Mr Birling Responsibility Quotations Flashcards
“Yes, yes. Horrid business. But I don’t understand why you should come here inspector-“
“Yes, yes” shows that he is trying to get him to hurry up and stop talking so he can avoid telling the truth about Eva Smith
“I don’t understand why you should come here inspector-“ shows that he is trying to remove any blame for Eva Smith on himself by saying he doesn’t know why The Inspector is there so he doesn’t suspect him.
“…and as it happened more than 18 months ago – nearly two years ago – obviously it has nothing whatever to do with the wretched girl’s suicide.”
“obviously it has nothing whatever to do with the wretched girls suicide” shows that he doesn’t care about her suicide by using the word “wretched” when describing her and he is saying that it has nothing to do with him to try to remove any responsibility on him
“More than 18 months ago-nearly 2 years ago” shows he is saying that because it was so long ago it won’t have affected her at the present time.
“There is nothing mysterious or scandalous about this business
“Nothing mysterious” saying that it is just a normal thing and that nothing unusual is happening
“Or scandalous about this business” he is not taking the responsibility and saying that nothing happened and there was no link to what happened, saying it wasn’t his fault she committed suicide.
“Still I can’t accept any responsibility.”
“can’t accept” he makes it seem like it is impossible that he did it and he is trying to play it off by saying it is not possible to accept it
“Any responsibility” he is saying it is not at all his fault and won’t take the blame for what happened no matter what.
“If we were all responsible for everything that happened to everybody we’d had anything to do with, it would be very awkward, wouldn’t it?”
In this quote he is saying that if they all took responsibility then it would be a bad thing and would create conflict between the people. He is trying to use an irrelevant example because he isn’t taking responsibility for everyone he is only taking responsibility for Eva Smiths death.
“If you don’t come down sharply on some of these people, they’d soon be asking for the earth.”
He is trying to justify what he did by making accusations of how people will act if they get one single thing they want from him. The line “they’d soon be asking for earth” is an example of how Mr Birling sees people and thinks that because they are poor they want the world because they are less fortunate which is him being prejudice towards them and it shows he isn’t taking responsibility because he try’s to justify his wrong doings.
“…and now there isn’t the slightest reason why my daughter should be dragged into this unpleasant business.”
“Isn’t the slightest reason” he is accusing the inspector of lying by saying he has no reasons to include people in this business
He is not allowing anyone to take any responsibility for Eva Smiths death and he is avoiding anyone else getting involved in this business.
