Mrs birling Flashcards
“Shelia! What an expression! Really, the things you girls pick up these days!” - act1
-Mrs birling challenhes the younger generation as they threaten the capitalist and classist system that she is proffiting off which emphasises the disparity between the generations.
-Her superficially driven codes of conduct are exposed as she cares more about her speech and etiquette than morality.
-The exclamation could be a manifestation of her desperation to oppose any changes to convention that put her class position under threat.
-through using the noun ‘girls’ Mrs Birling belittles Shelia in order to dismiss her behaviour and portray it as foolish or uncouth, she reinforces the separation between the older generation who are robust to these newer ways of thinking and the younger ones that seem vulnerable to ‘pick[ing]’ them upas if they were a disease.
“when you’re married you’ll realise”
-She acknowledges that marriage is a process of enforcing and adopting a different set of controls and norms, telling Shelia [quote] which emphasises how her worldview is largely based on her role as a wife.
-She is a tool for Priestley to capture how marriage within the Edwardian era was a rite of passage, through which men would be permitted to exert newfound control over their wives and women would shift to operate under a stricter degree of control.
“husband’s social superior”
-she is introduced as her [quote] through which Priestley satirises a society that allows human beings to be defined by their role or purpose within the class system.
-By extension, it seems she is commodified,valued based on what can be achieved from marrying her as opposed to value based on moral judgement- this creates an environment in which she can act ignorantly and reject responsibility for her actions. This is realised throughout the play.
-Moreover, in this introduction she is the only character who is not named,even the parlour maid, Edna is individually denominated. She is instead referred to as Arthur Birling’s “wife”, suggesting her social role dehumanises her and detaches her from any sense of being
“Arthur you’re not supposed to say such things”
-Priestley reinforces her as a marionette of her class as she is a complicit in upholding its conventions.she conditions her husbands to do the same in saying [quote], trying to iron out any social faux pas so they operate seamlessly within the expectations of their class, she is reluctant to deviate from these in any ways.
“I think Shelia and I better go to the drawing room and leave you men”
-Mrs Birling seemingly expresses no desire to break free from her gender role, she in fact worlds to uphold the patriarchy.
-Mrs Birling is the paragon of the aristocratic woman during the Edwardian era.
-As a married woman on the upper class, she is secure, almost held in aspic within the hard-wired conventions of a capitalist and classist society, thus anything that threatens these conventions threaten her.
-contextually, women would typically reside in the drawing room after dinner to allow the males to discuss topics deemed unfit for women to talk about, the men would often also indulge in drinking and smoking cigars. This spatial segregation helped to reinforce the gender divide, which is so internalised for Mrs Birling she actively enhances this separation.
Mrs Birling summary act 1
-Seemingly, Mrs Birling is held in aspic within her class, it keeps her secure within the comfort of aristocratic life and she operates under the strict conventions it postulates.
-Through her adherence to the conventions of the upper class wife, Mrs Birling is complicit in upholding the patriarchy.
-Mrs Birling emphasises the separation between the older and the younger generation to assert her superiority over the youth which challenge the conventions of the classic system she operates under and profits off.
“He’s only a boy” - act 2
-Mrs Birling operates under a shielded worldview as she fails to see beyond the superficial boundaries of her class and is shrouded in pomposity and egotism.
-Priestley employs dramatic irony as Mrs Birling absolves Eric from his behaviour whilst drinking saying “he’s only a boy”, however as the play develops, we learn that he has impregnated a women and has a drinking problem.
-It seems he is far more than an innocent little boy, exposing Mrs Birling oblivion and ignorance, even of her own children.
-the diminutive noun “boy” is almost emotive, she it trying to evoke pity for him.
“We’ll Really! Alderman Meggarty! We really are learning something tonight”- act 2
-Moreover, she is oblivious to common knowledge within her social circle, she exclaims [quote]. In one sense this exposes how ignorant she is to what goes on around her, she is encapsulated within the contrived and artificial bubble that she created for herself.
-alternatively, it could show her desperation to condemn and denounce others to distract from any of her own flaws and deny taking any responsibility.
“Gross impertinence”
-Mrs Birling is dishonest, she claims that she did not recognise the girl in the photograph the inspector shows her, which Priestley later uses to expose her as deceitful when it becomes apparent that she has in fact met Eva Smith before. She is robust to accepting responsibility.
-We see her prejudice and egotism amplified at her disgust of Eva using the pseudonym Mrs Birling, referring to it as a ‘gross impertinence’. This seems hyperbolic, as she merely used her name, which shows how highly Mrs Birling regards herself that she believes it is a great misconduct to insult her status.
-There is a semantic field of disgust woven into Mrs Birling’s vocabulary concerning the working class, punctuated with adjectives such as ‘gross’ ‘disgusting’ and ‘wretched’ to portray her overt repulsion of the lower classes, strong enough to elicit revulsion and repugnance.
“I consider I did my duty”
-her arrogance is overarching, proudly stating [quote], which is ironic, as she in truth juxtaposed what would be expected of someone in a philanthropic position.
-The noun “duty” could be a tool to explore the disparity in the perspectives of capitalist and socialists, for capitalists, upholding the class system was paramount, thus for Mrs Birling, her duty may be to uphold the class gap by refusing Eva help. This contradicts what would be the expected duty of her organisation.
-Priestley introduces the audience to the social duty vs moral duty dichotomy.
-“duty” is a noun echoed by both Mr Birling and the inspector also, which puts the duty up for debate.
-Through this, Priestley critiques the classism which penetrates every aspect of Edwardian life, rendering even the welfare organisations hollow,corrupt and performative.
“I won’t believe it”
-Mrs Birling is almost proud of her decision, even though it had negative repercussions as she is incapable of addressing her own wrongdoing, this extend to her family too. Despite advocating that the father of the child is to blame, when the suggestion is made that it is her own son responsible, she simply rejects it “I won’t believe it”. This also suggests that her ignorance and blindness previously discussed is a deliberate choice extending from selective belief.
-contextually, her name is wholly ironic and would be noted by Priestley’s contemporary audience who had a good understanding of plays. The name Sybil is a an illusion to the Sybils of Greek mythology which were prophetesses that could see into the future. Priestley may be highlighting how her arrogance is so overt she perceives herself in an almost supernatural powerful light, which the audience knows is a falsity.
[enters briskly and self confidently, quite out of key]
-her entry into act 2 is conducted entirely under the arrogance of her social superiority, she [enters briskly and self confidently, quite out of key], she is so performative in her expression of her class that it seems she is living a different narrative to the rest of the characters in the play, which serves to amplify how disjointed they are as a family.
-it also shows her lack of genuine social awareness as she is unable to detect the tense atmosphere she has entered.
[affecting great surprise] [smiling, social] and [same easy tone]
-every action she makes seem conceited and calculated, which is made evident through the stage direction [affecting great surprise] [smiling, social] and [same easy tone]. She is well- rehearsed in conducting her social behaviour, but this act fails to apply the present situation they have found themselves in, her affable performance doesn’t match the tone of the investigation.
-her class driven egotism characterises her as a controlling character, this extends from her behaviour in act 1 when she scolded her husband and daughter for the way they behaved.
-the stage directions “rebuking them” and “I’m talking to the inspector now, if you don’t mind” exemplifies her belief in her inherent superiority. It also shows her defensiveness as her reputability is threatened.
“girls of that class-“
-she groups together the lower classes in saying ‘girls of that class-‘ to dismiss them as an aggregate inferior group that all behave in the same way, her classist attitudes are apparent. She ties blame to social class, as she bases her understanding of morality on the individual’s position in the class system
-the verb ‘that’ is not inclusive to herself suggesting that she detaches herself from any who belongs to a class lower than her own.
-Priestley is trying to emphasis, is that all though these views benefit her, the aristocratic, in turn it causes the mass suffering of the proletarians and only though the socialist regime can this be stopped. This suffering is the consequence to the wilful ignorance of the upper class.
-capitalistic ideologies have been advantageous to her life, she has been indoctrinated so much she cannot abandon the views she holds.
-starkly contrasts how Priestley wants the world as “one body” in order to attack social hierarchies.
-the collective noun “girls” is used to belittle Eva Smith and her social group, having connotations of feebleness and immaturity.
Mrs Birling summary act 2
-Mrs Birling’s social interactions seems to be a product of the behaviours her class delineates rather than an authentic understanding of the social atmosphere around her, when events veer from her comfort zone she responds with aggression, translating her status into power.
-Mrs Birling’s ignorant naivety is made apparent through her son Eric who is Priestley’s construction to expose her foolish and erroneous assumption that the upper classes can do no harm. She expresses the objective understanding that the father of Eva’s child is in the wrong but rejects the possibility that this could be true of her own son.
-Her overt bias is apparent through her physical disgust Mrs Birling seems to associate with the lower class, she dehumanises the, and fails to express any empathy for the working class. Priestley uses Mrs Birling as a tool to expose classism as a wholly dehumanising process.
