Eva Smith and the Birlings + Gerald

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Eva Smith and the Birlings + Gerald

Causes

  • Eva smith goes on strike
  • Sheila envied Eva / she was in a bad mood
  • Gerald takes Eva (Daisy Renton) into his care.
  • Eric has sex with Eva. (It can be argued that Eric forced Eva but it's up to your perspective)
  • Eva seeks help from a charity that Mrs Birling is the chair of. She uses the name Mrs Birling and a fake backstory.
  • Eva Smith commits suicide and an Inspector calls.

Effects

  • Mr Birling sacks her
  • Eva gets sacked from Millwards
  • Gerald felt powerful having Eva depend on him. However when he came to the realisation that he was cheating on Sheila or that he got bored playing with Eva, he let her go after building her up.
  • Eva becomes pregnant which complicates her situation even further. She can't marry Eric to stabilise her situation because she believes he's a child, just like his parents.
  • Mrs Birling is highly offended and denies any help towards Eva Smith.
  • The Inspector is the catalyst of making the other characters come to a realisation of how immoral they were with Eva Smith/society. Although some characters (Mr birling, Mrs Birling and Gerald) were still denying their relevance with Eva they eventually came to see the harsh truth in the inevitable end of the play.

Overall summary

It's all like a butterfly effect, as the Inspector says it's 'a chain of events', which lead onto other factors that deteriorates Eva's will to live. No one is more guilty than the other in my opinion, because the whole message and the continuous metaphor through out the play is we are alone organism; we work together in a socialistic manner. Priestley being a founder of the Labour party and having strong socialist views, is it any surprise that he uses the Inspector as the omniscient judge and overseer of the other characters?The inspector himself is the subconscious of all the characters as one, however I believe that the Inspector is in fact the audience. This direct address of having the Inspector be the audience emphasizes his view of working as one organism as we are the people who can help each other and the 'million and millions and millions of Eva Smiths and John Smiths' that need aid from humankind.Also, in a play, the information that the Inspector knows is usually revealed to the audience, information that the characters aren't aware of. It creates dramatic irony. However, because during the play the audience aren't aware of the information that the Inspector knows it can be interpreted that we are equal to the Birling and Gerald since they do represent different types of people in society.

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