An Inspector Calls Essay

To what extent is Mr Birling to blame for the death of Eva Smith.

The play ‘An Inspector Calls’ is a representation of the upper class and how they care only for themselves and look down on those of lower classes. The manner in which character behaves can be linked to each one of the deadly sins therefore allowing the audience to clearly see Priestley’s work as a moral play. Mr Birling began the ‘chain of events’ that would finally end in the suicide of Eva Smith by deciding to fire her from her job for wanting to be paid ‘twenty-five shillings a week instead of twenty-two and sixpence’.

Although a good worker, Birling ‘threw (Eva Smith) out’ of his factory and did not even think about what was going to happen to her next neither did he help look for another place for her to work or if she had a place in which to stay in. As a man with power in society, he should be thinking of others who are less fortunate and ways in which he could help but as he believes the way ‘cranks talk and write’ is absolute nonsense and does not want live in a community where they are ‘like bees in a hive’ (Priestley’s use of a simile to convey Mr Birling’s feeling about society), it is obvious that Mr Birling dislikes the idea of where ‘everybody has to look after everybody else’. Priestley has used Mr Birling’s character to represent those of higher classes so to show the audience how full of selfishness and greed people of that class are and how the lowers classes are suffering from this. From the start of the play, Mr Birling acts as a pompous and ‘portentous man’, which grants the audience a chance to solely blame him for the death of Eva Smith as they have perceived him as ridiculous. When interrogated by the inspector Mr Birling tries to justify his actions by telling the inspector that ‘it’s (his) duty to keep labour costs down’ and if he had not refused the raise then ‘they’d be soon asking for the earth’. Despite the fact Mr Birling had been confronted by the inspector and been told how much of ‘a heavy price’ she had to pay for his irresponsible actions, believing that the Inspector does not exist, still wishes to behave as he did before, arrogant and preposterous, which may lead the audience to believe that he is the most responsible for the death of Eva Smith.

Similarly, Mrs Birling had also rejected Eva Smith when ‘she most needed help’. At the time Eva Smith was pregnant, poor and had no-one she could go to and is the reason why she went to the ‘Women’s Charity Organisation’, but was ‘refused’ help from Mrs Birling as she believed Eva Smith was ’lying’ and being ‘rude’ and ‘saw to it that the others refused it too’. Priestley portrays Mrs Birling as ‘a rather cold women’ and expects to be listened and obeyed. This may be the reason why the audience sees glimmers of anger from her when the Inspector catches her lying and confronts her about it. This is evident in Act Two where the Inspector tells her she is ‘not telling (him) the truth’ about knowing Eva Smith, which she replies, quite shocked and angry, “I beg your pardon!” The Inspector almost ‘loses all patience’ with Mrs Birling as she keeps dodging his questions and tries to use her status in society to try intimidate the Inspector but the plan fails as the Inspector exposes everything she has done and in Act Three, when the Inspector tells each one of them what they did, he starts with Mrs Birling and makes her look particularly responsible for the death of Eva Smith as she had the ‘power to grant’ Eva Smith help but used her power in a bad way which made Eva Smith’s situation even worse. From this, the audience may be led to believe that she is worse than Mr Birling as she had a chance to make someone’s life better but instead made it worse even though she was a part of charity that are supposed to help women in situation’s such as Eva Smith’s. Thus, it could be said that Mrs Birling has a quite a large role in the death of Eva Smith as she, like Mr Birling, ‘threw (Eva Smith) out’ onto the streets and cared not for what would happen to her.