Mr Birling Presented In An Inspector Calls

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In the opening of the play the Inspector begins to question Mr Birling after dinner about a photo of a young girl. Mr Birling is shown to be narrow minded in the opening of an Inspector calls. He is displayed as this through his poor political understanding , his business minded views as well as this distancing him from people.

Firstly, Mr Birling is shown as narrow minded through his poor political understanding. Several times throughout the play he is shown to only have one unchangeable opinion , for example during a speech that he is making on page six and page seven he suggests things like the ‘Germans don’t want war’ and straight after adding solidarity by saying ‘ Nobody wants war’. Suggesting that no one wants war is a naive and narrow minded point of view as he is unable to know how other countries plan to deal with political or economic matters. He also consistently blocks out others' views on war. This is shown as he blocks out his own son's point of view by saying ‘ let me finish, Eric.’ These views and beliefs are set out to build a lack of trust with the audience ,who already know that both world wars happened, causing us to believe other significant figures throughout the play. …show more content…

Throughout the play Mr Birling is shown to be solely focused on the effects that anything might have on his business. This is shown early in the play when he makes a speech surrounding his daughter and competitor's son Gerald Croft marriage. He begins the speech by saying ‘ It is one of the happiest nights of my life’ suggesting that he is talking about the marriage but by the end he says ‘ we may look to the time when Crofts and Birlings are no longer competing’ by saying this he triggers a negative reaction from the audience as well as Sheila and Mrs Birling. These comments further proves that the marriage of his own daughter is more of a business move for his