Mr Birling Analysis

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Role of Mr Birling

Mr Birling is head of the household and family and displays a stereotypical upper-class pre-war attitude.

Role in the family

He is the head of the household and family in a patriarchal (male ruled) society.
He is in charge of the finances (money).
He is the owner of a factory.
He encourages Sheila’s marriage to Gerald to secure his links to the upper-class Croft family.

Role in the play

He portrays a stereotypical upper-class pre-war attitude – people should only help themselves and not take responsibility for others.
His priorities are to make money and cement his high social status.
He is only concerned about himself – he wants the knighthood and the marriage to take place so he can improve his social status.
He believes that people have to make their own ways in life, and that everyone should look after themselves.

Connection to Eva

Mr Birling fired Eva Smith because she led a group of workers in seeking a pay rise and going on strike.
He takes no responsibility for his actions.

Mr Birling - Character Development

Here's an overview of how Mr Birling's character evolves (or does not evolve!) over the play:

Foolish

Priestley highlights Mr Birling as an ultimately foolish character, who likes to tell everyone how great their future will be.
Priestley uses dramatic irony (when the audience knows something the characters don’t) here to show the audience that Birling was naïve and idiotic.

Obsessed with power

Mr Birling is shown as being in control and in charge right from the start of the play.
Mr Birling tries to intimidate Inspector Goole into leaving or changing his questioning. He doesn’t know how to cope with the fact that Goole isn’t impressed, or intimidated, by him.

Unwilling to change or learn from actions

When the family discover that Inspector Goole does not work for the local police force, Birling is very happy to forget the whole thing and to forget any possible consequences of his actions.
Mr Birling does not learn from the story of Eva Smith – instead, he only cares about it when he fears that the story might be made public, which could damage his reputation.
He cares about himself, not about how his actions affect others.
By the end of the play, Mr Birling has not changed at all – is this why they get a second visit from a real police inspector? Does Inspector Goole act as a warning, which they do not take?

Bad father

We also learn that Mr Birling has alienated (isolated) his son – when he tells Eric he should have come to him for help, Eric replies that Birling isn’t the type of father a son could ask for help.
Even within their family, their relationships are fragile (could break easily) and fake – Birling seems to be the caring father so he looks good, but is actually not.

Priestley uses Mr Birling to show the negative aspects of wealth and capitalism. Mr Birling represents the older, upper-class generation that caused many deaths in war. Priestley also uses Mr Birling's character to explore ideas such as the oppression of women and the consequences of our actions.

Dangers of capitalism

Mr Birling represents higher class, wealthy businessmen who only care about making money.
Priestley created him as a villainous character to highlight the dangers of selfish capitalism.

Actions have consequences

Priestley uses Mr Birling to present the initial idea that every action has a consequence – something as seemingly simple as firing someone can have a huge impact on their life.
Priestley makes the audience dislike Mr Birling because he will not accept that he did anything wrong.

Exclusion of women

Birling also talks about business with the men and tries to avoid speaking about business or real life in front of the women.
- This is characteristic of pre-war society, which tried to shield and protect women because they were viewed as less intelligent than men, more emotionally unstable, and more fragile.

Older, upper-class generation

Mr Birling represents the older, upper-class generation, who would go on to cause numerous deaths in World War One and Two.
They did not care about the welfare of the lower-class, even though the lower-class men were the ones fighting the war for them.