Shiela

• powerful individual in a biased society
• challenges ideas about gender
• opening of play - presented as Immature


  she's in her early twenties but refers to he parents as 'mummy' and 'daddy' - reciprocated by Mr and Mrs B when they refer to her as 'child' and 'childish'
• opening of play - presented as materialistic


  she will 'never let it go out of my sight' - engagement ring

  we are told by Eric she is talking about cloths in the drawing room in the end of A1
• treated as inferior


  Gerald asks 'I've been trying long enough, haven't I?' which Mrs B answers (in Sheila's place) saying 'Of course she does'
• treated as inferior - Act 2 - Gerald tries to get rid of Sheila from the Investigation


  'I think Miss Birling ought to be excused' - women were treated like they were helpless - Eric is more immature the Sheila but isn't treated like a child -Sheila is treated like Eva but she is protected as she is middle class
• After the interrogation, her personality changes a lot


  she says to Gerald -

  'You fool - he knows',

  'Your forgetting I'm supposed to be engaged to a hero' -- cutting through Gerald's attempt to romanticise they story of interactions with Eva

  Returns the ring not materialistic anymore - not governed by emotions but by logic and reason
• audience should aspire to be like Sheila- own up to mistakes, take ownership, social responsibility
• she addresses her parents as 'mother' and 'father' in Act2 - to shows she's matured
• she also interrupts to answer questions directed at Mrs B (about the Brumley's women charity), saying 'Yes, she is, why?' - dramatic turn around from when Mrs B answered for Sheila
• Takes the role of Inspector when he leaves -

  End of A1 - forces a confession out of Gerald (when he Inspector was with Eric)

  End of A3 - interrogates family by asking questions

  'Fire and blood and anguish' - mirrors language of Inspector
• Priestly uses Sheila to tell the audience to think about their behaviour and question the behaviour of others
• transformation


  start :

  • selfish
  • shallow
  • materialistic
  • childish

  end:

  • mature
  • strong/caring
  • independent
  • challenges others