👸🏻 sheila

Question 1

• sheila
• stereotypical higher-class women. excited to be marrying a good-looking, wealthy man, and shows off her ring
• child-like. needs to show off. Priestley uses this to highlight how much she changes later on
• then breaks social rules and maturing. ‘mummy’ -> ‘mother’. initial child-like behaviour -> telling off her mother openly and disagreeing with her
• changing relationship with parents. annoyed and refuses to be viewed as a child at this point

Answer 1

‘Mummy - isn’t it a beauty?’
‘Mother, I think that was cruel and vile’

Question 2

• sheila
• shows a great deal of emotional maturity
• breaks engagement because she thinks that she doesn’t really know her finance. She doesn’t hate him but cannot commit to spending her life with him. She’s not worried about losing a close business connection. But Mr Birling encourages Sheila to rethink because of the benefits of the marriage

Answer 2

‘You and I aren’t the same people who sat down to dinner here’

Question 3

• sheila
• questioning and her first reaction is to accept responsibility. acknowledges that she plays a role. contrasts to mr birling’s complete denial

Answer 3

‘So, I’m really responsible?’

Question 4

• sheila
• attempts to warn her mother about the inspector knowing more than he seem to
• knows that goole is giving everyone the rope to hang themselves with. Letting them explore their own involvement and work out their own guilt

Answer 4

‘I’m afraid you’ll say something or do something that you’ll be sorry for afterwards’

Question 5

• sheila
• although she’s heard about the horrible consequences of their actions, Sheila is annoyed that her parents do not seem to have learnt anything about themselves and how they should live their lives. They continue to dodge responsibility for Eva’s death and push the blame at each other

Answer 5

‘You don’t seem to have learnt anything’

Question 6

• sheila
• more socially aware. upset by family’s actions, because they refuse to admit they have done anything wrong
• worried about her parents’ attitudes and helpless. worried that they will do so again.

Answer 6

‘It frightens me the way you talk’

Question 7

• sheila
• emotional maturity and intelligence develops (growth) She has learned a valuable lesson - she accepts blame and responsibility. She knows that her actions will have consequences for others
• Mr Birling exclaims that young people think they know everything but they’re wrong - ironically, it is the young Birlings who have learnt from their mistakes here

Answer 7

‘Everything we said had happened really happened. If it didn’t end tragically, then that’s lucky for us. But it might have done.’

Question 8

• sheila
• This is the first sign that Sheila has socialist views, and she isn’t afraid to disagree with her father

Answer 8

‘These girls are not cheap labour, they’re people!’