Gender inequality/Eric Birling Flashcards
1
Q
“[Suddenly guffaws] I don’t know - really. Suddenly I felt I just had to laugh.”
A
Priestley’s use of the stage directions to portray Eric as he “suddenly guffaws” occurs directly after Gerald tells Sheila that he will “be careful” after she has told him that she is suspicious of Gerald’s time away from her in the summer.
Perhaps this sudden “guffaw” indicates that Eric knows that Gerald is routinely unfaithful. Eric would certainly see this first hand as they both attend the Palace Bar specifically with the intention of picking up women or prostitutes.
2
Q
“She wasn’t the usual sort”
“She didn’t know what to do”
A
- “usual” implies that visiting prostitutes is the norm for Eric.
- Eric’s observation that “she didn’t know what to do” implies both that he is attracted to Eva’s innocence
- she is a woman he can exploit because of her ignorance
3
Q
“I hate these fat old tarts”
A
- Eric’s proclaimation of “I hate these fat old tarts” reveals his disgust at his own hypocrisy in frequenting the palace bar, looking for sex.
- Priestley implies, through Eric, that - for all men - it is a social norm to pay for sex.
- The upper-class’ use of prostiution symbolic of their exploitation of the female lower-class, who are the prostitutes that are abused by high-class men.
