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Eva Smith's Responsibility In An Inspector Calls

926 Words4 Pages

Beside responsibility, class division and love, lies and deceit are some of the important themes in ‘An Inspector Calls’. Priestley used the characters in the play to symbolise the society of England in the early 20th century, which was full of weaknesses; The majority of the upper class abuse the working class people.

The characters in the play were from an upper class family, and they were all involved in the death of working class girl, in different ways. The Inspector was used by the author to reveal their responsibility by making them confess, and by this way, J.B Priestley has unveiled the hypocrisy of the society. Mr Birling is one of the characters in the play that has the most impact on Eva Smith’s death and was most clearly depicted by the author. He is a “Hard …show more content…

She didn’t allow Eva Smith to take the aid from her Woman’s Charity Organisation because the girl took the name “Mrs Birling” as her name. This shows that the organisation is just a veneer for status and respectability rather than helping unfortunate women and shows that she has different rules for herself and the society. She denied all of her responsibilities and also blame other person:” I accept no blame for it at all.” She shows no regret at all, and she even lies to the Inspector when she said that she doesn’t know the girl from the photograph, she wants to cover up her responsibility and avoiding from potential problems for herself. She rejected to help when Eva Smith needs the most help, she was pregnant and has no money, living poorly, asking for charity was the final solution for her after being turned up and down so many time, and a rejection was what she received, lead her to make the final decision, to end up her life. Priestley had shown an even clearer point of view to the capitalistic society, that irresponsible and cold heartedness can kill a person, directly or

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