Mr birling

• ‘I’m talking as a hard-headed practical man of business’

• ‘you’ll hear some people say war is inevitable… fiddlesticks!’

• ‘The Titanic- she sails next week.. and unsinkable, absolutely unsinkable’

• ‘I gather there’s a very good chance of knighthood’

• ‘A man has to make his own way- has to look after himself- and his family too, of course’

• (rather impatiently) ‘Horrid business. But i don’t see why you should come here at all’

• ‘you’d think everybody has to look after everyone else, as if we were all mixed up like bees in a hive- community and all that nonsense’

• ‘We are all members of one body’

  • ‘we’ evokes a sense of responsibility within the audience, and gives us an urgency to improve society, by taking responsibility for our actions.

  • The noun ‘Body’ is used as a metaphor for society, suggesting that society as a whole will not function properly unless all of its members work together. Priestly is suggesting that improving society requires us to apply social responsibility, as well as implying that some parts of society are more important than others (ie. the heart of the body)

Mrs Birling

• ‘As if a girl of that sort would ever refuse money’

• ‘i blame the father’

• ‘she only had herself to blame’

• ‘she was claiming elaborate fine feelings and scruples that were simply absurd in a girl in a her position’

• ‘her husband’s social superior’

• you’re being hysterical

Sheila

• ‘you mustn’t try to build a sort of wall between us and that girl’

• ‘i was in a furious temper’

• ‘is it the one you wanted me to have?’

• ‘you were the wonderful fairy prince’

• ‘oh- how horrible! was it an accident?’

• ‘but these girls aren’t cheap labour- they’re people!’

• ‘so i’m really responsible?

• ‘No- he’s giving us the rope, so that we can hang ourselves’

• ‘She hands him the ring’

• ‘the point is, you don’t seemed to have learnt anything’

Gerald

• ‘we’d have done the same’

• 'I should say so!’

• ‘i’ve never known an eva smith’

• ‘if possible, yes’- in response to the inspector saying ‘and you thin young women ought to be protected against unpleasant and disturbing things?’

• ‘i’ve suddenly realised-taken it in properly-that she’s dead’

Eric

• ‘Why shouldn’t they try for higher wages? w e try for the highest possible prices’

• (involuntarily)my god!’

• ‘i would’ve let her stay’

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

• ‘she was pretty and a good sport’

• ‘you’re not the kind pf father a chap could go to when he’s in trouble’

• ‘the girl’s dead and we all helped to kill her’

inspector

• i dont play golf

• it’s better to ask for the earth than to take it’

• taught in fire and blood and anguish

• millions and millions and millions of eva smiths and john smiths.

• Public men, mr birling, have responsibilities as well as privelages

• Each of you helped to kill her. remember that.