Gerald Flashcards
Character in context Gerald is Sheila’s fiancé and the son of the wealthy businessman Mr Croft. He is employed at his father’s company which is called Crofts Limited. The Croft family business is in competition with, and also both bigger and older than, Birling & Co. Gerald’s parents are Sir George Croft and Lady Croft, who are socially superior to the Birlings. Priestley describes Gerald, in the initial stage directions, as “[an attractive chap about thirty, rather too manly to be a dandy but very much the easy well-bred young man-about-town]”. He contributes to the “chain of events” which drive Eva to suicide by using her as a mistress. ● Priestley uses the character of Gerald to represent the individualism of the upper-class. ● He disillusions (disappoints) the audience, who hopes that by the end of the play he would change his capitalist and selfish attitudes, as he fails to do so. ● Therefore, Priestley uses Gerald’s failure to develop his sense of social responsibility, to convey how entrenched these upper-class attitudes are; even death won’t change them.
Attractive appearance Priestley portrays Gerald as a physically attractive, privileged but likable man. ● He describes Gerald in the stage directions as “rather too manly to be dandy”, suggesting that he is very much content and confident in his own masculinity. ● The description of Gerald in the stage directions continues, as he is “easy well-bred young man-about-town”. This idiomatic phrase suggests that Gerald is a fashionable socialite. Alternatively, this phrase could have plural connotations; perhaps, Priestley is foreshadowing the unfaithful nature of Gerald, as he literally goes about-town and into the Palace bar in the search of female companions. ● The relatively minor role of Gerald early on in the play allows Priestley to maintain a fairly vague and neutral portrayal which causes the audience to be ambivalent (uncertain) in how to feel towards him.
Ideal husband and son-in-law Gerald is portrayed as an ideal husband and son-in-law due to his financial security and higher social status. He chooses the engagement ring himself, Sheila asks “is it the one you wanted me to have?” which makes him look caring and thoughtful. Gerald’s attitude is genial, he is polite to the Birling parents and comes across as humble as shown by his response to Mr Birling: “I don’t pretend to know much about it (port)”. (This humbleness is in stark contrast to the pompous and arrogant opinions of Mr Birling). Gerald’s social status contributes to his attractiveness as in 1912 British society the only route to wealth of a woman would be to marry into it as women were forbidden from opening a bank account and therefore had no money of their own.
Experienced Micheton (Customer of a prostitute) The good natured portrayal of Gerald at the start of the play begins to break down as the audience learns about his nighttime activities. Priestley portrays Gerald as spending a considerable amount of time in bars and socialising with and using prostitutes. Priestley evidences this familiarity with prostitutes through Gerald’s vivid description of them, “I hate those hard-eyed dough-faced women”. This opinion of prostitutes is one that can only come from experience, rather than a one off or chance occurrence. For Eva to seem “out of place” he must have known what was ordinary for a prostitute and therefore have been experienced. He only cared about Eva because of his own lustful desires as evidenced by Priestley’s ordering of words: “she was pretty - soft brown hair and big dark eyes - [breaks off] My God!”. Priestley’s use of aposiopesis (abrupt break off in speech) comes directly after Gerald describes her beauty. Therefore, revealing that Gerald only felt attracted to Eva physically as he feels the greatest grief when remembering her physical beauty.
Aware of the upper-class’ immorality Gerald is portrayed by Priestley as being conscious of the cruelty of the upper-classes, yet he shows no desire to change society and thereby compromise the privilege that he commands. It is important to understand why Priestley presents Gerald in this aware, yet conformist, state. Priestley portrays Gerald as stuck at a moral crossroads; he can either fight against the class system or continue to use it to his advantage. Despite Gerald’s actions, he is presented by Priestley as possessing a conscious and a moral compass (despite failing to follow this). ● He condemns the actions of “alderman Meggarty” who is a “notorious womaniser”, and he perceives himself as a knight in shining armour who saves Eva, the damsel in distress. Therefore, Gerald’s desire to help Eva is clear, yet only to the extent of maintaining his own privilege and comfort, with his priorities at heart. ● The public perception of Gerald is of utmost significance to him as he is prepared to help Eva in private but maintains an image of an honest and respectable upper-class man in his public sphere of influence. He sees an inherited duty to uphold and preserve society as it is due to his family business and the need to fulfill his father’s expectations of him. Therefore, Gerald needs to maintain the systemic immorality of the class-system even if he disagrees with it. ● Priestley sets Gerald apart from the Birling parents, as at least Gerald can recognise its flaws - something which Mr and Mrs Birling cannot fathom.
Stuck in the middle Priestley portrays Gerald as caught between the older and younger-generations - forming this middle-generation. This liminality (at a position between two boundaries) extends to his attitudes and ideology. Gerald is exhibited as less flexible and less impressionable than Sheila and Eric in his convictions, however he does accept his own responsibility. Priestley portrays Gerald as deliberately ignoring his sense of morality and chooses to try and forget his actions. He intentionally chooses to only react to the injustice that is visible and obvious to him, rather than the institutionalised prejudice that the class-system causes. This is evident as he only helped Eva because it was visible to him and he couldn’t ignore it as “Old Joe https://bit.ly/pmt-cc https://bit.ly/pmt-cc https://bit.ly/pmt-edu Meggarty, half-drunk and goggled-eyed, had wedged her into a corner with that obscene fat carcase of his”.
Temporary guilt The guilt that Gerald has for his abuse of the vulnerable Eva Smith and making her his mistress is evidently short-lived. It is important to consider why Priestley portrays the degree of guilt that Gerald feels is almost insignificant. ● This unsympathetic response is exactly what the Inspector condemns and is attempting to preclude (prevent). The change in Gerald’s attitudes has to be permanent for real change in society to occur and this is what the Inspector attempts to instill into the characters. He experiences guilt and has a conscience but tries to reason and manipulate his conscience. ○ This is not an outright rejection of responsibility, but a manipulation of events to alleviate his responsibility and to justify his actions.
Pragmatically moral Gerald is portrayed by Priestley as following a moral stance, only when it suits his own needs. ● Gerald is content to lie about his affair with Eva as “awfully busy at the works all that time” over the summer. Therefore, it is clear that Gerald is unrepentant until Sheila finds out. He tries to get Eva to leave and therefore limit the repercussions that could affect him, while throwing her onto the streets. Why did Priestley create a character who can pick and choose when to be moral? His character reveals the crux of the Inspector’s issue with the current society, as Gerald doesn’t care about having done wrong until there are possible consequences that affect him
Materialism Priestley portrays Gerald as viewing the world in a materialistic light. It is important to consider why Priestley presents Gerald as placing such great emphasis on possessions. Gerald tried to help Eva through financial aid, when it was his care for her that had the most significant impact; human relations are of greater importance and wield greater power than the power of money. ● It wasn’t Gerald’s ending of funding that impacted Eva, but rather the end of a caring and intimate relationship, which pushed her over the edge and onto suicide as this hurt her emotionally. Gerald drops Eva like a possession as she “knew it couldn’t last”, due to her lower-class origins. ● His interactions with Eva are encompassed by a semantic field of business and finance rhetoric (language), such as “Install her” “in return” “business”. This evidence shows that Gerald perceives his relationships as transactions – like his marriage. Priestley, through the character of Gerald conveys the message that money and class corrupts relationships.
Patronising and misogynistic Priestley portrays Gerald as being condescending to women in particular. Priestley incorporates rescue imagery with regards to Eva, portraying her as a victim of the capitalist society. Gerald’s rescue of Eva is a façade, as in actuality Gerald is merely taking her captive rather than rescuing her; her situation remains the same, it is just her captor who changes. Gerald is attracted by Eva’s weakness and innocence. Priestley evidences the general perception of women at the time as only being valued for being pretty and sexual gratification. This further reveals the power imbalance between genders, as Eva is powerless to end the abuse that she is subjugated to.
Excludes women Gerald consistently excludes women from the current situation, throughout the play. Gerald is one of the central male figures who tries to oppress women’s voices. ● Gerald attempts to exclude Sheila as she recognises that “he means that I’m getting hysterical”. Hysteria was a fabricated disorder, which has historically been used to oppress women and exclude them from politics and society for exhibiting ‘unfeminine’ traits. Gerald implies that Sheila is too emotional to think clearly and logically; she should leave the thinking to the men. ● He perpetuates a demeaning cult of victimhood as “young women should be protected from unpleasant and disturbing things” because they are too fragile to witness the harsh reality of the world. This conviction that Gerald holds is ironic as he failed to protect Eva from the “unpleasant and disturbing” sexual desires that he holds himself. ● Priestley also exposes the truth behind this conviction; it only exists to benefit men and for them to maintain their own power. Gerald’s true motive behind his desire for Sheila to leave is that so she doesn’t hear about his affair with Eva
Final impressions Not contemptible, not genial (not hated, not loved) It is Priestley’s intention for Gerald to be neither hated, not loved by the audience and thereby continue the theme of the liminal. Priestley maintains Gerald as a surprisingly redeemable character. This is caused by the relative ambiguity that Priestley presents Gerald in. As he is not clearly condemnable, like the Birling parents, the audience favour him. ● Arguably, this reaction from the audience exposes the problem with society, as Gerald (a man who is aware of immorality, yet does nothing to change it) is perceived as slightly favourable. The audience has been indoctrinated into the attitudes of the class-system and therefore into the system that favours them. Priestley exposes the hypocrisy of the audience, who will instantaneously respond to obvious suffering, yet they are content to ignore the subtle exploitation that is not made explicit. ● Yet, by the end of the play the audience is let down by the speciously (seemingly true, but false) respectable Gerald. This is due to Gerald showing promise of caring for Eva, yet he https://bit.ly/pmt-cc https://bit.ly/pmt-cc https://bit.ly/pmt-edu returns to try and pretend that nothing happened. He rejects the responsibility, which he had partially accepted, by attempting to dismantle the theory of Eva Smith and suggest that she was a different girl in each character’s interaction with the supposed Eva. Therefore, Priestley conveys that the apparent changes in attitudes of the upper-class are merely superficial.
Dramatic techniques Gerald’s monopoly on the narrative The one-sided story of events that is provided by Gerald must be viewed with scrutiny as Eva is not alive to validate his story; he has little motivation to tell the truth. It is crucial to your understanding of the play to consider why Priestley only describes events from the perspective of the man. ● Gerald’s motive is clearly to absolve himself from as much responsibility as possible; he will be self-preserving. Priestley has already evidenced Gerald’s tendency to lie in order to save his own skin, as he hid his affair from Sheila with the facade of being “busy at the works”. ● His guilt is further shown through the immediately defensive tone of Gerald as he questions the Inspector “where did you get the idea that I did know her”. This allows Gerald to gage how much the Inspector knows and therefore adapt his story to be consistent with the Inspector’s knowledge. ● Gerald’s character shows how men are in control of the stories of women, as Priestley’s use of an androcentric perspective evidences this. Eva is vocally absent from the play – women are not represented and therefore this allows their abuse to be covered up.
Dramatic exit Priestley’s use of the dramatic exit of Gerald after he tells his story offers alternate interpretations, either Gerald leaves due to his guilt in telling a lie, or perhaps he has entrenched feelings for Eva and needs to be alone. Gerald’s exit comes after his proclamation that “I’d like to be alone for a while” and that he wants “to remember”. Here, Gerald echoes Eva’s desire to be away from Gerald as she wanted to “be alone, to be quiet, to remember all that had happened”. Perhaps, Priestley is implying that Gerald and Eva both, actually, cared for each other - beyond a physical level. Priestley visually separates Gerald from the Birling parents through this exit which could show how he isn’t as similar to them as we first thought. It is evident that despite their class similarities, Gerald feels a greater sense of grief and https://bit.ly/pmt-cc https://bit.ly/pmt-cc https://bit.ly/pmt-edu responsibility than the older-generation. He is different to the Birling parents; his actions weren’t just an abuse of authority – he actually did care for her and wanted to help. Gerald leaves, almost immediately after the Inspector asks “were you in love with her?” and Sheila exclaims “just what I was going to ask!” His leave could be to avoid the question, which he doesn’t answer and therefore he may have genuinely loved her.
Relationships with other characters Aligned with Mr Birling’s capitalist views Gerald, as a wealthy businessman, is inevitably similar to Mr Birling in their economic views. On the one hand, Gerald’s support for Mr Birling’s opinions is necessary for Gerald to uphold good relations with his future father-in-law. However, it seems more likely that this is Gerald’s legitimate belief as he will inherit the Croft family business and is therefore entrenched in capitalism. Indeed, Priestley uses the character of Gerald to demonstrate the future generation of capitalists, who are essentially no different to their predecessors; the only difference between Mr Birling and Gerald is that he may show a little care to those below him but only if it benefits him and doesn’t compromise his own privilege.
