Mr Birling

• "heavy looking, rather portentous"

  • Likes to eat well, big and greedy - capitalism
• "I gather there's a very good chance of a knighthood."

  • Concerned with status
  • Wants community roles without believing in community
• "I'm talking as a hard-headed, practical man of business."

  • Thinks he is stable, strong
  • Foreshadow he is stubborn
• "unsinkable, absolutely unsinkable."

  • Dramatic irony - set before Titanic sinking
  • Shows him to be arrogant
  • Thinks everything to do with upper class is perfect
• "as if we were all mixed up likd bees in a hive - community and all that nonsense."

  • Simile - bees work together efficiently
  • Mr B hates idea of working together
• "I was an alderman and Lord Mayor for years and I'm still on the bench."

  • Works in community but doesn't care
  • Message is upper class men only wanted status, not responsibilities
• "there's every excuse for what your mother and I did."

  • Pushes blame away
• "If you don't come down sharply on these people, they will soon be asking for the Earth."

  • Happy to use others to get where he needs to be
  • Eva asked for payrise - deems this as too much
• "A man has to make his own way - has to look after himself... and his family too, of course."

  • Takes care of only himself
  • Elipsis - puts himself above family
• • "the famous younger generation who know it all"