Sybil Birling

Character Summary: Overview

• Husbands social superior

• Sits on the panel of a local woman’s charity

• Denied Eva charity out of spite, leading to her death

• Refuses to accept responsibility

Character Summary: Key Characteristics

• Stubborn

• Selfish

• Lacks empathy

• Prizes social class

Character Summary: Themes

• Capitalism vs Socialism

• Generational Conflict

• Responsibility

Character Summary: Roles

• Represents the cruelty and arrogance of the most powerful people in society

  • Society has such a vast divide between the rich and the poor

What does Sybil Birling Symbolise? - Abuse of Social Position

• Prizes social status above all else

• Believes in strict class segregation

• Chastises her husband when he praises the cook

What does Sybil Birling Symbolise? - Hypocritical

• Associates poverty with immorality

• Blames the father of Eva Smiths unborn child for Evas death

  • Rejects this idea when Eric is revealed to be the father

What does Sybil Birling Symbolise? - Older Generation

• Her refusal to change and take responsibility contrasts with the receptiveness of Sheila and Eric

  • Represent younger generations potential to change for the better

Language Analysis: Dramatic Irony

• End of Act 2: Revealed that Eric impregnated Eva

  • Heavy with dramatic irony

  • The audience understand the truth long before it is revealed

  • Mrs Birling is the last to realise what is happening

Language Analysis: Dismissive Language

• Shows nothing but disdain for Eva

• Brands Eva impudent

• Says ‘girls of that class’ would never refuse stolen money

• Sybil doesn’t use her name, just disrespectfully refers to her as ‘girl‘

“Arthur, your not supposed…

to say such things”

“Arthur, you’re not supposed to say such things”

• Act One

• Praising servants was highly inappropriate for upper classes

• Demonstrates her obsession with maintaining the boundaries between social classes

  • Reinforcing the idea that servants were beneath them and didn’t deserve praise

• Deeply concerned with her appearance

  • Mr Birling is from a lower class, so she desperately tris to keep the upper classes standard

• Highlights Mr Birlings insecurity and lack of natural upper class etiquette

• Critiques the hypocrisy and coldness of upper classes

“I think she [Eva]…

had only herself to blame”

“I think she [Eva] had only herself to blame”

• Act Two

• Direct refusal

• Encapsulates the victim blaming mentality of the upper class

• Only: isolates Eva as the sole architect of her own misery

• Highlights upper class belief that the poor were impoverished due to their own poor life choices

• Ironic because it is later revealed her son was the father who should be taking responsibility

“Eric I can’t believe it.

There must be some mistake”

“Eric I can’t believe it. There must be some mistake”

• Act Three

• Dramatic irony

• Refusal to accept the truth in case it harms her families reputation

  • Rather believe in a lie than her sons alcoholism and wrong doings

• Massive emotional disconnection between Mrs Birling and her children

• Criticises the upper class

  • Quick to make judgements of lower class but defends and makes excuses for people in her social circle

“Go and look for the…

father of his child. It’s his responsibility”

“Go and look for the father of the child. It’s his responsibility”

• Act Two

• Imperative to shift the blame

  • Dodges any personal or collective responsibility

• Dramatic Irony

• Demand illustrates traditional gender norms

  • Reveals her deeply ingrained class prejudices

    • Assumes the working class lacks moral standards

• Attacks the hyper capitalist belief that individuals are only responsible for themselves

Character Development: Act One

• Dismissive of Lower Classes

  • Introduced as cold and prejudiced

  • Tells her husband off for praising the cook

  • Dismissive of Goole

  • Unsympathetic towards Evas plight

Character Development: Act Two

• Abuses her power

  • Calls Geralds affair ‘disgusting’ but reveals she abused her power over Eva in a worse way

  • Denied Eva charitable support for her unborn baby

  • Did not consider Eva to be deserving

  • Blamed the child’s father

  • Shocked when Eric is revealed as the father

Character Development: Act Three

• Rejects social responsibility

  • Shaken by the news of Erics involvement

  • Refuses to accept any responsibility of her own

  • Celebrates the possibility of Evas death being a hoax

  • Chastises Sheila for believing the Inspectors message

Character Interpretations: Social Responsibility

• May be the most unlikeable character

• May feel sympathy towards her after finding out Eric is the father

  • Clearly devastated by the news

  • Shown through her broken sentence structure

  • Pointed silence for 2 pages

• Feels so guilty for contributing to the death of her own grandchild

  • Shakes her to the core

• Perhaps understandable that she is so keen to pretend the Inspectors story was a hoax

• Geralds suggestion that they were tricked may feel like a lifeline to her