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‘We all started like that- so confident, so pleased with ourselves.’ Why are the Birlings so pleased with themselves and what does the Inspector do to challenge this?’ £7.46
‘We all started like that- so confident, so pleased with ourselves.’ Why are the Birlings so pleased with themselves and what does the Inspector do to challenge this?’
This analytical essay explores the self-satisfaction of the Birling family in J.B. Priestley’s play An Inspector Calls and how the arrival of the Inspector disrupts their complacency. The Inspector challenges the Birling family's sense of superiority and detachment from social responsibility by...
‘We all started like that- so confident, so pleased with ourselves.’ Why are the Birlings so pleased
with themselves and what does the Inspector do to challenge this?’
Priestley uses the Birlings as a representative of the prosperous, capitalist elite. The upper class are
extremely confident in themselves, due to the ‘peace’ and ‘prosperity’ they have. They all contributed to
Eva Smith’s suicide by committing horrible acts, however still seemed ‘so pleased’ with themselves. As
Priestley was surrounded by socialism as a child, this led him to attempt to reform society through the
use of the Birlings and their inability to empathise.
The Birlings, ‘started like that- so confident, so pleased with ‘themselves.’ The use of the adjective
‘pleased’ indicates that the Birling’s social and financial status allows them to be ‘confident’. Coming from
a ‘prosperous’ family, Sheila’s engagement to Gerald signifies the merging between ‘Crofts Limited’ and
‘Birling and Company’ for ‘lower costs and higher prices’. To Mr Birling, their marriage is viewed in the
eyes of a business deal. It is through Gerald that Sheila can increase her position in social hierarchy. Sheila
‘really feels engaged’ once she is comforted by the financial security that Gerald provides, which is seen
through the embodiment of the ring. This further reinforces how money allows the family to be
confident.
The Birling’s capitalist mindset is also seen through their ‘dining room of a fairly large suburban
house..’not cosy or homelike’. Their comfortability is also seen through their middle-class, expensive
home. This contrasts with Eva who is ‘alone, friendless, almost penniless, desperate’. Alternatively the
use of ‘not cosy and homelike’ implies a forceful comfort as the Birling’s live in a bubble of their own
wealth. The relationships within the family are not close, no matter how extravagant the house is. It is an
awkward and unnatural facade of a perfect family. Throughout the play there is not a change in setting
(all scenes are in the same house). This could suggest the self-absorption of their lives and how
disconnected they are from the wider world. By not being aware or recognising the issues of the real
world, the Birling’s seem ‘pleased’ in their warm, comfortable home.
The Birling’s confidence is invested in an industrial and innovative future which will lead to ‘peace and
prosperity and rapid progress everywhere.’ Mr Birling highlights that ‘employers are coming together to
see that our interests.. are properly protected’, the ‘unsinkable’ Titanic will take its maiden voyage and ‘in
twenty or thirty years’ time’ life will be perfect. This scene contains many examples of dramatic irony.
Dramatic irony is a device used when the audience know more than the characters performing. It reveals
Mr Birling’s misplaced confidence in mankind’s progress. The Titanic sank one week after the beginning
of the play (15th September 1912) after striking an iceberg in the Atlantic Ocean. The ‘General Strike of
1926’ (4th-12th May 1926) was the largest industrial dispute in Britain, to prevent wage reductions and
poorer conditions for miners. The overconfidence with which he makes his predictions damages his
credibility and so the audience lose confidence in what he says and represents. He envisions a world with
‘peace’ and wealth, which mirrors the life he currently has. Mr Birling is next on the ‘Honours List.’ The
‘knighthood’ provides him with confidence as he will no longer be his wife’s ‘social superior’.
The Inspector challenges this as he enters from a ‘pink and intimate’ to ‘brighter and harder’ light. This
implies how the Inspector will illuminate and bring light to the family as he hopes to change their
capitalist mindsets. He enters midway during Mr Birling’s provincial speech whereby ‘a man has to mind
his own business’. The significance of this, is so the Inspector’s ‘hard’ character will destroy the ‘cosy’
bubble the Birling’s live in. Mr Birling’s optimistic, infallible capitalist mindset falls with the arrival of the
Inspector, who carries a message that we are socially responsible for everyone in society. The Inspector’s
‘impression of massiveness’ implies his intellectual stature as he dominates over Gerald and Mr Birling.
His ‘massiveness’ doesn’t allow anyone to dodge or evade moral responsibility. His ‘planish suit’
separates him from the Birling’s expensive evening dresses. It displays his power and how there is
nothing to be adorned by him. He is simply there to ‘ask questions’ and confront the flaws of society.
The Inspector interviews the family in chronological order to serve his ‘purposefulness’ and emphasise
how each of them contributed to Eva Smith’s death. He questions them so they individually confess and
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