Mrs Birling, A Character Analysis
This is the second in our series of articles on the themes of the play, ‘An Inspector Calls’ and the two, the first article can be read by clicking on here.
The role/function of the Mr Birling character in the play.
To understand Mrs Birling we need to do what we did with Mr Birling in the previous article, understand what Priestley is trying to do with his creation and use of this particular character.
- Priestley seems to be trying to criticize the snobbery of the traditional English upper-middle class to which Sybil Birling seems to belong to. Whereas her husband has worked his way up to becoming rich she was born rich.
- Her generally stiff and conservative nature seems to be being criticized and Priestley might have wanted his audience to be more flexible in their attitudes and be ready to change and reject established norms. Sybil Birling is always telling people how to behave and what to do and what not to do. This will be explained in more detail later on.
- Like her wealthy businessman husband Mrs Birling is also shown to be somewhat foolish e.g. when she unknowingly criticizes the father of Eva Smith’s child not knowing that it is her son, Eric.
- Like Mr Birling she seems to be very status-conscious (care a lot about what people think of her and her status and image in society), e.g. she becomes a leading member of a charity but isn’t in reality a very charitable or warm person.
- She had a very negative image of the working class perceiving them as totally inferior not ‘different’, thus Priestley is showing the huge gap in communication and interaction between the different classes, the huge cultural isolation and chasm between the two. A gap and social distance which would of course want to be maintained by snobbish elites including the sorts Priestley himself disliked in his quest for a more egalitarian Britain.
Sybil Birling, a brief description.
Sybil Birling, the wife of Arthur Birling, is described by Priestley as being her 50s, her husband’s ‘social superior’ and ‘cold’. She is the head of a local charity as mentioned before and is a conservative housewife. She very much believes in traditional roles and norms including of behaviour as we can see from these two quotes.
‘Arthur you’re not supposed to say such things’ (Act 1)
Her husband, Arthur, is not ‘supposed’ to say such things in her mind, but according to whom? Who or what determines what is supposed to be said or not said?
‘Now Sheila don’t tease him. When you’re married you’ll realise that men with important work to do sometimes have to spend nearly all their time and energy on their business.’ (Act 1)
Similar to the previous quote with Mrs Birling this time telling her daughter not to say something. What is interesting is that on both occasions she is telling people what not to say, rather than encouraging a free way of speaking and exchange of ideas. This epitomises her conservative and insecure mentality. People are not supposed to say this or that as they are a breach of established protocol and established norms and these norms must be maintained. Priestley on the other hand wants these norms to be changed and is portraying them in a very negative light, though there was a 30 year difference between 1912 when the play was set and 1945 when the play was written, however certain things were quite similar.
Mrs Birling argues the most with the inspector during the play and helped to ensure that Eva Smith received no aid from a charity that Mrs Birling was a director of, due to Eva using the name ‘Mrs Birling’.
She exemplifies the hypocrisy and obsession with reputation of Edwardian England at that time.
She is also shown to be a liar when she initially rejects not knowing who Eva Smith is when a photograph of Eva is shown to her.
She is also quite indifferent (not caring) about Eva’s tragic fate.
The Edwardian Era.
1912 was part of the ‘Edwardian Era’, a period in English history when King Edward VII was the king of England and then his successor George V up till the first world war. It was a very conservative society and there were clear rules and norms on how a middle class ‘lady’ ought to behave.
Sybil Birling was essentially an Edwardian lady, a product of her time, a product of her society and upbringing, a society that was very much about image and reputation.
It was a patriarchal society where men dominated and an upper-class ‘lady’ was expected to behave in a certain way including on how she should talk and what she should not talk about.
Mrs Birling and Eva Smith.
Mrs Birling did not care much about Eva Smith. Ironically though she was the senior member of a charity it is questionable as to whether she worked for them out of genuine sympathy for people less well off or more for social prestige. Her attitude towards Eva Smith (along with her husband’s attitude) in the play represent the attitude of the rich upper classes towards the poorer working classes.
‘I don’t suppose for a moment that we can understand why the girl committed suicide. Girls of that class-’
(Act 2)
This quote is very powerful.
Once again Mrs Birling uses the word ‘suppose’ and she cannot ‘understand’ why the girl committed suicide. But does she want to? Does she want to understand the suffering and plight of this young working class woman? Does she want to understand why this woman who is someone’s daughter, a child’s mother and ironically the mother of Mrs Birling’s grandchild killed herself? Does she say “I wish we could understand why the poor girl committed suicide?”
No, rather there is a reference to her class. What position in the social hierarchy Eva Smith occupies is ever present in Mrs Birling’s mind. Her (Eva’s) humanity seems to be secondary to her role in the class system. Thus this classist way of looking at human beings is inhuman. It is cold, clinical, devoid of compassion and human warmth. Priestley is showing how it can dehumanize people to such an extent that it nullifies their natural response of shock, hurt and sympathy over someone dying.
Capitalism and Classism, Arthur and Sybil Birling.
Mr Birling exemplifies the ‘capitalist’ way of looking at things with his references to ‘labour costs’, ‘twelve per cent’ etc, he does not so much focus on Eva Smith’s class but on her as a troublemaker in his factory (thus hindering his ability to make money) and him being justified in firing her. Birling looks at everything from the perspective of making money, running a business, from a capitalist perspective.
Mrs Birling makes mention of Eva’s class as we saw in the quote above.
‘As if a girl of that sort would refuse money’ (Act 2)
The words ‘that sort’ clearly seem to be referring to her ‘class’, because that is the only thing Mrs Birling knows about Eva in terms of which category or ‘sort’ of person she is part of i.e. the working class.
‘If, as she said, he didn’t belong to her class, and was some drunken young idler, then that’s all the more reason why he shouldn’t escape.’ (Act 2)
What Priestley seems to be doing here is showing how the capitalist businessmen have formed a union with the traditional wealthy elite. This union or marriage between these two classes is shown in the literal marriage of Arthur and Sybil Birling.
Birling looks at things from the viewpoint of money and business, from capitalism, and is a capitalist.
Mrs Birling looks at things from the viewpoint of class, and is classist.
This combination of classism and capitalism is not a positive one, neither view Eva (i.e. the working class whom Priestley uses her to represent) positively. The capitalists view her as troublesome in making more money and a nuisance, the classists view her as socially inferior. Both dehumanize her or remove sympathy for her.
Priestley seems to be showing that capitalism and classism, both two evils in his eyes, are both cold and inhumane. Mr Birling represents capitalism, Mrs Birling, classism and the two are in an alliance as they are in actual real society in Britain at that time.
Irony of being the grandmother of Eva’s child, Mrs Birling a failure?
Mrs Birling’s contempt for Eva is clear. It is also representative of a general disdain of the working class amongst the rich at that time and to want to keep a distance, a type of social apartheid. But can the rich really keep themselves separate from the poor, can they use them merely as machines to make money? Priestley seems to be saying no, and that we as a society are all linked together and what happens to one section of society will affect another. Little does Mrs Birling know that:
- It is her own son who has made Eva pregnant.
- Eva’s child would have been her grandchild, she and Eva both share blood with this child.
In the quote:
‘Secondly, I blame the young man who was the father of the child she was going to have. If, as she said, he didn’t belong to her class, and was some drunken young idler, then that’s all the more reason why he shouldn’t escape. He should be made an example of. If the girl’s death is due to anybody, then it’s due to him.‘ (Act 2)
Priestley is:
- Exposing Mrs Birling’s foolishness and ignorance in the way he did with Mr Birling’s comments about there never being a war with Germany or the Titanic not sinking i.e. the wealthy are not necessarily more intelligent than the rest of us. Mrs Birling does not know that the young man is her son.
- Her hypocrisy and by extension the hypocrisy of many in the wealthy British elite, does she still want this man to be made an example of when it’s actually her son?
However on a deeper level, the audience at that time may have also questioned the senior Birling’s parenting skills.
If they were so successful, Mr Birling a businessman and former Lord Mayor and Mrs Birling a director of a charity, why did they fail to stop him from turning out the way he did e.g. a person with alcohol problems, a person who stole from his father’s business and someone her fathered a child in wedlock (out of marriage, considered an immoral act in Britain in 1945)?
Once again Priestley might be exposing the failures and weaknesses of the rich and showing that they are not necessarily examples for us to follow and have a default right to have more of a say than us in how society should be.
The dysfunctionality of the family is shown with Eric arguing with his father at the end of the play.
For a lady such as Mrs Birling who is so concerned with image and people merely not saying inappropriate things and clearly wants to keep a big gap between her and the working class she has failed. She has failed as a mother. Her son was literally in bed with one of the working class whom she looks down upon so much and has scandalously fathered an illegitimate child.
Mrs Birling is fundamentally a failure as a mother.
Despite her classism, her snobbery, her stringent adherence to Edwardian norms of behaviour and etiquette all of these have failed in terms of Eric.
But with the Birlings failing not only their children but their potential grandchild and also ‘failing’ (though they do not see it that way and accept no blame for Eva’s fate) Eva, is Priestley using this to show an example of capitalism and classism in Britain as a whole being a failure?
It seems he might well be and the whole play is a critique of the failures and flaws of early twentieth century British classism and capitalism.
Here are some more useful words when speaking about Mr Birling, some mentioned above.
Useful vocabulary for GCSE students in essays and exam questions.
- Classist – To look down on others of a lower social class or poorer than you.
- Wedlock – In Britain in the past if two people were not married and had a child, this was considered immoral and shameful and the child would have been called a ‘bastard’. Though children outside of marriage is common now in Britain for Priestley’s audience it would have been scandalous hence Eric Birling fathering a child out of wedlock would have been seen as something bad and perhaps a failure fundamentally on the part of his parents to raise him properly.
- Edwardian– The era in modern Britain in which Edward VII and George V were kings and which followed the Victorian era and was from 1901 till 1914 when the first world war happened.
- Scandalous – The adjective of scandal. If lots of people found out about Eric’s affair with Eva it might have damaged the reputation of the Birling family, something the Birling parents were obsessed with preserving.
- Illegitimate– In the context of children it traditionally meant a child born out of marriage and other term for it was ‘bastard. In Europe in the past it was believed that parents should only have children whilst they were married. If for example a man had a mistress and ended up having a son with her, that son was ‘illegitimate’ and would not be publicly acknowledged or entitled to any inheritance. Many European kings had bastard children whom they did not acknowledge or had nothing to do with.
- Defensive– When confronted by the inspector on her to be blamed for Eva killing herself, Mrs Birling gets defensive and places the blame on the man who fathered Eva’s child, not knowing that it was her son Eric.
To read the articles on the themes you can click on each of the links below:
1. ‘An Inspector Calls’, themes, part 1: Class division and social responsibility.
(5) Comments