Gerald Flashcards
Is Priestley critical of Gerald
• ‘he at least had some affection for her and made her happy for a time’
• Priestley was openly unfaithful, so not as critical - therefore the Inspector is reasonably pleased
Role in social conditioning
• ‘and now at least you’ve been honest. And I believe what you told us about the way you helped her at first. Just out of pity’
• Shelia forgives, so we are expected to
• invites our moral outrage - patriarchy has conditioned her to accept infidelity (for financial security and social status) because it is better than the alternative
Gerald’s deceptions as a form of sophistry
• gets Eva drunk first
• tells Inspector details which match what the Birlings know, however still pretends they are all different girls when the Inspector leaves to make it seem fine - we shouldn’t accept this as the Inspector (Priestley) wouldn’t - still matters
Exact matches
‘she’d lost both parents’
‘she came originally from somewhere outside Brumley’
‘she’d had a job in one of the works here’
‘and had had to leave after a strike’
‘she said something about the shop too’
determiner ‘the’ - shows it is Milwards
Premeditation
insists he never meant to have a mistress
‘It happened that a friend of mine… had gone off to Canada for six months and had let me have the key to a nice little set of rooms’ - suggests it’s for a sexual adventure
Sexual exploitation
Ends affair when friend returns so he doesn’t have to put her up somewhere
‘she’d lived very economically on what I’d allowed her’
can only fund 2 month seaside stay
Gerald is like all upper class men - sees relationships as opportunites to exploit women in economic ways
After Gerald leaves
Sergeants didn’t patrol the beat
Says he found a sergeant - must have gone to police station
Pretends to be upset by the death in order to expose the Inspector and claim they didn’t do anything wrong (wants to pretend it had no consequence - sophistry)
Greater symbol of capitalism than the Birlings
• real face of capitalism in 1945
• at over thirty, he is old enough to escape the First World War to run his fathers company in 1914 for the war effort
• kind of capitalist who has exploited the country between two world wars (unlike parents or Birlings)
• so priestly attacks, wants us to reject him
• symbol of the kind of capitalist who has made profit out of the death of young men
• actions after Inspector leaves show his true nature/Priestleys criticism
• priestleys point = matters what they did, not if inspector is real or not
• true villain of the play
