GERALD CROFT

“attractive chap about 30 ,rather too manly to be a dandy but very much the well bred young man-about-town”

Priestly shows he descends from a high social status and presents him as upper class and presentable. opening stage directions show his hypermasculinity which foreshadow his actions with eva smith.

“showing annoyance” stage direction given when he can’t see the picture

this annoyance tells us he expects to be involved in everything and is used to being in control of situations. we see an immature side of Gerald that gets angry when things don’t go his way.

“you couldn’t have done anything else”

agrees with mr birling when he says he had to sack eva smith. This shows Gerald sides with Mr birling and exemplifies his capitalist views much like mr birling, we see Gerald think about money first and people second. We see in the modal verb ”couldn’t” as the negative form removes any possibility in his mind of Arthur conceivably doing anything else. he continues to say “ i think we’d have done the same thing” which present his selfish views.

“I hate those hard-eyed dough-faced women”

quote shows him to be a bit of a mysoginist, a woman-hater. He hates these women in particular because they are not attractive. He uses negative connotations showing his ignorance towards who he believes to be inferior

‘I didn’t feel about her the way she felt about me’ ‘I knew her let’s leave it at that, don’t tell the inspector’

Shows his attempts to conceal and present him as arrogant as we see an act of superiority in thinking he can hide stuff from the inspector and being somewhat less emotional towards a person

‘Sorry- I- well, I suddenly realised - taking it in properly - that she’s dead’

We see genuine guilt by the death of his former lover, yet he somewhat seems to be stubborn to accept it.