gerald croft

• gerald is employed at his father’s company which is called crofts limited.
• gerald is sheila’s fiance and the son of the wealthy businessman, mr croft.
• the croft family business is in competition with, and also bigger and older than, birling & co.
• gerald’s parents are sir george croft and lady croft, who are socially superior to the birlings.
• priestley describes gerald in the initial stage directions as

  “an attractive chap about thirty, rather too manly to be a dandy but very much the easy well-bred young man-about-town.”
• gerald contributes to the “chain of events” which drive eva to suicide by using her as a mistress.
• priestley uses the character of gerald to represent the individualism of the upper classes.
• gerald disillusions (disappoints) the audience, who hope that by the end of the play he would change his capitalist and selfish attitudes, as he fails to do so.
• priestley uses gerald’s failure to change his ways to convey how entrenched the upper classes’ attitudes are, as even death won’t change them.
• priestley portrays gerald as a physically attractive, privileged but likeable man.
• priestley describes gerald in the stage directions as “rather too manly to be a dandy”, suggesting that he is very much content and confident in his own masculinity.
• gerald is also described as an “easy well-bred young man-about-town.” the idiomatic phrase suggests that he is a fashionable socialite. 


  this could also be foreshadowing gerald’s unfaithful nature.
• the relatively minor role of gerald early in the play causes the audience to be ambivalent (uncertain) in how they feel about him.
• gerald is portrayed as an ideal husband and son-in-law due to his financial security and higher social status.
• gerald chooses the engagement ring himself, and sheila asks “is it the one you wanted me to have?”, which makes him appear caring and thoughtful.
• gerald appears polite and humble, as shown by his response to mr birling, “i don’t pretend to know much about it (port)”. this humbleness starkly contrasts mr birling’s pompousness and arrogance.
• gerald’s social status contributes to his attractiveness as in 1912 british society the only route to wealth for a woman would be to marry into it.
• the good natured portrayal of gerald at the start of the play begins to break down as the audience learns about his nighttime activities.
• priestley portrays gerald as spending a considerate amount of time in bars and socialising with and using prostitutes.
• priestley evidences gerald’s familiarity with prostitutes through his vivid description of them, “i hate those hard-eyed dough-faced women”.
• for eva to have seemed ”out of place”, gerald must have known what was ordinary for a prostitute and therefore must have been experienced.
• gerald only cared about eva because of his own lustful desires, as evidenced by “she was pretty - soft brown hair and big dark eyes - [breaks off] my god!”
• priestley‘s use of aposiopesis (abrupt break off in speech) with “my god!” reveals that gerald only felt attracted to eva physically, as it comes right after he describes her beauty.
• priestley portrays gerald as being conscious of the cruelty of the upper-classes, yet he shows no desire to change society and thereby compromise the privilege that he commands.
• priestley portrays gerald as stuck at a moral crossroads. he can either fight against the class system or continue to use it to his advantage.
• despite gerald’s actions, he is presented as possessing a conscious and moral compass, despite failing to follow it.
• gerald condemns the actions of “alderman meggarty” who is a “notorious womaniser”.
• the public perception of gerald is of utmost significance to him, as he is prepared to help eva in private, but maintains an image of an honest and respectable upper-class man in public.
• gerald sees an inherited duty to uphold and preserve society due to his family’s business and his father’s expectations of him.
• priestley sets gerald apart from the birling parents, as at least gerald can recognise the class system’s flaws, something which mr and mrs birling cannot fathom.
• gerald needs to maintain the systemic immorality of the class system even if he disagrees with it.
• priestley portrays gerald as caught between the older and younger generations. this liminality (position between two boundaries) extends to his attitudes and ideology.
• gerald is exhibited as less flexible and impressionable than sheila and eric in his convictions, however he does accept his own responsibility.
• priestley portrays gerald as deliberately ignoring his sense of morality and choosing to try and forget his own actions.
• gerald intentionally chooses to only react to the injustice that is visible and obvious to him, rather than the institutionalised prejudice that the class system causes.
• gerald perhaps only helped eva because it was visible to him and he couldn’t ignore it as “old joe meggarty, half-drunk and goggled-eyed, had wedged her into a corner with that obscene fat carcass of his”.
• the guilt that gerald feels for his abuse of the vulnerable eva smith is evidently short-lived.
• gerald’s unsympathetic response is exactly what the inspector condemns and is attempting to preclude (prevent).
• the change in gerald’s attitudes has to be permanent for real change in society to occur, and this is what the inspector attempts to instil into the characters.
• gerald experiences guilt and has a conscience, but he tries to reason and manipulate his conscience.