An Inspector Calls Themes: Social Class
- Created by: abipritchard
- Created on: 21-05-16 12:10
View mindmap
- Social Class
- Priestley designed the characters to put across a message of social responsibility
- "Giving us the port, Edna?"
- The fact that the family are able to afford good quality port and have, their own business, means that they must be a wealthy family
- Unlike people such as Eva Smith, who have to struggle in order to get good wages
- He challenges views with his own, presenting socialism positively and capitalism/traditonalism negatively
- "It's better to ask for the world than to take it"
- Priestley shows the upper class as having a limited sense of social responsibility in order to break the divide
- "Not if it was just after the holidays. They'd all be broke - if I know them - "
- Mrs Birling "doesn't recognise Eva's photo. To her, Eva has no identity and doesn't deserve any
- "Girls of that class"
- "As if a girl of that sort would ever refuse money!"
- "One of the things that prejudiced me against her case"
- Higher classes didn't question the unfair class system because it worked for them
- They overlooked unpleasant issues like alcoholism and womanising because it didn't apply to them
- "He's a notorious womanizer as well as being one of the worst sots and rogues in Brumley - "
- "But I see no point in mentioning the subject - especially - (indicating Sheila)
- Birling's biggest concern over Eva's death is that he won't be awarded his knighthood because of the "public scandal"
- "I must say Sybil, that when this comes out at the inquest, it isn't going to do us much good"
- "There'll be a public scandal - unless we're lucky - and who here will suffer from that more than I will?"
- Birling thinks that because he has had positions of authority he is more important
- "Look at the way he talked to me..he must have known I was an ex-Lord Mayor and a magistrate and so forth"
- Eric and Sheila were the only ones that challenged this
- "Why shouldn't they try for higher wages? We try for the highest possible prices"
- "But they're not cheap labour - they're people
- Birling uses Gerald to promote his social class
- "Your father and I have been friendly business rivals for some time now"
- "There's a very good chance of Knighthood...you might drop a hint to her (his mother)"
- Priestley designed the characters to put across a message of social responsibility
Comments
No comments have yet been made