Adventualy he starts to take responsibility for his actions and tries to support Eva while she is having this baby. But the way in which he does this is not appropriate. Instead of working hard to support the mother of his baby like any other man would he instead steals the money from his father. This is where Eva shows some morals and refuse to take the money he is offering to her. The moral standards of Eva are very different from the one’s of Eric.
This just shows how little respect Eric has for Eva. ‘ She wouldn’t take it any more, and she didn’t want to see me again.’ He thinks because she is a prostitute she will take whatever money is giving her no mater where it came from. Well he was wrong Eva shows her true character at this point in the play. It also shows that she never wanted to go to the job of prostitution, but she was forced to. This part of the play where Eric is involved just shows how much Mr Birling was a bad father.
This was the last and final Birling she was going to be involved with. Mrs Birling gave her the final push to her grave. This cold-hearted stubborn so-called human being pushed Eva right to the edge. After having no support at all from Eric, Eva came to Mrs Birlings organisations looking for help while she was in need. Mrs Birling used her power to make sure the frail Eva Smith got no help from her organisation what so ever. This meant the end for Eva Smith with a baby on the way no one to support her and no job the only way to get money was to sell her self which would become a lot harder as time went with having a baby on the way.
Mrs Birling was her last hope and she refused her straight away. Mrs Birling was even more hard-hearted than her husband. She is fully aware of her social states and she use’s it to gain what ever she wants and in this case it is to make sure that Eva gets no help from her organisation. Mrs Birling sits on the on the local charity council, not because she wants to help the poor, but because she wants to feel more superior to the lower classes. Just as Mr Birling and Gerald, Mrs Birling finds it easy to brush away any responsibility or guilt with the death of Eva Smith, she is also very ignorant.
I think this play is very well written by Priestly and I have a number of reasons why I think that. The first is the fact that the points he raises in this play where relevant then and are still relevant now and that is why the play is still popular now. It also deals with points that where the main problems back in the days of Eva Smith. It shows the people who are watching it that it was very hard life to live if you where part of the lower class. It shows how big companies don’t care about employers they only care about the money they also act as if every penny is important. It also highlights the fact that women where the lowest part of society in those days and they got very little respect from people.
I think one of the main points in this play this the comment made by Mr Birling. Which is ‘everyone is responsible for each other’ it is quite ironic when you look at what he says because that just sums up the what happens between the Birlings and Eva Smith. I also think it is very clever the way Priestly writes that. There have been big changes that have happened since this play was written. The role of women this has changed dramatically since back in those times. Women now go to work they don’t all stay at homes they have also gained a lot of respect from men and people look at them very differently. Women now do have equal opportunities there are cases where this isn’t the case but usual they are treated with the same respect as men.
Healthcare has changed for the better people can now have free help from doctors and they can be cared for till they are better. There is now a dole which people can claim if they don’t work or have no way of income. There is now a system called family support which is where if you can’t work then you get money off the government to help bring up your children. So as you can see things have hanged for the better and maybe if these things had been around while Eva was alive she would have lived a longer and I better life.
Society has also has also changed there is better working standards there has been big changes in the economy and living standards have risen. This has all came about because people have learnt from their mistakes and they have improve to make the world a better place. There are also certain rules which would never allow standards to slip back to as bad as they where when the Birlings where around.
I think this is a very cleverly written play by Priestly. Priestly builds up tension at the end of every scene by starting the interrogation of one of the characters. The tension in this play is built up an up right to the part where the inspector leaves. If you had a graph you could draw a straight line from the part in where he starts interrogating people to when he finishes. The tension then falls but it is then built up again when the telephone rings. So on your graph you would have sharp dip and a sharp rise.
The role of the inspector is to find out about all the Birlings secrets and that is what he does. At the end of the day they are all to blame for the death of Eva Smith they all played a part which resulted in her down fall to death. I think the audience does need to see justice done and that is what Priestly tries to make them feel at the end of the play. But who is the real person to blame for the death of Eva Smith. That is why it would have been so hard to take people to court if this had been a real life account of people’s lives. This play plays on people’s minds and that is exactly what Priestly meant when he wrote it He wrote it to make people act like a community. But the final thing I would say would be that ‘everyone is responsible for each other.’
