Mr Birling - Key quotes

Question 1

Money Minded, Right Wing, Capitalist, Business Minded

Answer 1

• Finchley told me it’s exactly the same port your father gets for him
• it’s my duty to keep labour costs down
• a man has to mind is own business and look after himself and his own (we hear a sharp ring)
• as if we’re all mixed up together like bees in a hive - community and all that nonsense
• cant accept responsibility for everything that happens to everyone

Answer 2

• unsinkable, absolutely unsinkable
• and i say there isn’t a chance of war
• some people say war is inevitable and to that I say - fiddlesticks

Question 3

“…and I’m talking as a hard-headed practical man of business.”

Answer 3

-in his own eyes, his identity is rooted in his own career

-hard-headed could mean that he is not sentimental: doesn’t care who he has to step on in order to get what he wants

-practical suggests that he is more of a doer than a thinker: maybe he sees himself as a quick thinker which he views as a good thing rather than somebody who might think deeply.

-arrogant, egotistical

-inadvertently embraces his negatives

Question 4

“(somewhat impatiently) Look - there’s nothing mysterious - or scandalous - about this business - at least not so far as I’m concerned”

Answer 4

-somewhat impatiently: losing patience with the Inspector because he is not used to and does not like being the less powerful person in a relationship

• dashes can show when one’s thought is not clear in their own mind, pauses frequently and changes their line of argument somewhat, under pressure, not confident

Question 5

“(pointing to Eric and Sheila) now look at the pair of them - the famous younger generation who know it all. And they can’t even take a joke-“

Answer 5

-cruel, openly mocks his children who are still emotionally stunned

-gives the audience a lasting impression of Mr Birling since they come at the very end of the play

• As a representative of the older, politically, capitalist generation, Priestley may have been trying to emphasise the negative qualities that he saw in them. The inability to care for their fellow man that may have inevitably led to “blood, fire and anguish”

Question 6

“unsinkable, absolutely unsinkable”
“and I say there isn’t a chance of war”