English Literature - Eric Birling - An Inspector Calls

How is Eric shown in the play as gaining socialist ideals?

Socialist views

Priestley portrays Eric to have personal views which are inherently socialist. It is important to consider why Priestley exhibits Eric has possessing these views (despite his atrocious act of raping Eva).

● Eric condemns his father’s capitalist view of his workers and challenges this through the question

“why shouldn’t they try for higher wages?”.

It is clear that Eric is able to empathise with the lower-classes and can recognise the need for better workplace rights and the even more desperate need of ridding society of the practice of exploiting labourers.

● Priestley presents Eric, with the capacity for empathy and emotion, which therefore separates him (and Sheila) from the other characters, who are unable to experience such emotions.

○ This is done to demonstrate Eric as morally superior and as a character, which the audience should align themselves with.

Is Eric a reliable narrator?

Eric is left to tell the story about what he did to Eva which means his narration is likely to be unreliable. His biased telling of the story (to make himself look less bad) enables the audience to take what they want from the story and ignore anything they don’t want to believe.

● He says “and that’s when it happened”. The use of the pronoun “it” allows the audience members to fill in the gaps about what ‘it’ is that Eric did to Eva. Thus, Priestley manipulates the audience into perceiving Eric as redeemable as they retain their own opinion of whether he actually did rape Eva

—> This implies that it is Priestley’s intention for Eric to be favoured by the audience and serve as a medium for socialist ideas and converted capitalists.

● Priestley uses the euphemistic phrase “that state when a chap easily turns nasty” as a substitute for Eric’s admittance of being drunk.

—> Priestley’s choice of colloquial language normalises Eric’s lack of restraint which implies that it’s the alcohol which caused him to act in that way, not his lack of morals. This prompts the question of whether he would have abused Eva if he was sober.

How does Priestley show Eric gaining some morality?

Morality

Eric’s emotional response to the news of Eva’s death as Priestley demonstrates his innate rectitude (morality) through the stage directions. Priestley’s use of the adverb “involuntarily, My God!” demonstrates the moral nature of Eric as he could not suppress his emotional reaction; it is involuntary. Eric would not choose to reveal his emotions, within a patriarchal society which condemns feminine traits, such as excessive emotion.

How does Priestley show Eric advocating for socialism within a capitalist society?

“Why shouldn’t they try for higher wages?”

“you said yourself she was a good worker”

Eric questions “why shouldn’t they try for higher wages?” as he believes that the capitalist system ought to be fair to both employers and employees. He puts forward a moral form of capitalism, pointing out to Birling, “you said yourself she was a good worker”, implying that she should be financially rewarded for this.