Let's raise a glass of port to the Titanic-sized mediocrity that is: Mr Arthur Birling.
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It's worth really unpicking Priestley's description of Birling from the opening of the play:
"A heavy-looking, rather portentous man in his middle fifties with fairly easy manners but rather provincial in his speech."
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"A heavy-looking, rather portentous man in his middle fifties with fairly easy manners but rather provincial in his speech."
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"Heavy-looking, rather portentous" is in direct contrast to the Inspector who arrives later:
"[He] need not be a big man but he creates at once an impression of massiveness, solidity, and purposefulness. He is a man in his fifties [...] He speaks carefully, weightily."
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"[He] need not be a big man but he creates at once an impression of massiveness, solidity, and purposefulness. He is a man in his fifties [...] He speaks carefully, weightily."
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Where Birling is "heavy-looking" from a little too much expensive food and drink, the Inspector is "massive" and "solid". Where Birling is "portentous", the Inspector is "careful" and "weighty".
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Their mirrored ages, being both in their 50s, create a dramatic contrast on stage but ALSO reflect the time-warping within the play.
Birling, in his 50s, is a child of the 1860s, a Victorian.
The Inspector, in his 50s, belongs more to Sheila and Eric's generation.
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Birling, in his 50s, is a child of the 1860s, a Victorian.
The Inspector, in his 50s, belongs more to Sheila and Eric's generation.
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Goole is the age in 1912 that Sheila and Eric might have been in 1945 when the play was written. He is the mouthpiece of their generation going back to interrogate the Edwardian past.
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Priestley's description of Birling as "easy manners but rather provincial in his speech" actually sits uneasily with me. JBP is activating his audience's class assumptions/prejudices, and in Birling's case not really challenging them. He's a shorthand, a caricature.
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Birling's "easy manners" mark him out as properous, a member of the upper middle class. But his "provincial" speech marks him as uneducated, not one of the elite. That such a man turns out to be an unpleasant social climber is a bit predictable.
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Prior to the Inspector's arrival, the play's opening has all the features of a comedy of manners. As with Sybil, Birling can be played for comedy. We put a lot of thematic significance at GCSE on his failed predictions about the future, but these are one-liners.
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"Unsinkable, absolutely unsinkable" is, yes, a reflection on the dazzled naivety of the Edwardians' belief in progress. But it's also a big old groaner if delivered for comic value.
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(by the way, unless you emphasise the comedy of the dinner party I think it's easy to miss the rather clever tonal shift that JBP creates in the Inspector's line "Burnt her inside out, of course." THAT's the moment everything comes crashing down.)
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What we see at the dinner party is Birling's comic and desperate INSECURITY about his own status. His interaction with Gerald is an inversion of expected Father-in-Law, Son-in-Law roles. Birling seeks Gerald's approval, not the other way around.
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In common with the "good solid" and "heavily comfortable" furniture with which Birling has filled his house, while failing to make it "cosy and homelike", he has splashed out on port to impress Gerald. It was expensively done, but inexpertly:
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"You ought to like this port, Gerald. As a matter of fact, Finchley told me it's exactly the same port your father gets from him."
In trying to match Gerald's father in refined taste, Birling exposes himself as a man of no taste or refinement.
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In trying to match Gerald's father in refined taste, Birling exposes himself as a man of no taste or refinement.
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Birling's true tawdriness can be seen in his excruciating toast to Sheila and Gerald:
"I’m going to tell you frankly, without any pretences, that your engagement to Sheila means a tremendous lot to me. [...] You're just the kind of son-in-law I always wanted."
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"I’m going to tell you frankly, without any pretences, that your engagement to Sheila means a tremendous lot to me. [...] You're just the kind of son-in-law I always wanted."
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Birling is the kind of guy who when he says "without any pretences" you know he's about to chat some BS. And so it proves. His delight in the engagement is much less to do with Sheila's happiness or Gerald's personal qualities than with the potential for business advantage.
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This is pitiful for several reasons:
- Gerald's own parents want nothing to do with Birling, who has to make do with a "nice cable" from their holiday abroad, and hoping G will pass on the news that he *might* get knighted.
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- Gerald's own parents want nothing to do with Birling, who has to make do with a "nice cable" from their holiday abroad, and hoping G will pass on the news that he *might* get knighted.
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- Birling seems to be doing the sort of matchmaking and alliance-building more typical of an ancient noble family, when...
- in reality, as the older and wealthier firm, Crofts Limited are going to be the main beneficiaries of any business merger.
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- in reality, as the older and wealthier firm, Crofts Limited are going to be the main beneficiaries of any business merger.
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Birling says "a man has to make his own way -- has to look after himself -- and his family too, of course, when he has one."
But as his comments about Sheila's marriage prove, Birling *DOES NOT REALLY CARE* all that much about his family.
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But as his comments about Sheila's marriage prove, Birling *DOES NOT REALLY CARE* all that much about his family.
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There's a telling moment later when he says to Eric: "It's about time you learned to face a few responsibilities. That's something this public-school-and-varsity life you've had doesn't seem to teach you."
Now, consider Birling presumably *paid* for Eric to have that life.
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Now, consider Birling presumably *paid* for Eric to have that life.
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Birling wanted Eric to have "public school and varsity life" as a step on the social ladder towards the upper class that he's desperate to enter.
But now? Birling seems to feel nothing but resentment for the more comfortable life enjoyed by his son.
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But now? Birling seems to feel nothing but resentment for the more comfortable life enjoyed by his son.
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More tomorrow! We'll consider the Birlings' terrible marriage and Mr B's miserable treatment of Eva Smith...
22/...WATCH THIS SPACE.
22/...WATCH THIS SPACE.
Mr Birling and WOMEN.
Lets start with a telling line of Sybil's. She tells Sheila "Men with important work to do sometimes have to spend nearly all their time and energy on their business. You'll have to get used to that, just as I had."
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Lets start with a telling line of Sybil's. She tells Sheila "Men with important work to do sometimes have to spend nearly all their time and energy on their business. You'll have to get used to that, just as I had."
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Sheila can expect in the future what Sybil tolerated from her marriage to Mr Birling: women come second to the business and financial concerns, and it is not a woman's place to question male behaviour.
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Of course, as Gerald proves, women's tactical ignorance is a licence for emotional neglect and infidelity on the part of men.
Mr B could well have been a womaniser in his younger days, such as Gerald or Eric, or could even now be a Meggarty type when the mood takes him.
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Mr B could well have been a womaniser in his younger days, such as Gerald or Eric, or could even now be a Meggarty type when the mood takes him.
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Another insight into Birling's view of women comes when he tells Gerald, "clothes mean something quite different to a woman. Not just something to wear – and not only something to make 'em look prettier – but – well, a sort of sign or token of their self-respect."
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It's an insight into a sexual economy in which the male gaze holds power. Clothes are for making you "look prettier". And his idea of clothes as a "token of self respect" is entirely born out by Sheila's confrontation with Eva over a dress.
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So Birling is partly responsible for the passing of sexist gender attitudes down to the younger generation at the start of the play.
Gender difference also informs his attitude towards his workers.
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Gender difference also informs his attitude towards his workers.
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When asked whether he recognises Eva's name, Birling says:
"We've several hundred young women there, y'know, and they keep changing."
This is one of my ABSOLUTE KEY LINES from the play.
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"We've several hundred young women there, y'know, and they keep changing."
This is one of my ABSOLUTE KEY LINES from the play.
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To Birling, the women in his factory are an expendable resource. They arrive, they complete their labour, they are paid, and he feels no individual responsibility or duty of care towards them. He only remembers Eva because she was "good-looking" and a troublemaker.
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Like Sybil later declaring that "girls of that class" can't be understood, Birling also seems to see the working class as unknowable, a homogeneous blob.
And again, the idea of women as an exploitable resource is passed down to Gerald and Eric's generation.
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And again, the idea of women as an exploitable resource is passed down to Gerald and Eric's generation.
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Gerald and Eric use Eva/Daisy just as surely as Mr Birling did.
It's the precise vulnerability of young women that makes them "cheap labour" for the Birlings and easy prey for the Geralds.
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It's the precise vulnerability of young women that makes them "cheap labour" for the Birlings and easy prey for the Geralds.
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