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Mr Birling Analysis

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The character of Mr Birling is presented in a variety of ways throughout the entire play. Mr Birling is portrayed to be a typical capatalist upper class male, who only cares for materialistic items such as money. He is used to represent everything wrong with the upper class society, who within the period of the Edwardian era, were viewed to be incredibly selfish people, who merely showed concern for social status. Mr Birling is presented to be a rather arrogant, ignorant man within the extract. This is evident as he views him self as a 'hard-headed business man ', this conveys the lack of modesty that Mr Birling has, thus presenting him to be arrogant. The use of the words 'hard-headed ', give us the impression that Mr Birling views himself as head working, however this is done by J.B Priestley to suggest …show more content…

We know this as Mr Birling speaks in quite a pessimistic tone, very excited of the future that lays ahead of him. This is seen in the extract as he suggests that the engagement should be carried out regardless of any lies that are divulged or discovered 'ignore all this silly pessimistic talk ', the use of the adjective 'silly ' gives us the impression that Mr Birling is trying to put off anything that could hinder the progression of the engagement by regarding it as 'silly. In addition, he states that they should ignore 'pessimistic talk ', thus reinforcing this idea that Mr Birling is excited about the engagement. However, J.B Priestley uses Mr BIrlings talk of 'employers ' to suggest that Mr Birling has ulter-motives. This is placed at the end of his 'speech ' to imply that Mr Birling 's true intentions are to establish a deal between the Croft family and the Birling family, so that the company of the Birling 's can make more money. Therefore, Mr Birling is illustrated to be quite

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The repition of "I am a hard headed man of business" shows his arrogance and his capitalistic and emotionless mentality. "I say there isn't a chance of war" show his stubborn and arrogance. Priestly uses this dramatic irony to persuade the audience to side against Birling as they will think that he is foolish, unsympathetic and untrustworthy. As of portraying their stubborn and heard headed personality was not enough, Priestly makes it sure that the audience is able to clearly see mentality and coldness that capitalism brings to a human by making men emotionless and unsympathetic. "Well, we've several hundred young women there, y'know, and they keep changing.

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