Eva’s death Essay

Also at the beginning of the play, Mr and Mrs. Birling come across as a well-off couple who are very well educated and in the public eye a lot when Mr Birling says to Gerald, â€Å"I could be in line for a knighthood, providing nothing goes wrong.† This means that if a scandal is linked with his family, then the public will turn against him, and therefore he won’t be able to get a knighthood. Because of this, the audience wouldn’t expect them to behave in the way they did, and when we find out what they did, and the affect they had on Eva Smith/ Daisy Renton, it’s quite shocking to see that they were both somehow involved in her death. And when we find out the reasons behind what they did, it changes the impression we get of them, and you see that they are quite selfish and take advantage of the power they have and who they inflict it upon. They are both quite wrapped up in their own lives, and anything that would lose them money or cause them grief, they take no notice of and dismiss the idea. Sheila and Eric are Mr and Mrs. Birling’s children. At the beginning of the play Sheila comes across as a bit childish and immature and maybe still relies on her mum and dad a lot when she say, † yes, go on, mummy. You must drink our health.† We get an impression of Sheila as being naive and shallow, but her comment, â€Å"last summer, when you never came near me,† which refers to Gerald, may suggest to us that she isn’t as stupid as she may seem. Eric seems a bit more mischievous and much more naive than Sheila, in the way he talks and how he acts. He seems embarrassed and nervous, as soon as he is mentioned in the play, as it says, â€Å"Eric suddenly guffaws,† and then doesn’t tell the other characters why he came out with it, which suggests he is nervous about something, which we later find out that it is the money he recently stole from his father, Mr. Birling. hI think Mr and Mrs. Birling are more ashamed of Eric and careful that he doesn’t do anything stupid to embarrass the family, but the family seem to get on with each other quite well, although you get the impression that there is some tension between Eric and Mr. Birling, when Gerald, Mr. Birling and Eric are talking about women’s love of clothes before the Inspector arrives. Sheila also has a link with Eva, who was employed at ‘Milwards,’ because Sheila thought Eva, was laughing at her when she tried on a dress that didn’t suit her. Eva was prettier than Sheila and the dress suited her more, which made Sheila irritated and envious of Eva, so she was guilty of a deadly sin, which was envy. Eric’s link with Eva was that he met her in the palace bar one thing lead to another and he got her pregnant, which made him guilty of lust towards Eva. Although Eric doesn’t seem very responsible he shows some initiative, as he was concerned enough to give Eva some money, which shows his priority was Eva’s future and not necessarily the consequences of stealing from Mr. Birling’s office. I don’t think the audience are too shocked to find out what Eric and Sheila are capable of, because they are young and quite naive, and they don’t seem to have much empathy towards other people, maybe because they haven’t experienced the things Eva has before. Their actions can be linked to their parents as they have a lot of power, so this may be filtered down to them, which they might exploit and take advantage of. By the end of the play Eric and Sheila have changed more than the other characters. Sheila feels extremely guilty for what she has done to Eva and frequently cries and sobs when the Inspector mentions Eva in the infirmary. Eric also feels guilty for what he did to Eva, he says, â€Å"the girl’s dead and we all helped to kill her- and that’s what matters.† I think they have both changed because they are young and impressionable, whereas Mr and Mrs. Birling refuse to take responsibility for Eva’s death to save their reputation, and they have never been forced to examine their consciences before and they find that they can’t do it now, and are relieved when they find out the Inspector wasn’t real and want to forget about it and move on. At the start of the play we find out that Gerald is from a family who are socially better than the Birlings. We know this because after Mr.Birling tells Gerald he has the same port as his father gets, Gerald says, â€Å"The governor prides himself on being a good judge of port†. Gerald is also described as â€Å"an attractive chap about thirty, rather too manly to be a dandy but very much the easy well-bred man-about-town.† We also know that he is the son of Lord and Lady Croft, and we are given the impression that they are not to keen on the engagement of Gerald and Sheila as they didn’t accept the invitation to the dinner. This makes us wander why Gerald would want to marry a woman of a lower status than him. Gerald was involved with Eva when he met her at the palace bar and let her stay in his friend’s empty flat in Bromley, as she had nowhere to stay, and he felt sorry for her. Eva, or Daisy Renton as Gerald knew her as, was his mistress for a time until she had to move out because Gerald was away on business. His involvement with Eva was different to the rest of the characters, because he actually tried to help her and did something good. In a way his actions are the most shocking because he is better-off than even the Birling’s, so you wouldn’t expect him to help out someone like Eva who hangs around in places like the palace bar, and you would have thought he would look down on people like her, and have no sympathy for them. I don’t think his actions fit in with the Gerald at the beginning of the play because he tells Sheila the reason why he didn’t see her much last summer was because he was busy at work, when he was with Eva at the flat, so we find out he was lying to Sheila, which you wouldn’t have thought he’d do as he says he wants to be part of the family and they seem to have a lot of respect for each other. Although Gerald seems moved by the news of Eva’s death, he isn’t entirely willing to admit his involvement with her, and this could be because of the same reason as Mr. Birling, that he wants to protect his own interests. At the end of the play he tries to come up with as much evidence as possible to prove that the Inspector isn’t real, which could potentially get him off the hook, if he could convince the rest of the characters that they had been hoaxed.