Eric

• start of play, Eric isn't fully mature - 'half shy, half assertive' - shows he's confident but also shy (contrasting) - Priestly uses to show he is a secret person

  start - Priestly wants audience to see Eric negatively to show that Capitalists patriarchal society is untrustworthy
• start - Eric = alcohol - Sheila accuses him of being 'squiffy' (slightly drunk - draws audience's attention to Sheila's informal language - younger generation - foreshadows characters changing attitudes to society as play unfolds -- foreshadows his drunken behaviour with Eva - double standards for men/women
• He admits he was in ' that state when a chap easily turns nasty' 


  'that' = determiner - shows it was common for men - as the audience would know what 'that state' is

  ' a chap' = 3rd person - 'chap' connotates to friendliness when describing boys/young men - it distances himself from the situation

  Eric presents himself as a friendly young man who doesn't take responsibility - he blames the alcohol for his actions
• Prostitution = not allowed in plays so it was unclear whether Eric sexually assaulted Eva
• 'And that's when it happened. And I don't even remember - that's the hellish thing' - he can barely bring himself to talk

  'And' - repeated=shows how he wants to get it out of his brain and clear his conscious by admitting what he's done.

  'it' - vague, ambiguous, dissociates him from the situation

  'I don't even remember' - shows how it didn't mean anything to Eric, but it meant everything to Eva as it cost her her life

  'hellish' - religious connotations of hell - extremely religious in the Edwardian Era
• immature - offer Eva short term solutions - marry him, gives stolen money (£50) - he doesn't see the long term consequences of criminal behaviour - could connotate how the rich controlled the law so he wouldn't have experienced/heard of anything of the sought
• responsible at the end of the play - when rest talk about Inspector being real/unreal, he says ' We did her in all right' - 'we' = socialist collective responsibility