Arthur Birling

• Who is Mr Birling?

  • businessman, capitalist, against social equality
• Act 1; "mixed up together like bees in a hive"


  simile- compares socialist to bees, sees helping others as degrading

  Dramatic irony- bees in ecosystem as workers in society

  social divison in society
• Act 1; "its my duty to keep labour costs down"


  "duty"- noun, authoritative keeping in order

  He is self aggrandising himself.

  Context- no protection of workers rights in 1912
• Act 1: "if you don't come down sharply... they'd soon be asking for the earth."


  Metaphor- capitalist view that if you don't say no they will ask to have everything and anything.
• What is the authors intentions for Mr Birling?


  Priestley cristises about capitalist views, mocks him, capitalism as a political philosophy