Mr Birling: Quotation Flashcards
Titanic- unsinkable
L: metaphor for the upper middle classes. Reflects Mr B’s complacency and that if his class that their position of privilege will remain unchallenged.
R: in 1946 knows the class system has changed irrevocably following 2 world wars
DRAMATIC IRONY: titanic sank
R: makes him figure of ridicule for audience
A hoax… the whole thing’s different now
L: noun ‘hoax’
Mr B thinks he is off the hook if I. I’d not real.
IRONY: nothing is different including Mr.B. He doesn’t change his behaviour and attitude or learn responsibility for his actions.
There’ll be a public scandal
C: reflects Edwardian society’s concern with public reputation. Mr.B feels no guilt for his behaviour has no sense of social responsibility for others. He is concerned only to protect his reputation.
She’d had a lot to say… she had to go
C: WC and women not allowed a voice, challenged by rise of unionism and suffragette movement
If you don’t come down sharply on these people… they’d be asking for the earth
L: adverb, hyperbole and metaphor
WC demands unreasonable to Mr.B WC demands need to be crushed
If you don’t come down sharply on these people… they’d be asking for the earth
L: adverb, hyperbole and metaphor
WC demands unreasonable to Mr.B WC demands need to be crushed
Get into trouble? Got on the streets?
C: reflects UMC prejudice against WC they are considered immoral and troublesome
IRONY: Birlings are exposed as immoral not Eva
A man has to look after himself
C: Mr.B set up as foil to Inspector to allow Priestley to present his political debate. He presents capitalist individualism.
Like bees in a hive
L: simile
D: suggest Mr.B feels socialism strips people of their individuality and makes them drones of the state working together for the common good of society ( represented by the hive)
R: preformed first in Russia in 1945. Priestley is a socialist. Audience lack of sympathy for Mr.B but increases sympathy for Priestley’s socialist argument.
A socialist or some sort of crank… he talked like one
L: noun
Mr.B mocks socialists as ‘cranks’
R: by end of play it is Mr.B who is exposed as a fool, and implicitly his capitalist principles as well.
