Gerald Croft is portrayed as a wealthy and confident young man from an upper-class family. Gerald is engaged to Sheila Birling, and has a charming and suave personality. Gerald's character represents the hypocrisy and moral ambiguity of the upper class during the early 20th century. He had an affair with Eva Smith (Daisy Renton) while he was engaged to Sheila. He is the only character that truly cared for Eva.
Act 1 - At the start of the play Gerald talks to Mr Birling like him firing Eva was unimportant. ‘You couldn’t have done anything else’ He is also very ironic with what he says to Sheila when he promises to make her happy as he cheated on her ‘I’ll make you as happy as you deserve’ Gerald acts distrustfully and gets defensive when asked about what he did last summer as a joke. ‘I was awfully busy’
Act 2 - After Gerald realises Eva was Daisy we see just how much he cares for her as he starts to stutter and grieve her death ‘{distressed} suddenly realised […] that shes dead’ The audience realise Eva depended on Gerald to survive and that he might be taking advantage of the fact that if she turned him down she had nowhere to go ‘the most important person in her life’ Gerald acts like he was a good person for helping but also bribed her to keep quiet in the form of a gift ‘I insisted on a parting gift’
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