Moment 2

• I gather there’s a very good chance of a knighthood – so long as we behave ourselves, don’t get into the police court or start a scandal – eh?


  Birling – foreshadowing
• clothes mean something quite different to a woman


  Birling
• the way some of these cranks talk and write now, you’d think everybody has to look after everybody else, as if we were all mixed up together like bees in a hive – community and all that nonsense.


  Birling
• A man has to mind his own business and look after himself and his own – and–


  Birling - interrupted by inspector ringing the doorbell
• (the inspector need not be a big man, but he creates at once an impression of massiveness, solidity and purposefulness)
• (dressed in a plain darkish suit)
• Sit down, Inspector.

  Birling
• I’m on duty.

  Inspector - refuses drink, professionalism
• You’re new, aren’t you?


  Birling
• I know the Brumley police officers pretty well


  Birling – threatening, tension
• (with a touch of impatience)


  Birling
• Burnt her inside out, of course.


  Inspector
• (involuntarily) My God!


  Eric
• Suicide, of course.


  Inspector
• (rather impatiently) Yes, yes. Horrid business.


  Birling
• (cutting through, massively)


  Inspector
• Like a lot of these young women who get into various kinds of trouble

  Inspector
• One person and one line of inquiry at a time.


  Inspector
• I think you remember Eva Smith now, don’t you, Mr. Birling?


  Inspector
• Birling: Yes, I do…

  Eric: Is that why she committed suicide?


  Eric instantly takes the Inspector’s side
• Just keep quiet, Eric, and don’t get excited.


  Birling
• it has nothing whatever to do with the wretched girl’s suicide


  Birling
• No, sir. I can’t agree with you there.


  Inspector
• I can’t accept any responsibility. If we were all responsible for everything that happened to everybody we’d had anything to do with, it would be very awkward


  Birling
• Very awkward.

  Inspector – sarcastic, enigmatic
• Birling:… I refused, of course.

  Inspector: Why?

  Birling: (surprised) Did you say ‘Why?’?

  Inspector: Yes.
• I don’t like that tone.

  Birling
• Inspector: It’s my duty to ask questions.

  Birling: Well, it’s my duty to keep labour costs down
• Birling:…It’s a free country, I told them.

  Eric: It isn’t if you can’t go and work somewhere else
• She’d had a lot to say – far too much – so she had to go.


  Birling
• He could have kept her on instead of throwing her out.

  Eric
• If you don’t come down sharply on some of these people, they’d soon be asking for the earth


  Birling
• it’s better to ask for the earth than to take it


  Inspector
• How do you get on with our Chief Constable, Colonel Roberts?


  Birling
• (dryly) I don’t play golf. 


  Inspector
• It’s about time you learnt to face a few responsibilities.

  Birling - to Eric, ironic
• what happened to her after that? Get into trouble? Go on the streets?


  Birling
• You couldn’t have done anything else

  Gerald - sycophantic
• What happens in moment 2?

  Mr Birling’s confession