(Character) Gerald Croft Flashcards
Role in the play
Although he is also one of the younger generation, he still represents the selfish upper class.
Unlike Sheila and Eric, Gerald represents the people who will be left in charge of society if people don’t take more responsibility for their actions.
Link to the Birlings
At the start of the play, Gerald is engaged to Sheila Birling.
Gerald is from an upper-class family who do not approve of him marrying Sheila (who is upper middle class).
They declined the invitation to his engagement dinner with the Birlings.
Gerald’s family’s business will also use the marriage to link Birling’s company with Croft Limited.
Connection to Eva
He gave Eva money and arranged for her to live in his friend’s lodgings (home), where she became his mistress (a woman who has a sexual relationship with a married man).
She was grateful for his help, and for the attention he gave her.
He decided when the affair ended, and then he moved on – he did not love her but felt sorry for her.
Character Development of Gerald
Beginning-
At the start of the play, we see him acting very much like Mr Birling. They sit together and chat about business and about how people should only be responsible for themselves and their families.
Social status-
Gerald’s family background seems to make him more socially powerful than Mr Birling because Mr Birling is keen to impress Gerald.
Concerned with reputation-
Gerald understands how important the Birlings’ reputations are to them. He tells Mr Birling that he could never imagine a family like theirs being involved in any sort of scandal.
Gerald seems to put a lot of effort into protecting his own reputation, status and interests.
For example, pretending not to know Eva/Daisy as he knows his affair would spoil his reputation.
This is the opposite of Sheila, who uses the opportunity to learn from her mistakes and changes herself.
Remorseless-
When he is confronted about his relationship with Eva/Daisy, he pretends not to know her – he knows that his actions were wrong, and that his affair would hurt both Eva and Sheila. So he tries to cover it up.
In Act 3, Gerald returns to the home to tell the family that Inspector Goole was not a real police inspector. Like Mr and Mrs Birling, he doesn’t think he needs to feel any remorse if Goole was not a real police officer. This is because his reputation can’t be hurt.
Doesn’t change-
By the end of the play, Gerald has also not changed at all. He works hard to prove that the Inspector was a fake.
He concludes that they can dismiss the whole evening (he does not learn anything, which is why Sheila is unsure about taking the ring back).
Is this why they get a second visit from a real police inspector? Does Inspector Goole act as a warning, which they do not take?
Innate social prejudice-
Overall, the audience expects Gerald to change his attitude, like Sheila and Eric, but he lets the audience down.
His upper-class background means his social prejudice and lack of social responsibility are innate (natural to him) – Priestley uses Gerald to show how difficult it was to change these attitudes.
Warning for society
Like the older Birlings, Gerald acts as a warning from Priestley about what could happen if men like Gerald dictate the future of society.
He comes across as nice, charming and almost caring, but he actually does not care about individuals at all.
Stubbornness
He also shows that it was incredibly difficult to change upper-class attitudes, as they were embedded (stuck) into society.
Selfish and oppressive upper class
Priestley suggests that upper-class men only want to protect themselves. He suggests that they may pretend to offer support and encouragement to lower-class people, but ultimately will do things to benefit only themselves. Gerald represents oppression (cruel treatment) from upper-class individuals who can jump through loopholes to avoid any sort of social responsibility.
‘I think my father would agree to that, too.’ (Act 1)
Capitalist-
Gerald shows how similar his family’s beliefs are to the Birlings’ beliefs that the upper-class business owners should have lower costs and higher prices.
Of course, the actual workers would see none of this increased profit.
This presents Gerald as an entitled (feels he deserves special treatment), wealthy, upper-class man with no social responsibility – he agrees with the capitalist ideals, as does his father.
Villain-
This also shows the audience that Gerald is on the villainous side of the story at the start – he does not care about individuals.
‘I didn’t feel about her as she felt about me.’ ( Act 2)
Selfish upper class-
Gerald openly admits that he did not really have feelings for Eva, but used her for a sexual relationship and kept her as his mistress (woman who has a sexual relationship with a married man).
Priestley does this to show how upper-class people would take what they wanted, regardless of the impact on others, or the emotional toil (strain) it could take.
Remorseless and vain-
Gerald does not regret his actions, or truly feel sorry for how he treated Eva.
Instead, he sees himself as heroic because he rescued Eva and gave her money.
‘What about this ring?’ (Act 3)
Learns nothing
Even though Sheila changes dramatically in the play, and breaks her engagement to Gerald because she feels that she does not know him, Gerald proves that he has not changed at all by the end.
He offers Sheila the engagement ring back, suggesting that he wants to forget about everything that happened (the affair) and go on with their lives as normal.
He expects Sheila to agree and pretend that the whole ordeal (unpleasant experience) with Inspector Goole has not happened.
This also proves that he has not learnt anything from the story.
