Arthur Birling

• • likes to be in control
  • doesn't like being told what to do:

  "angrily" tells the inspectr " Well - if you don't mind - I'll find out first"
• • ambitious

  " There's a very good chance of a knighthood"
• • business-minded

  " a hard headed, practical man of business"
• • selfish

  " a man has to make his own way"
• • anxious - thinks a lot about society

  " there'll be a public scandal - unless we're lucky
• • sees his daughter's marriage as a business deal

  " lower costs and higher prices"
• thinks he is successful because he is a "hard-headed, practical man of business"
• • optimistic
  • thinks strikes won't be a problem for his company and dismisses any ideas about war

  "silly little war scares"
• Birling dismisses the idea of social responsibility. Calls people like Goole "cranks"
• actively made things worse for his workers by personally firing the ringleaders of the strike
• sees other people as "cheap labour"

  doesn't believe in "community and all that nonsense"
• • selfish
  • self-centred

  He would rather pass the Inspector's visit as a "hoax", than recognise the wrong things he had done
• "I'm talking as a hard-headed practical man of business"


  • capitalist
  • values profit over people
  • self-interest
• "There isn't a chance of war"

  • dramatic irony
  • Priestly uses Arthur's overconfidence to reflect his short-sightedness and to critique the attitudes of the Edwardian upperclass
• "You'll have a good laugh over it yet"

  • trivializing the event after finding out the Inspector may not be real
  • brushing it off
  • unwilling to recognise his wrong doings and take responsibility
• "The famous younger generation who know it all. And they can't even take a joke"

  • mocking Sheila and Eric for feeling remorseful
  • sarcasm highlights generational divide : older gen refuse to take responsibility of their actions, younger feel guilt and understands their wrong actions