Eric

• Eric [Responsibility] - "you killed her and the child your own grandchild"

  • Priestley encourages the audience to sympathise with Eric. Despite the Inspectors attempts to enlighten the Birling family that they are all jointly responsible, Eric's accusation of blame upon his mother is tantamount (equivalent) to Mrs Birling's blame of the 'father'
  • He places all the blame upon his mother with repetition of second person pronouns. Absolving himself from any blame
• Eric [Responsibility] - "You don't understand anything You never did You never even tried"

  • Eric continues to undermine himself and berate his mother. His use of anaphora and hyperbole creates a parody of the sweeping statements a teenager might expect to use with their parents
• Eric [Gender Inequality] - "[Suddenly guffaws] I don't know really Suddenly I felt I just had to laugh"

  • Stage directions: Eric "Suddenly guffaws" directly after Gerald tells Sheila that he will "be careful" after she is suspicious of Gerald's time away from her in the summer
  • This indicated that Eric knows Gerald is unfaithful. Perhaps they both attend the palace bar so he saw this first hand
  • Link to context of patriarchy
• Eric [Gender Inequality] - "She wasn't the usual sort" "She didn't know what to do"

  • Implies he has previous experience.
  • Adjective "usual" shows visiting prostitutes is the norm for Eric
  • He is attracted to her innocence, perhaps as this makes it easier for her to be exploited
• Eric [Gender Inequality] - "I hate these fat old tarts"

  • Erics proclaimation reveals his disgust toward his own hypocrisy of being in the palace bar looking for sex. Through Eric it shows it is a social norm
  • The upper-class' use of prostitution symbolic of their exploitation of the female lower-class.
• Eric [Guilt] - "I insisted it seems"

  • On Eric's visit to Eva's lodgings, Priestley uses the verb "insisted" implies that Eric may have physically overwhelmed Eva's resistance.
  • Ambiguous verb phrase "it seems" reveals Eric's attempt to forget his immoral actions, and distance himself from his guilt
• Eric [Guilt] - "in that state when a chap easily turns nasty"

  • Erics subconscious attempts to distance himself from his actions by switching from first person to third person, referring himself as "a chap" rather than "i".
  • Eric's trivialisation of such violence of a possible rape, through the colloquial use of "a chap" being a possible attempt to euphemise his actions
• Eric [Guilt] - "I threatened to make a row"

  • Violent verb "threatened" is softened through the euphemism of "a row"
  • Priestley demonstrates Eric's attempt to convince himself that his action were to a lesser extent of immorality than they actually were
• Eric [Morality] - "(Involuntarily) My God!"

  • Eric's emotional response to the news of Eva's death as Priestley demonstrates his innate rectitude (morality) though the stage directions, where the adverb "involuntarily" demonstrates the moral nature of Eric as he could not suppress his emotional reaction; it is involuntary.
  • Eric would not choose to reveal his emotions within a patriarchal society which condemns feminine traits, such as excessive emotion
• Eric [Capitalism Vs Socialism // class] "[not too rudely] Well , don't do any . We'll drink to their health and have done with it"

  • Eager to be done with talk of their engagement as his realises the ridiculousness of the toasts for a marriage which is merely a transaction
  • [Not too rudely] stage direction shows that despite this, he is powerless to challenge his father directly. - he is not quite at ease with the capitalist purpose of his sisters marriage
• Eric [Capitalism Vs Socialism // class] - "Why shouldn't they try for higher wages?" "you said yourself she was a good worker"

  • questioning shows his discontent of his fathers hypocrisy