Sheila Birling Flashcards
A nice description of her
“A pretty girl in her early twenties, very pleased with life and rather
excited”
At the start of the play, when Sheila was a very childish adult
“Yes, go on, Mummy”
Has a stage direction in before the quote. Sheila is overthinking about what has happened to Eva Smith
“(rather distressed) 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.”
Doesn’t believe in the class division
“But these girls aren’t cheap labour- they’re people.”
Jealously overcame Sheila and it cost someone their job
“She was a very pretty girl…that didn’t make it any better.”
Once again jealously overtook her and she even complaint
“I went to the manager and told him this girl had been very
impertinent – and – and - ”
Taking on too much of the blame and the regret she feels is too much
“And if I could help her now, I would-”
Highly regrets what she did and she wont do it to anyone again because of it.
“I’ll never, never do it again to anybody…I feel now I can never go
there again”
Knows thats theres something weird about the inspector and is trying to warn the others.
“Why- you fool- he knows. Of course he knows. And I hate to think
how much he knows that we don’t know yet. You’ll see. You’ll see.”
Both her and the inspector don’t believe in the class division and she knows the inspector will break it.
“You mustn’t try to build up a kind of wall between us and that girl. If
you do the Inspector will just break it down. And it’ll be all the worse
when he does”
She is aware of the inspectors psychological tricks
“No, he’s giving us the rope- so that we’ll hang ourselves”
The stage direction implies her sarcasm
Bitterly ”I suppose we’re all nice people now”
Aware of all that the inspector did
“He inspected us all right.”
Now that she has matured she can finally see how disturbing her family is.
“It frightens me the way you talk”
