social responsibility

quotes

“the way some of these cranks.. like bees in a hive- community and all that nonsense”- mr birling, act 1

• harsh + insensitive lang ‘cranks’ and ‘nonsense’ implies he is heartless and disgusted by the idea of social responsibility

• simile ‘bees in a hive’ implies social responsibility is primitive and demeaning, highlighting his stubbornness and capitalist views

“see that our interests- and the interests of capital- are properly protected”- mr birling, act 1

• implied that capitalists feel responsibility to make profit but not responsible for their workers

• protection of interests of business men and capital would shock post ww2 audience since they witnessed horrors society endured bc of capitalist greed + neglect. more shocking when eva’s death is revealed to not have been protected

“obviously it has nothing whatever to do with the wretched girl’s suicide” “two years ago” -mr birling, act 1

• refuses to accept blame for consequences- believes his actions are irrelevant since the 2 events happened far apart- priestley implies his interpretation of responsibility as simplistic and self-serving

• ‘wretched girl’ reveals his lack of compassion and patience

• his continued rejection seems to be result of arrogance and disrespect for others- believes accepting blame would be sign of weakness and imperfection

“there’s every excuse for what both your mother and I did- it turned out unfortunately, thats all”- mr birling, act 3

• noun ‘excuse’ connotes a pathetic, worthless reason, suggesting he is desperate to excuse himself of blame

• dismissive tone of ‘unfortunately’ and ‘thats all’ conveys his heartlessness- suggests the upper classes trivialised and dismissed the lower classes’ hardships

• portrays eva’s death merely as a unforeseen tragedy, inconvenience, not worthy enough to make him accept responsibility

“make sure he’s compelled to confess in public his responsibility”- mrs birling, act 2 → “but i didn’t know it was you- I never dreamt” - mrs birling, act 3

• willing to condemn the anonymous father of Eva’s unborn child but retracts her demands after finding out it was eric }sacrifices her beliefs about duty to protect her son- priestley sugests the upperclasses’ idea of duty is superficial and hypocritical

“naturally I don’t know anything about this girl”- mrs birling, act 2

• priestley blames class prejudice for people’s refusal to accept responsibility. mrs birling vouches for eva’s innocence before she heard who she was

• adverb ‘naturally’ implies she’s automatically above suspicion because of her social standing- believes eva’s life is completely separate from her own so she cant be responsible

• situational irony since her involvement is soon revealed }priestley challenges the way the upper classes assume their own innocence to avoid responsibility

“i dont suppose we can understand why the girl committed suicide. girls of that class-” -mrs birling, act 2. “naturally that was one of the things that prejudiced me against her case” -mrs birling act 2

• ‘understand’ and ‘naturally’ shows she believes theres an intrinsic barrier between social classes and that she’s entitled to act unfairly towards lower classes} priestley suggests the upper classes (particularly old gen) are governed by bigotry and unrepentant in their actions