Eric and Sheila Key Quotes Flashcards
“Squiffy” - Eric
Class
- Drinking problem represents the sin of gluttony.
- Symbolic of the capitalist exploitation- his greed/ pleasure creates distress for Eva.
- Drinking also helps him cope with his compromising socialist views in favour of conservative views.
“when a chap easily turns nasty”- Eric
Social responsibility
Extended metaphor showing how capitalism abuses the poor/ working classes.
*Language used also frightens the audience.
“easily” adverb has implications that this type of behaviour is almost common place.
-Therefore we wonder if the Conservative party and their ideals too are used in perhaps a trivial manner, at the expense of the lower classes.
“I wasn’t in love with her or anything” - Eric
Class Through Eric’s treatment of Eva “I wasn’t in love with her or anything” an abhorrent picture of the upper-class emerges. They are shown to be callous and cold. However, Eric illustrates the capacity to change – despite your past errors and your family’s beliefs you can change. His transformation is more realistic – as at first he blames his mother for her death and then finally comes round to accepting responsibility.
“Why shouldn’t they try for higher wages? We try for the highest possible prices” - Eric
Class
This demonstrates that there is potential/hope for the future. At the end of the play Eric shows remorse and his acceptance is evidence of his moral fibre.
‘We all helped to kill her’ - Eric
Social Responsibility
Act Three: Eric has taken responsibility on behalf of the whole family for the fact they helped to kill Eva Smith
“Yes, go on, Mummy”- Sheila
Gender
Sheila’s language also reflects her increasing maturity as she begins the play saying “mummy” using a lot of personal pronouns to highlight her selfish, childlike attitude at the start of the play. As the play progresses she refers to Mrs Birling as “mother” which reflects this change and perhaps she doesn’t feel as intimate with her mother and has lost respect for her because of the way she is behaving.
“You mustn’t try to build up a kind of wall between us and that girl. If you do the Inspector will just break it down.”- Sheila
Social Responsibility
Sheila uses imagery when she talks of her mother’s attempts to ‘build up a kind of wall’; implying the metaphorical distance Mrs Birling creates between the classes. When Sheila warns the others that the Inspector is ‘giving us rope so that we hang ourselves’, she once again uses a metaphor to create a visual image of the way the Inspector skilfully manipulates characters into confessing their sins.
“But these girls aren’t cheap labour- they’re people.” - Sheila
Class/ social responsibility
She is sympathetic towards Eva and other girls in her position, recognising that they were “not just cheap labour but people”. She accepts that her actions impacted on Eva’s life and that she cannot disconnect her actions from the effects these have on others. She recognises and understands the Inspector’s message that we are all collectively responsible for all that happens in the world.
“Oh – Gerald – you’ve got it – is it the one you wanted me to have?” - Sheila
she completely removes the idea that she might have feelings about which ring she gets. This reflects both her position as a woman in a patriarchal society, and how, as a young girl, she still needs to have decisions made for her. It’s as if she wants to please other people so much that her own opinions don’t matter – this will change once her conscience is awakened by the arrival of the inspector.
“Mother, I think that was cruel and vile”- Sheila
Social responsibility
after hearing about how her mother refused help to Eva. The use of the personal pronoun verb phrase “I think” reflects how she is now able to express her own mind – she it taking responsibility for her own thoughts and expressing them. Also, the adjectives “cruel and vile” are both quite cutting, reflecting just how far she has come – at the beginning of the play she was being told off by her mother, towards the end she is accusing her of cruelty.
