Eric

• Eric


  • Not fully mature
  • Half shy, half assertive
• Shy


  Connotes nervousness and lack of confidence
• Assertive


  Implies confidence and dominance
• Priestley's use of contrasting adjectives creates a sense of confusion, implying perhaps that Eric is a secretive person
• Priestley wants the audience to view Eric negatively


  To show that the capitalist patriarchal society is not trustworthy
• Priestley repeats the word 'half' to emphasise that Eric's character is not yet fully formed, which indicates that he might change
• Priestley associates Eric with alcohol


  When his sister, Sheila, accuses him of being 'squiffy'
• 'Squiffy'


  Slightly drunk
• Sheila's use of informal language positions the Birling siblings as fashionable members of the younger generation who adapt their language to the times
• Priestley aligns Eric with alcohol


  To foreshadow the later revelations about his drunken behaviour on the night that he met Eva Smith
• Eric's free and easy use of alcohol is used to signify the double standard in society for men and women
• Eric: 'Because of alcohol, he was 'in that state when a chap easily turns nasty''
• 'That state'


  Eric appears to be appealing to a commonly shared belief that his listeners have been drunk and understand exactly what 'that state' is
• Eric's use of the third person with the phrase 'a chap' distances him from the implied rape
• Priestley presents us with Eric's perspective about Eva, so we do not know the exact details of whether she was a prostitute
• If Eva was not working as a prostitute, she seemed to be living a life on the brink of prostitution
• Prostitution, and the word prostitute would not be used in the play—at that time, other plays had been censored for making references to prostitutes
• Eric: 'And that's when it happened. And I don't even remember—that's the hellish thing'
• Eric's lack of detail about what happened suggests that he can barely bring himself to admit what he has done
• Eric: 'I'm not the kind of father a chap could go to when he's in trouble'
• Eric is providing short-term solutions (by asking Eva to marry him and supporting her with stolen money), but he does not see the long-term consequences of his criminal behaviour
• By the end of the play, Eric, like Sheila, has learned the lesson of collective social responsibility
• Eric: 'We did her in all right'
• Eric deliberately uses the plural personal pronoun 'we' to emphasise that it is not just his mother who is responsible for Eva's death, but all of them
• Eric's language echoes that of the inspector, the mouthpiece of Priestley
• Priestley has presented Eric as an immature young man with a drinking problem, an exploiter of Eva, and a thief
• As Eric matures and accepts responsibility for his actions, he becomes receptive to the inspector's message that 'We are members of one body. We are responsible for each other'