic, attitudes to her parents, social responsibility and
emotional control, with a purpose of rising social responsibility of his readers.
In the details of the setting part, a brief introduction is given to the character
Sheila. ‘Sheila is a pretty girl in her early twenties, very pleased with life and
rather excited.’. this This quote highlights Sheila’s youthfulness, beauty, and
happiness at the beginning of the play. Notably, Sheila is born in a privileged
family due to her father’s title as “Lord Mayor two years ago.” Thus, very
possibly, Sheila grows up with limited difficultiesliving in the lap of luxury and
free from frustration under thanks to the protection from her parents,
explaining Sheila’s remaining expectationto the life instead of truly
understand it. unsophisticated ideas about life at the beginning.
At the beginning of the play, Priestley builds the image of Sheila as an
immature and shallow galyoung lady, specifically demonstrated demonstrates
by the following aspects. Most obviously, the way Sheila’s addresses to her
parents reflect her deviant childishness in consideration of her age. She called
calls her parents ‘mummy’ and ‘daddy’ which were are generally used by kids.
. For example, “Yes, go on, mummy. You must drink our health.” in Act 1. This
quote plays a vital role in describing diverse the complex characteristics
character of Sheila. Her The appellation she uses to call her mother reveals
her dependence on her motherthe latter while the word ‘must’ indicates her
assertiveness and wilfulnessof telling her mother what to do. However, “I’m
sorry, Daddy. Actually I was listening.” Her apologize furtherly suggests she is
in an inferior status during her conversation with Mr. Birling. This builds up a
character with contradictory personalities, suggesting foreshadowing her
potential transformation in the future.
Sheila’s reaction to Eva’s death promotes contributes to the portraying
portrayal of her initial change of character. She askedasks: “(rather
distressed) Sorry! It's just that I can't help thinking about this girl – destroying
herself so horribly” The stage direction “rather distressed” reflects her
emotion of sadness about Eva’s death. The punctuation markers also help to
emphasize this also: the dash shows that she couldn’t can’t think and speak
fluently, and the exclamation mark expresses her strong emotional shock
straight. Her action later when she is asked to recognise Eva strengthens her
, sympathy and grief – “(a little cry gives a half-stifled sob)”. She then asked
asks three questions: ‘“What was she like? Quite young? Pretty?”’. Those This
series of questions indicates that the mention of the suicide deals a heavy
blow to her previously cocooned life. She starts to feel alsoexplore two sides
of Sheila’ s personalities. She asked the last 2 questions in order to find
similarities between herself and Eva, demonstrating her goodness and
genuine sympathy for Eva. However, those questions also illustrate her
naivete as well. A, as all these questions were are superficial and solely
focused on Eva’s appearance. thereforeTherefore, Sheila’s immaturity was is
shown again. Besides, in this quote Sheila says ‘Oh I wish you hadn't told
me.’, Which which reveals her lack of psychological endurance owing to the
dotage indulgence and protection from her family, corresponding to the
introduction of her in the setting details.
Sheila’s response after the statement from the Inspector about the situation
for many women in that period sublimates Sheila’ s personality and the theme
of the whole book play onto to a new moral level. The Inspector suggested
suggests that for greedy entrepreneurs like Mr. Birling, young women were
are viewed as nobody but cheap labourers. Sheila immediately castsed
doubts on this standpoint by saying: “‘But these girls aren't cheap labor –
they're people.’”In From this quote, some socialist feature was illustrated. Uit
can be seen that unlike her parents, Sheila viewed views those people who
were in different stage with herbelong to a lower social class as equally and
agains, suggesting her sincere sympathy was expressedfor them. Sheila
opposes against her mother’s capitalist idea: “(slowly, carefully now) you
mustn't try to build up a kind of wall between us and that girl.” Sheila uses a
metaphor here, comparing the division between the privileged and working
classes to a “wall” while she clearly holds an opposite view against it from the
phrase “mustn’t”. Priestley’s idea is expressed via those quotes. He uses the
character of Sheila as a media to convey and recall the ideas of social equality
and social responsibility, aligning himself with socialist ideas. Notably, Sheila’s
attitude to her parents started starts to change at this point. as her parents
She held her own opinion against her father rather than took order from
himtreat those poor women as no more than resource which runs contrary to
her belief. Besides, the word ‘people’broadened the views of the play. Instead
of solely focusing on Eva, Priestly were aiming at a broaddescription of people
living in that period. The word ‘people’ as well suggests that Eva’s experience
was more likely a norm rather than an except
Another turning points for Sheila was is her confession to the Inspector Goole.
As it I is mentioned in the second paragraphin Act 1, it is Sheila’s insolence
and envy that destroyed destroy Eva’s career, indirectly leading to her
suicide. This, undoubtablyundoubtedly, reflected reflects Sheila’s once
negative and dark sides. However, after realizing how damaging her
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