Eva Smith

• Mrs Birling: "Girls of that class"

  • attempts to justify why she failed to offer Eva the help she needed
  • P2
• Gerald: "She was young and pretty and warm hearted and intensely grateful"

  • P1
• Mrs Birling: "she had only herself to blame"

  • Eva- victim of society, struggled to survive
  • lack of pity for Eva
  • P2
• Paragraphs

  1. Appearance- (Gerald, Sheila)
  2. Position in society- (MR B, Mrs B, Sheila)
  3. Inspector teaches significance of lower class
• Sheila: "if she had been some miserable plain creature, I don't suppose I'd have done it"

  • P1
  • judgement based on appearance
  • jealously
• Inspector: "As if she was an animal, a thing, not a person"

  • P3
  • Priestley uses Eric's actions to symbolise how capitalists abuse their power over the working class and dehumanise them (TS)
  • animals are used for work and pleasure
  • Eva is helpless
• Birling: "She'd had a lot to say- far too much- so she had to go"

  • Reveals she was not afraid to speak up on behalf of others for more pay.
  • P2
• Sheila: "But these girls aren't cheap labour, they're people"

  • First time we see Sheila’s compassion towards the working class, which develops during the play
  • Sheila realises that women have fewer rights and opposes her father's opinion
  • P2
• Inspector: "One Eva Smith has gone- but there are millions and millions and millions of Eva Smiths and John Smiths left with us"

  
  

  • metaphor "one Eva Smith"- shows Eva represents all working-class woman
  • polysyndeton- "and" stresses the number of working- class people suffering
  • P3
• Inspector "each of you helped to kill her. Remember that. Never forget it"

  • P3

  • emotive language- emphasises effect of each character's behaviour
  • 2 short, imperative sentences- importance of accepting guilt
• "as if a girl of that sort would ever refuse money "

  • degrading phrase
  • "that sort"- tone of disdain, all working-class women the same
  • adverbial phrase "ever refuse"- highlights Eva lacks moral