Mr birling

• Mr Birling is a 1912 ante-bellum English social elite holding very static view of society goes from protagonist to antagonist as before the inspector come he use multiple imperative sentence holding authority with topic management and everyone else back channelling
• ‘Heavy looking rather portentous man‘ 


  His look symbolises greed as during wars people had to ration so being ‘heavy‘ meant you stole food and not shared with the poorer this shows he is capitalism personified
• ‘ one of the happiest night of my life ‘ act 1 


  Personal pronoun ‘my‘ show he objectifies Shelia as a barging chip and her capacity to further the family profits over her happiness
• ‘ perhaps I ought to warn you that chief an old friend of mine. We play golf together‘


  The verb ‘ warn ‘ to intimidate the inspector show Mr Birling think he is above the law and the game golf intrinsically linked to bourgeoisie.
• (Unhappily) give thousands - yes thousands 


  The repetition of thousand’s shows desperation.

  adverb ‘unhappily‘ show how capitalist hate giving money to the lowly
• ‘a man has to make his own way—has to look after himself—and his family, too, of course, when he has one’


  the imperative verb show how important it is to for a man to be selfish as he almost repeats the first sentence again show us the danger of a capitalist belief as it make you very individualistic. The order of priorities in rule of three as his family is an afterthought but his true belief and intrusive thought. The rule for a ‘man’ and women are different and rules for rich a poor . Frued and the id is our instinct shows mr Birling is a slate to his desire is of himself
• “ lower cost and higher prices “


  Juxtaposition between higher and lower
• “as if we’re all mixed up Like bees in a hive - community and all that nonsense”


  animalistic simile he looks at them thorough dehumanising lens as insignificant this is his deeply classist view
• ‘it my duty to keep labour cost down‘. Business jargon labour cost is not only business jargon but it also labour cost are people and their jobs and livelihood by underpaying people and exploitive practice prioritise profit over people. This Jargon distance hi self from having to take responsibility from what he has done. Make mr Birling seem short sighted
• “if you don’t come sharply on some of these people they’d soon be asking for the earth“ 


  hyperbole show Mr Birling doesn’t value their importance
• “probably a socialist or some sort of crank“
• “if we were all responsible for everything that happened to everyone it would be very awkward wouldn’t it?”
• “obviously had nothing to do with that wretched girls suicide“ 


  The lexis of Wretched = sense of moral indignation. Could link to 20th century attitudes to suicide-Birling believes the act of suicide itself is ‘wretched’ and nothing to do with his own actions but Eva’s own morality.

  the adverb shows his lack of empathy
• “The famous younger generation who know it all can’t even take a joke.”


  Sarcasm mocking them however is ironic as they have learn a lesson
• ‘There’s every excuse for what both your mother and I did‘
• ‘ ( jovially) but the whole thing different now ‘ act 3
• insecure nouveau riche : ‘social superior‘


  he below his wife which is very unconventional show his positions is one of dependency
• insecure nouveau riche : ‘Provincial in his speech‘ act 1


  Adjective ‘provincial’ reveals his Lower class origins constant reminder of his past therefore try to compensate with materialistic possessions and brings up former role ‘lord mayor‘ and confidence Gerlad of ‘ good chance of knighthood‘
• ‘sustainable, heavily comfortable but not … homelike‘ 


  reinforces cosmetic nature he strives strongly for capitalism to escape initial social inferiority.
• ‘unsinkable, absolutely unsinkable‘ 


  Repetition show his arrogance and irony as it did skin in 1945 show his pompous if he wrong he likely to be wrong about everything