An Inspector Calls (Grades 9–1) York Notes

Priestley presents Sybil Birling as a snobbish and unkind woman. She feels herself to be above other people who are not in the same class as she is, and when the Inspector arrives she treats him like an inferior.

She does not meet the Inspector until Act Two. In the meantime he has been questioning other characters and there has been an argument between Sheila and Gerald. When Mrs Birling comes on to the stage she is not prepared for this. Her mood is ‘quite out of key’ and she does not pick up on the atmosphere and the effect is to make her seem like a busybody. Sheila uses the metaphor ‘not to build a wall’. She is trying to tell her mother not to stop the Inspector’s inquiries, but Sybil Birling does not understand and she is annoyed. She is also rude to the Inspector, saying that his comments are ‘a trifle impertinent’. The word ‘impertinent’ shows how her attitude to others is a superior one.

Priestley also presents Sybil Birling as someone who does not care how people from the lower classes live. Priestley sees this as part of the problem with the rich in Edwardian times and since there is no government assistance charities need to help. Although Sybil Birling belongs to the Brumley Women’s Charity Organization, she only helps those who she thinks have earned it. So when Eva Smith, who is pregnant, asks for help and calls herself Mrs Birling, Sybil Birling is extremely angry and tells her committee not to assist. This is an example of irony, because Sybil Birling doesn’t know that Eric is the unborn baby’s father. To make things worse, she then tells the Inspector when he is questioning her that the father of the child should be made to pay and be, ‘dealt with very severely’.

Sybil Birling does not understand why her daughter Sheila is so impressed with the Inspector. She does not grasp the Inspector’s message ‘that we are all responsible for one another’ and most of the time she goes along with what her husband says. She is more concerned to keep things under wraps and make sure there is no gossip that could harm her family. She is not interested in people outside her own class.

Priestley shows us two points in the play where Sybil Birling’s coldness turns to horror. At the end of Act Two there is a climax. This is because she has just realized that Eric is the father of Eva Smith’s unborn baby. Although she shouts, ‘I won’t believe it’ we feel she does. The stress on ‘won’t’ means that she doesn’t want to believe it. The other point is when Eric gets to find out about his mother refusing help to Eva Smith and he says, ‘you killed her – and your own grandchild’. This is a real shock for his mother and she is ‘very distressed’. Eric is so angry he is almost violent towards her and the audience must feel the shock too.

You might think Mrs Birling would think hard about what she has done and Eric’s problems, but when she speaks next she just blames Eric. She is more concerned with avoiding a scandal, and this tell us that despite everything that has happened she is not willing to learn from the Inspector and change.