Profile

Full name: Mr Arthur Birling

Age: ‘middle fifties’

Role: main character

Ideology: strong capitalist

Social class: upper middle

Other Key Facts:

• Head of the Birling family

• Boss of his own company (Birling and Company)

• Plays golf

Named Arthur to reflect King Arthur - an ideal ruler with lots of power, which is ironic because Birling exploits people instead of helping them.

Characteristics

• Ambitious

‘there’s a very good chance of knighthood’

• Pompous (arrogant)

‘a hard-headed, practical man of business’

• Priestley uses dramatic irony to make him seem confident in his opinions even though the audience knows that they are wrong

• Allusion to a phrase used by the PM in between wars, to show how businessmen made profits during war - echoed in Labour Party Manifesto of 1945

  • Shows that capitalists are willing to let people die so that they can make more money

‘The Titanic… unsinkable, absolutely unsinkable’

‘there isn’t a chance of war’

‘war impossible’

‘in 1940… forgotten all these… silly little war scares’

‘in Russia, which will always be behindhand naturally’

• Selfish:

‘a man has to make his own way’

‘as if we were all mixed up together like bees in a hive – community and all that nonsense’

Business

A big part of Birling’s character is that he cares too much about business and his reputation. For example:

• While at Sheila and Gerald’s celebration, he mentions merging Birling and Company and Croft’s Limited:

‘now you’ve [Gerald] brought us together’

‘just the kind of son-in-law I always wanted’

‘Crofts and Birlings are no longer competing but are working together’

Birling also thinks that the whole point in business is to make money. For example:

• In his toast:

‘for lower costs and higher prices’

Responsibility

• He doesn’t accept responsibility for Eva’s death - even though he started the domino effect

• Dismisses the idea of responsibility

• Calls socialists like Goole ‘cranks’

• Finds it difficult to think of others - also linking to selfishness

• Short-sighted

• Doesn’t change by the end of the play

Respect

• Birling is immediately not respected by the audience due to his ideologies and the use of dramatic irony

• His optimism makes him seem foolish and undermines his authority

• He is a public figure obsessed with his status - would ‘give thousands’ to avoid scandal

Anxiety

• Desperately tries to win the Crofts’ approval e.g: talking about knighthood, uses colloquial language and stutters (‘- er -’) when mentioning the fact that Gerald’s parents aren’t there (shows he is actually upset)

• Tries to establish authority to scare Goole away and avoid scandal e.g: he plays golf with the Chief Inspector

Authority

• Birling is the head of the family but it is threatened by both Mrs Birling and the Crofts - they are both socially superior to him

• Tries to act like he is in charge throughout the play, but he is not

He uses authoritative language to be in control and reinforce the fact that is wants to be “in charge”. For example:

‘provincial in his speech’

• Speech, accent, and social class used to be linked - this makes it clear that he is middle and not upper class

‘Just let me finish, Eric’

• Birling has the most consistent speech throughout the play - likes to talk, hates being interrupted

‘of course’

• Repetition

• Often ends his sentences with these 2 words to make his claims seems like an obvious matter-of-fact

Construct

• Constructed by Priestley to show what is wrong with capitalism

• Symbolises capitalism