Eric Birling Flashcards
“Eric is in his early 20s, not quite at ease half shy half assertive”
-oxymoron to show us he is not too sure of himself and may not be confident enough to show his own thoughts
-half foreshadows his potential at redemption
-shows eric as not fully developed
-shy connotes a lack of confidence
-assertive connotes confidence and dominance
-priestley’s use of contrasting adjectives makes a sense of confusion
“[…] Well, I was in that state when a chap easily turns nasty,I threatened to make a row”
-Presents Eric as aggressive
-up holds gender stereotypes a “chap”
-displaces himself from responsibility, “that state”,”chap”
-eric is abusing his power of wealth, his wealth contrasts evas lack of wealth
-refuses to use the personal pronoun “I”
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What were preistlys intentions?
-Exposes the imperfections of middle-class life to suggest to the audience that they are not so superior
-shows the audience middle classes are capable of hope change and redemption
After Eva let him in he states
“And I didn’t even remember That’s the hellish thing. Oh - my god! - how stupid it all is”
-shows Eric’s severe regret
-speaks in a euphemistic way refers to the incident as “it” may be too ashamed to admit what he did,or may be diverting responsibility
-refers to his drunkenness as “hellish” implying it is torturous
-he blasphemed “my god” this would be extreme in 1912
-this guilt sets Eric apart from many others in the play
When the family are debating weather the inspector was real he states
“The moneys not the important thing.it’s what happened to the girl and what we all did to her that matters”
-shows the impact of the nights events on Eric
-shows his change from the begging where he tentatively disagrees with his fathers capitalists veiw but here he outright rejects them and adopts a more socialist line of though
-shows how he now values people over money
eric quotes
-“The moneys not the important thing.it’s what happened to the girl and what we all did to her that matters”
-“And I didn’t even remember That’s the hellish thing. Oh - my god! - how stupid it all is”
-“[…] Well, I was in a state when a chap easily turns nasty,I threatened to make a row”
-“Eric is in his early 20s, not quite at ease half shy half assertive”
what does eric represent
-role of men
-younger generation
-middle classes
-the generation of men likely to go to war
-future of capitalism
how does eric personify capitalism as thieves
-steals from him father and refuses to accept responsibility
-capitalism makes people work for them, paying workers as little as possible in order to gain enough profit, it is a form of stealing from the people working for him
-eric steals 40 weeks worth of earnings for eva
-eric has most likely not given all this money towards eva and has kept it for his drinking habits
-the audience would recognise this as a blatant lie
-priestly does this to show capitalists are only concerned with themselves and lie to themselves saying they do it for the benifit of others
eric represents the young men who are going to war
-he is a similer age to priestly when he went towards war `
-if he is lucky to survive he will experience its full horrors
-however this was not enough to change his behavior
-if Erics generation learnt the lesson from the war then they would have avoided the second war
-even if eric learnt this lesson of social responsibility of war he most likely died and would not make it back to change the world
