Sheila Analysis

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Roles of Sheila

Sheila is engaged to Gerald and is treated like a child throughout the play. Although she mistreats Eva Smith, her attitude changes throughout the play as she becomes a better person.

Role in the family

Sheila is Mr and Mrs Birling's daughter.
She is engaged to be married to Gerald Croft – this match takes place partly so her father can become a closer business associate of Lord and Lady Croft.
Sheila is treated like a child throughout the play – a characteristic of pre-war society, where young women were still considered to be children until they got married.

Role in the play

Priestley uses Sheila to show how attitudes of the wealthy, higher-classes could be changed through educating them.

Connection to Eva

When she was in a bad mood, Sheila went shopping at Milward’s (where Eva worked).
She got Eva fired because she felt that Eva was laughing at her – she threatened to stop her family shopping there unless the manager fired Eva.

Character Development of Sheila

Although Sheila begins the play happy with her privileged life, she goes on to take responsibility for the part she plays in Eva's death. She matures and learns from her actions. She is the only character to completely agree that her actions were unacceptable.

Beginning

Sheila starts the play feeling very happy with her privileged life.

Changing relationship with her family

The story of Eva Smith, and how all of the Birlings and Gerald played a role in her death, soon causes Sheila to lose respect for, and faith in, her family.
Sheila is disgusted that they will not accept any blame. This cracks the family image and shatters her relationship with her parents. She no longer admires or looks up to her parents.

Accepts responsibility and learns from actions

When she hears about the role she played in destroying Eva’s life, she is genuinely upset about it.
She accepts responsibility and agrees that her actions were unacceptable – she is the only character to do this completely.
Sheila learns from her actions. She vows to never repeat them.
She also matures once she hears about the effects of her actions.
The audience can be confident that she will use the experience to live a better, more caring life.

Encourages others to change

Although Sheila figures out that Inspector Goole was probably not a real police inspector, she does not dismiss the outcome of his questioning.
Even if Eva Smith herself wasn’t real, Sheila encourages her family to realise that they still did these bad things to someone.
She encourages them to think that they could have done it even if they didn’t actually cause a death.

Significance of Sheila

Priestley uses Sheila to represent or explore the following ideas:

Hope for future generations

Priestley uses Sheila to represent the future generations who needed to learn and grow in order to create a better, fairer society.
She willingly alienates herself from her family so she can fight for what she thinks is right – this shows the audience that there is hope that the future generations will work towards a better society.

Growing socialism in a capitalist society

As a character who not only learns about her mistakes, but also accepts them, Sheila gains some respect from the audience – especially as a young woman who begins to develop more socialist views in a highly-capitalist upper-middle-class family.

Rising importance of women

Sheila also represents the rising importance of women in society.
She begins to involve herself in political ideas and shows that she wants to work for a fairer society.
She also refuses to do the easy thing (which is expected of her) and marry Gerald because she learns that he does not share her ideals – she breaks out of the norm instead of remaining as a stereotypical pre-war silent daughter.