Analysis of Act Two - Sybil Refused to Help

• Analysis of Act Two - Sybil Refuses to Help

  Priestley wants to show how lies underpin this family's life. Gerald's been lying about last summer, and Sybil's trying to avoid telling the truth. The fact they're lying shows they know they've done wrong
• Sybil Birling


  A hard nut to crack
• The Inspector presents Sybil with the photograph


  She pretends she doesn't recognise it
• The Inspector manages to press the story out of her


  1. Sybil won't accept any "blame for it at all"

  2. Sybil won't take responsibility for her actions
• Sybil


  • Can't imagine herself in a similar situation to Eva/Daisy
  • Can't empathise
  • Obsessed with social class and reputation
  • Can't recognise connections between her life and anyone else's
• KEY EVENT


  Sybil had the last chance to help but she refused
• Why Mrs Birling persuaded the committee to turn down Eva/Daisy's request

  1. Eva/Daisy said her name was "Birling"

  2. Mrs Birling thought it was a "piece of gross impertinence" (rude) for Eva/Daisy to dare to associate her own scandal with the Birling family name

  3. Eva/Daisy changed her story - at first she said her husband left her and she was pregnant, but later admitted she wasn't married
• Priestley contrasts Sybil Birling's attempts to preserve her reputation


  With Eva/Daisy's moral standards
• Why Eva/Daisy wouldn't marry the father of her child and wouldn't take any more money from him

  • He was a "youngster - silly and wild and drinking too much"
  • The money he'd been giving to her was stolen
  • He didn't love her
• Sybil won't take responsibility

  1. After trying to resist all the Inspector's questions, Mrs Birling realises that she can blame the father of the child instead of admitting her own guilt

  2. Sybil starts to tell everyone what she thinks should happen to punish this "young man"

  3. Sybil blames the father for getting involved with a girl from a different class. She assumes she wouldn't know a man who drinks and steals

  4. She says that the Inspector should punish the man "very severely" before making him "confess in public his responsibility"