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How Is Sheila Presented In An Inspector Calls

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Priestley wrote his polemical morality play ‘An Inspector Calls’ in 1946 shortly after the end of WW2. As a socialist Priestley was concerned that the rigid class system of Edwardian Britain would continue to limit and restrict women’s rights. tends for the play to assist people in their understanding of social responsibility. The didactic play takes place in Brumley, a microcosm of Edwardian Britain, and centres on the actions of the wealthy middle-class Birlings and Mr Croft and how their actions impact a working-class girl called Eva Smith. Throughout the play the audience see the transformation of Sheila’s character through which Priestley explores his underlying message of social responsibility.
Throughout the play Priestley presents …show more content…

Surprised by her father’s callous attitude to Eva Smith Sheila reminds her father that “these girls aren’t cheap labour- they’re people ,” highlighting her awareness of the responsibility her family holds in society, reflecting Priestley’s socialist views. Priestley also presents the Inspector as hims elf (a socialist) and shows that Sheila is learning and maturing when she recognizes that “he’s giving us rope- so that we’ll hang ourselves.” The gruesome metaphor reflects Sheila’s understanding of her responsibility in society and what she did was wrong. This and her deliberate use of the metaphor ‘hang’ shows that it is dangerous not to understand your role in improving society. Sheila continues to show her socially responsible manner when she tells her parents that “You mustn’t try to build up a kind of wall between us and that girl,” with the wall symbolizing capitalism. The metaphor of the wall evokes the idea that the older Birling’s view themselves as superior to Eva Smith and it is that exact attitude which Sheila is trying to break down. Sheila seems frustrated by the fact that her parents’ callous attitude doesn’t seem to soften. At the end of the play, after the Inspector has left Sheila tells her parents that “the point is you don’t seem to have learnt anything,” Sheila is being very critical of her parents as she understands the capitalist Edwardian hierarchical structure she was brought up under is not healthy for people while a socialist model is. Sheila seems to embrace this role and burst out at her parents by saying, “You’re pretending everything’s just as it was before!” with the exclamation clearly showing how Sheila’s position with her parents has

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