mrs birling

To what extent is it possible to understand and sympathise with Mrs. Birling’s behaviour?

Write about:

• Mrs Birling’s behaviour in An Inspector Calls and how audiences might react

• how Priestley presents Mrs Birling by the ways he writes. 

1) mrs birling is presented as set in her ways and not malleable to change from the beginning - stage diection

- " a rather cold woman"

- cold connotes cruelty and freezing out the lower class

- also shows her contempt and prejudice, going into the plot as not happy

- shows how upper class believfed they they were entitiled to give the lower class the cold shoulder

- "socially superior"

- alliteration shows how she truly velieves she is above everyone else just because of family, shows her attitudes to class

- also sets off a strange power dynamic in the family, as mr birling is meant to be the head however mrs birling has a higher social standing - could explain why mr birling is so eager to prove he is right

2) mrs birling is also presented as being very patronizing towards the younger generation, including her children

- "your behaving like an hysterical child"

- simile shows how young women were cast of as crazt and meddlesome when they started to speak their veiws, meaning they were never heard

- this links to the fact that women hadnt got the vote yet, however would soon due to suffragettes in 1918 - shows that society cannot hold peole like shiela back forever

- child is very demeaning - she is about to get married yet you will not take her seriously

- capitalists used to belittle socialists for speaking their…