Mr. Birling

Mr. Birling

1. Key language & structural features

   • Titanic symbolises his own family – believes they are untouchable until the Inspector arrives giving them a rude awakening.
   • He often uses ‘I’ which conveys his selfish attitude, however, as the play continues he switches to the inclusive pronoun ‘we’ to diminish the scale of the problem (Eva’s death) and shift blame.
   • His language is also very dismissive when he says ‘Fiddlesticks!’ and ‘silly’ - he belittles others ideas.
   • long monologues dramatic irony

2. Priestley’s Ideas

   • However, he is presented as a realistic character by Priestley through his use of colloquial language appropriate for the time. Furthermore, he is described as ‘panic stricken’ this indicates that his defiance and bravado have finally been shattered and so Priestley lets the audience see someone who is so blindly wrong and never as really in control of events as he would like himself and others to think. Therefore the audience is invited to feel sympathy.
   • Priestley uses Birling as a symbol of the callous and heartlessness of capitalism. Through his character he is criticizing the complacency of capitalist prosperity.
   • He is representative of the older generation who were unwilling to change.

3. Key quotations

   • “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.’
   • “you’d think everybody has to look after everybody else, as if we were all mixed up like bees in a hive – community and all that nonsense.”
   • “Now look at the pair of them- the famous younger generation who know it all. And they can’t even take a joke-”