How is Mrs Birling Portrayed in An Inspector Calls?
A FREE grade 9 essay from Fergus. Thank you for supporting other students Fergus!
In Priestley’s didactic play, Mrs Birling is constructed as a cold unfeeling woman who feels social superiority. Priestley presents her as the polar twin to the ideal mother’s emotions in the nuclear family to suggest the dysfunctionality of the class and charity system. Ultimately, she attempts to pass on the patriarchy onto her daughter.
Priestley initially describes the Birling dwelling as a ‘large suburban house’, hinting at the family's wealth. This is evident in the nuclear family structure, and it seems that the Birling family perhaps is ideal. The stage directions immediately contrast with this, and Mrs. Birling is seen to be ‘cold...her husband's social superior.’ Within the nuclear family structure that a 1945 contemporary audience would have been familiar with and agree with, the mother’s role is one of caring and nurturing. This immediately presents Mrs Birling as callous and unfeeling.
Furthermore, this idea is inextricably linked to class through the focus on her status as ‘social superior’. Perhaps Priestley intends to comment on how social class goes against an ideal society. Furthermore, Mrs Birling crudely comments on ‘girls of that class.’ The infantile ‘girls’ implies Mrs B’s feeling of superiority over Eva. Furthermore, ‘that’ symbolises Mrs Birling’s attempt to distance herself from the lower classes to ensure that she doesn’t have to feel emotion for them. It is apparent then that Priestley constructs this to imply that her ‘cold’ nature is a purposeful tactic to ensure that she feels no remorse or guilt about what the social system’s impacts are. This is intended to raise much animosity in the audience for Mrs Birling as she is aware of her impacts yet chooses to ignore them.
We next see Mrs Birling attempt to pass on this social standard to Sheila. She ignores Gerald’s unfaithfulness and instead advises Sheila to deal with it ‘just as I had.’ This parallel between the situation of Sheila and Gerald versus Mr and Mrs B hints that this vicious cycle is a generational issue where the women must ignore the men's total control within the patriarchy to remain in their comfortable lives. The audience perhaps feels sympathy for Mrs B here as she has had to suffer the same issues as Sheila. This highlights how the issue that is being faced is purely societal. Priestley constructs this to be symbolic of the story that all women would have to face to remain in the social hierarchy. Priestley suggests that if the Inspector did not intervene, Sheila would develop into the same warped character as Mrs B is. We do in fact see the beginning of this with Sheila calling Mrs B ‘mummy’ despite not being a child, demonstrating Sheila beginning to accept her mother’s indoctrination of the class system and patriarchy. Mrs Birling is still culpable in that she attempts to uphold the status quo. In this way, the Inspector’s socialism is the only way to overturn this system into what is best for society.
The sympathy does not extend far, however. Sybil condemns her son Eric in an attempt to completely remove any blame from herself. She remarks ‘he ought to be dealt with very severely’ and even ‘confess in public his responsibility.’ This firstly creates much dramatic irony as with Eric leaving to take a walk it is foreshadowed that he will be the one that got Eva pregnant.
Furthermore, the name ‘Sibyl’ perhaps alludes to the first Sibyl in Greek mythology who asked for immortality yet also got cursed with old age, teaching one to be careful about what they wish for. Indeed, a contemporary audience would have been familiar with the classics and understood this reference. It seems, however, that Mrs B does not. Priestley constructs this to show that in her desperation to avert blame to retain her position, she wishes condemnation of her son. This parallel didactically reinforces this original lesson taught by the Greek story and highlights how the ruling classes of the time would never learn from mistakes of the past and would rather do anything to save themselves. Sibyl once again is constructed to completely disregard her ideal nuclear mother’s emotional caring role and instead avert blame.
Mrs B is constructed finally as symbolic of the issues of charity acting as a social safety net being run by those socially “superior” who put up “a wall” between themselves and those they ought to help. Priestley does this to try and persuade of the need for a government welfare state. Mrs Birling can simply choose to ignore desperate women based on ‘gross impertinence.’ This patronisation almost evokes images of a teacher telling off a young child. Perhaps Priestley intends the audience to realise that the charity system can refuse based on baseless principles, whereas a welfare state would provide this care to all.
This system is made detestable even more by Mrs B calling it her ‘duty’ to refuse helpless girls any care. Priestley could have structured Eva’s encounters with Mrs B last to highlight how charity is the last safety net. However, it clearly doesn’t work, demonstrating the need for it to be replaced by a welfare state by voting Labour in the 1945 general election. The inspector is a foil to her with his ‘duty’ being to ‘ask questions,’ symbolising the requirement for an upheaval of the system.
Overall, Mrs Birling is constructed to show the flaws in a broken class and charity system and Priestley asks his audience to question whether the upper class has the best interests of society in mind. Just like the inspector ‘ask questions’, Priestley asks if they are as ‘cold’ as the disgusting character of Mrs Birling.
939 words
My Commentary
If I had to reduce all the marketing criteria for Grade 9 to simple steps, it would be this:
Have at least a 3 part thesis
Include at least 15 quotes
Constantly refer to Priestley’s purpose (and include society in 1945)
Refer to the patriarchal society
Bring in context to prove your point, embedding it like a quote
Work through the play chronologically
Include a quotation in your conclusion
There’s a little jumping about in the chronology, but that doesn’t interrupt the argument.
And you probably know I recommend that you write over 900 words, as this is typical of grade 9 essays in the exam.
So, job done Fergus!
Wow! Great job.