KEY QUOTES

MR BIRLING :

‘a heavy looking, rather portentous man….provincial in his speech’

• mr birling is described as being ‘heavy looking’ as though he has strength and weight behind him, but as he only ‘looks’ that way-is it real? provincial means from the country - does he lack sophistication?

‘unsinkable, absolutely unsinkable’

• this piece of dramatic irony exposes mr birling’s arrogance. the titanic did sink-so he was wrong. his repetition makes him sound even more confident even though as we all know, he’s wrong

‘community and all that nonsense….mixed up together like bees in a hive’

• he ridiculed the idea of working together - comparing us to bees in a hive: insects with no ability to think for ourselves

‘a man has to mind his own business and look after himself and his….’

• mr birling’s selfishness is so deeply rooted he thinks he ‘has to’ look after himself - as though selfish was some kind of rule

‘i can accept any responsibility for everything that happens to everyone’

• now his ability to look after other people is presented as though its a kind of disability! he ‘cant’ accept any responsibility for anyone else. also, the ‘everything that happens to everyone’ is a piece of hyperbole that’s designed to make the suggestion that he should care more sound ridiculous

‘well, its my duty to keep labour costs down’

• ‘duty’ comes up repeatedly during the play. mr birling thinks that its his duty to keep the costs down so that his customers can enjoy his product and he can compete. he has no care for the real cost of this

‘we’ve been had that’s all’

• in the end, he doesn’t care and he hasn’t learnt anything. he sees the whole thing as a game

MRS BIRLING:

‘girls of that class’

• mrs birling clearly draws a distinction between her and eva - she is ‘that’ class

‘if you think you can bring any pressure to bear upon me, inspector, your quite mistaken’

• mrs birling’s arrogance - the inspector wont affect her. her tone is almost patronising as well

‘you have no power to make me change my mind’

• the inspector has ‘no power’ over her - no ability to change her - she sees power as being entirely down to privilege and the idea that he ight reason with her is not something she could contemplate

‘i don’t believe it. i wont believe it’

• is this mrs birling’s truth? that she ‘wont’ see the truth - she refuses to

‘i did no more than my duty’

• her duty is to pass judgements on the lower classes. that is what she did and she’s unapologetic about it

‘i accept no blame for it at all’

• again - a refusal to accept any responsibility for what happened

‘i was the only one who didn’t give in to him’

• even in the end she is determined to maintain her sense of superiority

SHEILA:

‘oh - gerald - you’ve got it - is it the one you wanted me to have? …. look mummy, isn’t it a beauty’

• sheila can’t make her own decisions - she’s just a child ( and a woman ). her reference to her mummy also exposes how child-like she is, while the fact that she shows off her ring and not her new husband shows that she is shallow and materialistic

‘ill never, never, do it to anybody again’

• she shows regret - and repeats a promise to change

‘they’re not cheap labour, they’re people’

• she doesn’t see eva by virtue of how much she costs to employ, but she sees her as a person

‘you and i aren’t the same people who sat down to dinner here’

• shows that both her and gerald have changed - gerald changed back, she doesn’t

‘between us we drove that girl to commit suicide’

• she accepts and shares responsibility in the way the inspector taught

‘it’s you two who are being childish - trying not to face the facts’

• the best line to show sheila’s growth - now her parents are the young ones

ERIC:

‘why shouldn’t they try for higher wages? we try for the highest possible prices’

• eric recognises that capitalism should allow for workers to push for better wages as well as mr birling tries to lower them - he sees the workers as being independent people

‘i was in that state where a chap easily turns nasty’

• a euphemism for his rape shows just how little he thought - or thinks - bout what he did

‘that girls dead and we all killed her’

• he accepts responsibility

GERALD:

‘she was young and pretty and warm-hearted and intensely grateful’

• gerald speaks highly of her and is clearly flattered by how much she appreciates him. but he goes on to treat her appalling anyway.

‘i’m rather more - upset - by this business that i probably appear to be..’

• gerald is two-faced - was he really upset by this. or has he realised that he should be upset by this!

‘it may have all been nonsense’

• he begins to change back - if he can get out of the problem, then it didn’t really happen

INSPECTOR:

‘he creates at once an impression of massiveness, solidity and purposefulness’

• a list of adjectives that really show what the inspector is made of. though, like mr birling, he only gives an ‘impression of it

‘a chain of events’

• we are all connected in the inspectors view - all humans, all links in a chain