Responsibility

• Inspector: "Each of you helped to kill her. Remember that. Never forget it"

  • emotive language- emphasises effect of each character's behaviour
  • 2 short, imperative sentences- importance of accepting guilt
• Sheila: "Everything we said had happened really had happened"

  • understands that even if Inspector isn't real, what they did was
• Birling: "That man wasn't a police inspector... the whole story's just a lot of moonshine"
• Eric: "I was in that state when a chap easily turns nasty"

  • slow to accept responsibility
• Birling: "It's my duty to keep labour costs down"
• Gerald: "After all, y'know, we're responsible citizens and not criminals"
• Birling: "I can't accept any responsibility"
• Inspector "If men will not learn that lesson, then they will be taught it in fire and blood and anguish"

  • foreshadows suffering of 2 world wars
  • biblical imagery- gives spiritual dimension
• Birling: "there is a difference between a lot of stuff like this coming out in private and a downright public scandal"
• Inspector: "what happened to her afterwards may have driven her to suicide. A chain of events"

  • showing the links
  • shows consequences of capatilist's actions
• Mrs Birling: "he ought to be dealt with very severely... make sure that he's compelled to confess in public his responsibility"
• Inspector: "we don't live alone. we are members of one body. we are responsible for each other "

  • meaning we aren't isolated, obliged to care for others
  • repetition of "we" shows the the inspector is highlights we are a community
  • inspector= utopian idealist who believes in personal improvement
  • division- (inspector uses 'we')(Birlings use 'I')
• 3 paragraphs

  1. Inspector- teaching responsibility
  2. Birlings- don't accept responsibility
  3. Sheila and Eric- accept responsibility
• Eric: "I was wrong, I know it now"