exploitation in aic Flashcards
mr b paragraph starter
through mr birlings factory priestley is able to highlight the unjust and opressive nature of factory enployment that has no focus nor care for the wellbeing of its embloyees as capitalism breeds greed
mr b and workers paragraph plan
mr birling is a hipocirtical and exploitational employee as his hubris means that he views himself as a divine lecutrer and an example of how hard work and prosperity can lead to success and riches, however he juxtaposes this motto by outwardly repressing his workers and making sure they do not make enough to save or to live by as it contradicts his own gain of wealth, this shows the negative cycle of capitalism
he exploits the fact that the victorian society was so overpopulated and poor that there was a constant flow of job searchers meaning that any liabilities in his factories could be meaninglessly disposed of
‘lower costs and higher prices’ is an incredibly telling motto as it serves as a summary of what priestley aims to criticise in his values, here the workers are dehumanised to simply being prt of costs with the manurfacturing process, he cannot view them as humans
furthermore he diminishes and exploits his workers when explaining to the inspector ho he employs’ ‘several hundred women’ who ‘keep changing’ this is a very telling statement- several is vauge and inspecific showing how he cannot even care enough about his employees to count their prescnece, whilst the fact theyre women show how easy it is to exploit not just the poor but the most vunerable societal group. if they keep changing it can be both how he is so uncaring for their livlihoods that he can frequently make them redundant whilst also alluding to the economic global crisis that means that theres a constant flow of employees
overall through this attitude priestley looks to highlight the negative cycle of capitalism as for aminute population to prosper they have to repress so many others
gerald and erics exploitation of women starter
through both gerald and erics treatment of eva smith priestley looks to highlight the unjust power dynamic between upper class gentlemens freedom to exploit the most vunerable social class and for it to be brushed off as a gallant act of chivalry as they have aided a fallen woman, whilst their ulterior motive is clearly lust driven
gerald and eric paragrpah plan
we can see the drive of lust in both eric and gerald firstly through their dehumanising metaphorical descriptions of eva with a sole focus on her appearance- gerlad feels she is quite differnt from the ‘hard eyed dough faced ‘prosititutes he usually encounters, this statment itself is very telling as it shows he is not chivalrously looking to aid most women in these unfortunate conditions only the ones whom he deems attractive, upon seeing eva he describes her as ‘young and fresh’- fresh is an uncomfortable adjective with links to food, alluding to his lust, and also perhaps her innocence and virginity in comparison to the more tarnished seasoned women at the bar. eric has a similar description of eva, he likes her as she is ‘pretty and a good sport’ pretty is very shallow as he has no emotional interest in heronly for the purpose of exploiting her for sex, good sport is a racing term likening her to an animal or a game.
the two do not just exploit her for sexual purposes on the one occasion, showing how easy it is for gentlemen to completely dictate the autonomy of the fallen women when pleased- she becomes very attached to gerald with him admitting he become the ‘most important’ thing in her life, this superlative shows how sad her state is. whilst gerlad clearly just exploits her as he views their relationship through the semantic field of finance as transactional so he ca be sexually gratified- he sees it as ‘business’, she lives on what he ‘allowed her’- she is not more to him than sexual gratification
eva is never shown or present in the play nor do we see what she looks like; this leaves her story completely dictated by the men in her life just as how gentlemen had complete control ovr womens autonomy, it also doesnt limit her to one person showing now this experince was shared between ‘millions and millions of eva smiths’
here priestley wants to horrify the audience by the way two overtly normal men can ruin the autonomy of any women even one so morally pristine as eva
