Mr Birling
Profile
\ Full name: Mr Arthur Birling
Age: ‘middle fifties’
Role: main character
Ideology: strong capitalist
Social class: upper middle
\ Other Key Facts:
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- 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.
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Characteristics
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- Ambitious
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‘there’s a very good chance of knighthood’
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- Pompous (arrogant)
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‘a hard-headed, practical man of business’
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- 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
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‘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’
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- Selfish:
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‘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’
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Business
\ A big part of Birling’s character is that he cares too much about business and his reputation. For example:
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- While at Sheila and Gerald’s celebration, he mentions merging Birling and Company and Croft’s Limited:
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‘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:
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- In his toast:
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‘for lower costs and higher prices’
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Responsibility
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- 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
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Respect
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- 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
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Anxiety
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- 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
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Authority
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- 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:
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‘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
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‘Just let me finish, Eric’
- Birling has the most consistent speech throughout the play - likes to talk, hates being interrupted
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‘of course’
- Repetition
- Often ends his sentences with these 2 words to make his claims seems like an obvious matter-of-fact
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Construct
- Constructed by Priestley to show what is wrong with capitalism
- Symbolises capitalism
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