a1

• Mr B vocab:

  • portentous
  • pompous
  • obdurate
  • ostentatious
  • superficial
  • callous
  • personification of capitalism and stands to represent the British social elite
• "heaving looking, rather portentous man in his middle fifties"

  • opening stage direction
  • microcosmic representation of the older gen
  • plumper frame is synontmous with affluence and indulgence
  • deeply metaphorical heaviness, physical assertion of solid statues and his hedonistic tendencies
  • personification of greed, a deadly sin
• his "fairly large suburban house" is "substantial and heavily comfortable" but "not cosy and homelike"

  • compensates his unrefined etiquette and lack of aristocratic wealth with a clear indication of luxury
  • the lack of feeling leads the reader to pity the cosmetic nature of their comfort and wealth
• "substantial and heavily comfortable"

  • mr b physically operates within a realm of ostentatious capitalism
  • unorthodox phrase /.oxymoron represents the pseudo-luxury of the social elite as a facade of greatness and perfection
  • connotes exhaustion and intensity juxtaposing the comfort in home, perhaps a metaphor to capture the misery in the act of relentlessly upholding an overt radiation of wealth
• "rather provincial in his speech"

  • opening stage direction
  • insecure and unacquainted with aristocratic life
  • tainted regional accent = superficial trope of how status was established
  • not well assimilated to uc via indication of lack of sophistication and relative uncouthness
  • humble beginning are an insecurity which becomes synonymous with his character = class imposter
• "you ought to like this port Gerald, its exactly the same port your father gets"

  • "ought" = uncertain verb, his insecurity is masked through frail attempt at social equal
  • "port" is used as a metonym for wealth, revealing mr b has embarked on a sycophantic investigation to level Geralds' fathers taste in port
  • affluence is navigated through meaningless symbols and objects, which exposes how hollow it is
  • mr b is presented as obsessive at his attempts to assert his statues which stem from insecurity
• Priestly ridicules Mr B's relentless attempt to hold an appearance of wealth as he is constantly subject to the threat of classism, which highlights how foolish the ideology is.
• "hard headed, practical man of business"

  • Sir Stanley Balwin, a PM between world wars, accused "hard faced" men of profiting out of the war, demonstrating how certain individuals in society benefit from the loss of others
  • Mr B stands to represent these affluent businessmen who callously took advantage of the suffering for financial gain
  • Priestlet sees capitalists as a social problem rather than an aristocracy as they exploit the WC like a commodity for personal gain
• Mr B is used as a construct to discredit capitalism through political allusions his contemporary audience will understand, reinforcing how priestly has constructed a political diatribe as he is scathing of the paradoxes and hypocrisy in politics.
• "that fellow obviously didn't like us. He was prejudiced from the start. Probably a socialist of some sort of crank- he talked like one"

  • complex sentence is used as an act of deceit to make himself come across more informed and reliable, as the preface of his argument doesn't hold much logic
  • adverb "obviously" shows arrogance and ignorance, turns rather defensive and aggressive at the prospect of someone threatening him
  • inability to display any remorse reflects older gen stubbornness, no room for him to be questioned
• "as if we were all mixed up together like bees in a hive"

  • degrading perspective of socialists
  • noun "bees", insignificant and small reflects his belief of socialism not contribute enough to society, since he associated value with wealth, status and money
  • syntax between "community" which comes before "nonsense", mirrors how quick he is to dismiss togetherness
  • insightful for his opinion on socialism as an ignorant capitalist