Character Eva S/Daisy R

• Eva Smith/Daisy Renton


  The play's victim, the audience never meets her
• How the audience learns about Eva Smith/Daisy Renton

  1. Through the Inspector's interrogation of the other characters

  2. Through Eva's diary as a device to reveal her personal feelings and intimate account of events
• Eva Smith/Daisy Renton


  • Introduced to the audience through a graphic and horrific account of her suicide
  • This imagery is used to shock the audience and create empathy for her predicament
  • The revelation that she was pregnant at the time makes her death appear even more ruthless and pitiable
• Eva Smith/Daisy Renton


  Used as a symbol of the working-classes, presented as a vulnerable working-class woman, exploited and marginalised by those within a privileged Capitalist system
• Who exploited Eva Smith/Daisy Renton

  • The Birling family
  • Gerald
• Eva Smith/Daisy Renton


  • Presented as the innocent and principled victim
  • Has higher moral standards than the Birling family and Gerald
  • Her moral code makes her death more shocking
• While Eva is inevitably the victim of the play, it could be viewed that Priestley has depicted her as a very idealised character, presented as entirely flawless throughout the play which makes the other characters appear even worse