Sheila Flashcards
I should jolly well think not, Gerald, I’d hate you to know all about port – like one of these purple-faced old men.
We can already see a generational difference between Sheila and her father and also some class issues too. She also does not want Gerald to be like the older generation of rich men. J.B. Priestley wanted a new, fairer Britain and he hoped the new generation could help realise that including by rejecting some of the values of their parents.
I don’t believe I will. (half playful, half serious, to Gerald.) So you be careful.
This is said in reply to her mother reproaching Sheila for the comment above and telling Sheila important men will be busy with work and she must get used to that. Sheila says she doesn’t think she will and that is in fact partially true because a few years after the play was set and with the first world war, British women entered the world of work in massive numbers for the first time whilst their men folk were sent to the battlefield
You’re squiffy
This comment in itself is nothing of immense significance it is the reaction from her mother and the wider disgust. Mrs Birling is upset and surprised by Sheila using such a word and assumes she picked it up from somewhere.
Oh – how horrible! Was it an accident?
Her reaction to being told by the inspector that a young woman has died. It is a human reaction. She does not know who the person is or their social class or anything about them but her natural human reaction to hear of the death of a fellow human being is compassion and sadness.
Sorry! It’s just that I can’t help thinking about this girl – destroying herself so horribly – and I’ve been so happy tonight. Oh I wish you hadn’t told me. What was she like? Quite young?
Sheila was happy but her happiness has been destroyed by hearing of the sad death of this young woman. She is not indifferent to the suffering of others. On a larger scale the rich in society should not be happy whilst others live and suffer in misery in the same country.
What do you mean by saying that? You talk as if we were responsible–
This is her response to saying the ‘girl’s dead though’. The irony is that they , the Birlings’ were all partly responsible for Eva’s sad death. On a larger scale the rich in society can be responsible for the suffering of the poor so have a moral duty to try and ensure a fairer and more just society.
But these girls aren’t cheap labour – they’re people.
One of the most important Sheila Birling quotes in the play.
“A pretty girl in her early twenties, very pleased with life and rather
excited”
Sheila uses imagery when she talks of her mother’s attempts to
‘build up a kind of wall’; implying the metaphorical distance Mrs
Birling creates between the classes. When Sheila warns the
others that the Inspector is ‘giving us rope so that we hang
ourselves’, she once again uses a metaphor to create a visual
image of the way the Inspector skilfully manipulates characters
into confessing their sins.
“I went to the manager and told him this girl had been very
impertinent – and – and - ”
Stage directions– she “shivers”, “tensely” - shows her fear
Bitterly ”I suppose we’re all nice people now”
Sheila’s language becomes more passionate and she uses
sarcasm (“So nothing’s happened, so there’s nothing to be sorry
for, nothing to learn.”) Sheila also uses irony when she is
appalled by her parents’ attitudes to carry on as before: “I
suppose we’re all nice people now”. Sheila uses irony to show
that she completely disagrees with her parents and that she
understands the moral consequences of her actions. The use of
irony highlights the tensions that existed between the younger and older generations.
