Mr Birling Flashcards
‘ Titanic-unsinkable‘
L = metaphor for upper middle-class.Reflects Mr Birling is complacency and that of his class that the position of privilege will remain on challenged.
R = in 1946 knows The class system has changed irrevocably following two world wars and dramatic irony: Titanic sank.
R= makes him figure of ridicule for audience
‘ she had a lot to say… She had to go’
C = WC and women are not allowed a voice, challenged by rise of unionism and suffragette movement.
‘If you don’t come down sharply on these people… They be asking for the Earth’
L=Add verb, hyperbole and metaphor - WC demands unreasonable to Mr Birling. WC the demands need to be crushed
‘ get into trouble? Go on the streets?’
see = reflects UMC prejudiced against WC-they are considered in moral and troublesome; irony = Birling is exposed as immoral not eva.
‘ A hoax… The whole thing is different now‘
L = noun ‘hoax’ - Mr B think he is off the hook if I is not real. Irony = nothing is different including Mr Birling. He does not change his behaviour and attitude or learn responsibility for his actions.
‘ A man has to look after himself‘
C = Mr B set up as a foil to inspected to allow Priestley to present his political debate. He presents capitalist individualism.
‘ there’ll be a public scandal’
context = reflects Edwardian societies concerned with public reputation. Mr B feels no guilt for his behaviour and has no such social responsibility for others. His only concern is to protect his reputation.
‘like bees in a hive’
L = simile.
D= suggest Mr B feels socialism strips people of their individuality and make them drones of the state working together for a common good of society (represented by the hive)
R=Perform first in Russia in 1945. Priestley = socialist. Audience lack of sympathy for Mr B = increase the sympathy for P’s socialist argument.
‘ A socialist or some sort of crank… You talk like one’
L= noun. mr B Mark socialist as ‘cranks’.
R=By the end of the play it is Mr B Who is exposed as a fool, and implicitly his capitalist principles as well.
It’ll make war impossible
Ww2 happened , priestly using time frame to take a stab at vulnerability of ww2 to audience to oppress capitalist views whilst project his socialist ideologies. uses mr b as catalyst for these negative views
