Sheila Birling

• Sheila is engaged to Gerald Croft, and is celebrating at the start of the play, when the inspector informs the family of Eva’s death, Sheila is very upset and empathetic for her. Even when her family try to stop her from hearing, Sheila wants to hear what happened and help if she can. When she realises how she affected Eva, she is very apologetic and feels very guilty, she also says she will never do anything like it again.
• After Sheila finds out about Gerald’s affair, she returns the ring to him but respects him for telling her the truth and trying to help this girl when she needed him. Near the end of the play, she becomes annoyed at her parents, who seem to care very little about how they caused this girl to commit suicide and are only worried about their own reputation and what it would look like on the family if other people found out about their connections to her. She says that she will never forget what they did to her.
• ‘But these girls aren’t cheap labour’ 
• At the beginning of the play, Sheila is quite naive but despite her parent’s strong capitalist views, Sheila is empathetic and caring, when she found out about Evas death, she immediately felt terrible and extremely guilty when she found out she contributed to the struggles of this girl. Also, throughout the play, she seemed to know that the inspector wasn’t quite who he said he was and tried to stop her family from making the situation worse. Sheila forgave Gerald for his mistakes even though she was deeply hurt by his actions and never wanted her family to forget what they put Eva through.
• "but these girls aren't just cheap labour"