mrs. birling 1

• keywords:

  • Arrogant, controlling, unsympathetic, classist, a marionette (puppet) of her class, pompous (self-important), heartless, upholds patriarchal standards, narcissistic, oblivious, cold, prejudiced.
• Mrs. Birling challenges the younger generation as they threaten the capitalist and classist system that she is profiting off.

  She scolds her daughter (after she says "squiffy");

  • "Sheila! What an expression! Really, the things you girls pick up these days!"

  Her superficially driven codes of conduct are exposed as she cares more about speech and etiquette than morality.
• Mrs. Birling scolds her daughter;

  • "Sheila! What an expression! Really, the things you girls pick up these days!"

  The exclamation could be a manifestation of her desperation to oppose any changes to a convention that put her class position under threat.
• Mrs. Birling scolds her daughter;

  • "Sheila! What an expression! Really, the things you girls pick up these days!"

  Through using the noun 'girl', Mrs. Birling belittles Sheila in order to dismiss her behaviour and portray it as foolish or uncouth (lack of good manners).
• Mrs. Birling scolds her daughter;

  • "Sheila! What an expression! Really, the things you girls pick up these days!"

  She reinforces the separation between the older generation who are robust to these newer ways of thinking and the younger ones that seem vulnerable to 'pick[ing]' them up as if they were a disease.
• Mrs. Birling acknowledges that marriage is a process of enforcing and adopting a different set of controls and norms, telling Sheila;

  • "When you're married you'll realise"

  This emphasises how her worldview is largely based on her role as a wife.
• Mrs. Birling is a tool for Priestly to capture how marriage within the Edwardian era was a rite of passage, through which;

  • Men would be permitted to exert newfound control over their wives.
  • Women would shift to operate under a stricter degree of control.
• Mrs. Birling is the paragon (a perfect example of) the aristocratic woman during the Edwardian era.
• As a married woman of the upper class, she is secure, almost held in aspic within the hard-wired conventions of a capitalist and classist society.

  • Thus, anything that threatens these conventions, threatens her.
• Mrs. Birling is introduced as her "husband's social superior" through which Priestly satirises a society that allows human beings to be defined by their role or purpose within the class system.
• Mrs. Birling is commodified, and valued based on what she can be achieved from marrying her as opposed to value based on moral judgment.

  • This creates an environment in which she can act ignorantly and reject responsibility for her actions.

  This is realised throughout the play.
• In the introduction, Mrs. Birling is the only character who is not named, even the parlour maid, Edna, is individually denominated.

  • She is instead referred to as Arthur Birling's "wife" suggesting her social role dehumanises her and detaches her from any sense of being.
• Priestly reinforces Mrs. Birling as a marionette (puppet) of her class as she is complicit in upholding its conventions, she conditions her husband to do the same in saying;

  • "Arthur you're not supposed to say such things"

  Trying to iron out any social faux pas (socially awkward/improper) so they operate seamlessly within the expectations of their class, she is reluctant to deviate from these in any way.
• It is important to note that Mrs. Birling seemingly expresses no desire to break free from her gender role.

  • She in fact works to uphold the patriarchy.

  She dismisses herself from the room;

  • "I think Sheila and I better go to the drawing room and leave you men"