Arthur Birling

Character Summary: Overview

• Former Lord Mayor and magistrate

• Hopes to obtain knighthood

• Runs a textiles factory in Brumley

• Sacked Eva Smith from his employ

Character Summary: Key Characteristics

• Stubborn

• Selfish

• Money driven

• Lacks empathy

Character Summary: Role

• Patriarch of the Birling family

• Represents Capitalism

• Represents someone who aspires to climb the English class system

Character Summary: Themes

• Capitalism vs Socialism

• Generational Conflict

• Responsibility

What does Arthur Birling Symbolise?

• Represents the greedy industrialist businessmen of the early 20th century

• Wealthy capitalist

  • Prizes money and social status

  • Frames his attitude as a ‘hard headed practical man of business’

• Self important patriarch

  • Represents the power of men over women in 1912 English society

  • Treats Sheilas engagement as an opportunity to further his business interests

• Symbolises the older generation

  • Refusal to change and learn social responsibility contrasts with the receptiveness of Sheila and Eric

    • Represent the younger generations potential to change for the better

Language Analysis: Dramatic Irony

• Optimism for the future, including predictions about the Titanics success and the impossibility of war

  • Would have seemed laughable to a 1945 audience

  • The audience therefore know that Mr Birlings opinions are not to be trusted

Language Analysis: Regional Accent

• Birlings ‘provincial’ manner of speaking signifies his lower class status in comparison to his wife and Gerald

• Emphasises the importance of class in 1912

• Adds context to his eagerness to impress Gerald, exert authority over others and get a knighthood

“A man has to mind his own business…

and look after himself and his own”

“A man has to mind his own business and look after himself and his own”

• Act One

• Defending self interest and dismiss social responsibility

• Arrogance and selfishness

• Presents Birling as the embodiment of laissez-faire capitalism

• Repetition of possessive pronouns shows his fixation on property and ownership, even of his family

“The Titanic - she sails next week…

unsinkable, absolutely unsinkable”

“The Titanic - she sails next week…unsinkable, absolutely unsinkable”

• Act One

• Dramatic Irony

• Hubris: repetition and intensifier of ‘absolutely’ reveals a fatal overconfidence

  • Complacent man who believes he is untouchable

• Foreboding metaphor: The Birlings world view is destroyed by the Inspector and the revelation of their involvement

• Titanic acts as a microcosm for the Edwardian upper class, the ships rigid class system mirrors the strict social hierarchy

“I can’t accept…

any responsibility”

“I can’t accept any responsibility”

• Act One

• Captures his rigid refusal to connect his business with the death of Eva Smith

• Mr Birling is a microcosm of capitalist, Edwardian business owners who prioritize profit over oriole

• Selfishness contrasts with the Inspectors socialist message of social duty

“I’m talking as a hard-headed…

practical man of business”

“I’m talking as a hard-headed practical man of business”

• Act One

• Justifying his capitalist greed

• Pragmatic but cold

  • Prides himself as being practical

  • Equating business sense with rejection of empathy, charity and socialism

• Arrogant and dismissive

  • Repetition of the phrase shows his deep self importance and full trust in only his judgement

• Dramatic irony: throughout act 1 Birlings makes confident, foolish predictions which we know are wrong, taking away his credibility

Character Development: Act One

• Attempt to assert dominance

  • Introduced as an arrogant, money driven business man

  • Fails to intimidate Goole

  • Birling refuses to accept responsibility when the Inspector reveals that firing Eva led to her death

Character Development: Act Two

• Birlings defence of others

  • Fails to condemn Gerald for having an affair

  • Encourages Sheila to rethink after she ends the engagement

  • He supports his wife when the Inspector reveals she cruelly denied Eva charity

Character Development: Act Three

• Birling learns nothing

  • Birling is more concerned that Eric stole company money than him being involved with Evas fate

  • Fails to learn the Inspectors lesson

  • Worries about the damage to his reputation

  • Celebrates the possibility of Evas death being a hoax

Characters Interpretations: Generational Divide

• Priestleys 1945 audience would have seen themselves in younger generations like Sheila and Eric

• Mr Birling represents an older, pre war generation

  • Interests would’ve felt deeply out of touch with the reality experienced by the 1945 audience

• Men like Birling were responsible for withholding the right to vote from women

  • Their mistakes led to disasters like the tragedy of the Titanic

• His behaviour contrasts sharply with that of Eric and Sheila

• Receptiveness of the younger Birlings to the Inspectors message aligns them with a more socially progressive audience

• It is ironic that Mr Birling treats Eric and Sheila as foolish when he is the most ignorance character of all - demonstrated by his false predictions in Act 1