How does Priestley present Arthur Birling and his attitudes in An Inspector Calls?
Model answer.
Write about:
How Arthur Birling responds to the Inspector and to his family
How Priestley presents Arthur Birling by the way he writes
(30 Marks)
In the well-made play of An Inspector Calls, J. B Priestly creates the character of Mr. Birling, who comes about to be a capitalist figure of ignorance and arrogance. We see simply in the opening lines of the play Mr. Birling is a character who appears dumbfounded to the spectators of both 1945 and the modern era. This is such because his speech, in which he addresses matters of 1912, is incorrect in terms of facts. We see Mr. Birling believes ‘war is impossible’, and the ‘titanic… unsinkable.’ This, as anyone who lived past the 1940s knows that the ‘Titanic’ did indeed sink and a two world ‘wars’ past. The fact that Mr. Birling speaks ‘triumphantly’ and with such confidence delineates that Mr. Birling refuses to believe everyone but himself. He is so sure of himself that it makes Mr. Birling a suitable protagonist to be ridiculed by the audience, as the dramatic irony of things creates a sort of illusion that Mr. Birling is living in his own ideal world and his lofty hubristicness refrains him from seeing the reality of everything. The reason Mr. Priestly does this however to manifest to his audience that these were the ideas of many people of the 1912, especially of those of the higher classes. In a bid to break barriers, Priestly creates this character to challenge and inform people to watch what they say, as it can result undesirably. The adjective ‘impossible’ reinforces the certainty in Birling’s voice and mirrors how certain Mr. Birling is himself.
Near the end of the play, we witness the change of events that have occurred and how some of the Birlings have changed and the others who don’t due to their rigidness. Mr. Birling during the course of the play is illustrated to be a ‘hard- headed businessman’ as he states himself and it seems like he sees the world as a place of trade, where he must strive in his business to make ‘gain’ or ‘profit’. This is fortified when the Birlings and Croft believe the Inspector was indeed an imposter; Mr. Birling states ‘an elaborate sell’ regarding this. It makes the audience believe Mr. Birling sees everything like business and the noun ‘sell’ connotes business terminology. It could also seem that Mr. Birling is not such a truthful man of business himself as he calls an imposter ‘elaborate’.
Overall, Mr. Birling is a stubborn man filled with arrogance and keeps himself aloft for the sake of what he believes is ‘class’.
