Sheila's Role In An Inspector Calls

J.B. Priestley's main moral message in "An Inspector Calls" is that responsibility and community are the most important virtues, that "We are all members of one body" and that we are responsible for each other. He brings this across through the characters, with their role being representing a certain set of people or ideals first, and their being a player in the events of the plot second, like The inspector being a mouthpiece for Priestley's socialist views, not just a police inspector.

Sheila's main role in the story is to show the idea that it is possible for people with the very capitalistic views can be changed, as she accepts responsibility very quickly for her actions. She freely admits that her throwing Eva Smith out of Millwards was

In this case, those regarding responsibility. Mrs. Birling makes a very stark contrast to Sheila's change, utterly refusing to make any changes or accept responsibility. She says "Mrs. Birling: I accept no blame for it at all." despite her actions leading directly to a girl's death, and her reason for doing so was nothing more than prejudice, "Girls of her class" and "Giving herself ridiculous airs" being her reasons to not believe her. She constantly shifts blame onto anyone not close to her, first Eva Smith, then the man who got her pregnant without a care, until the man is discovered to be Eric, and then it affects her. Her caring about her family's (and by extension her) image over the life of the working class girl who she helped to kill makes the audience slightly repulsed by her, treating the poor as she would rats, rather than human lives, and making them consider the kind of thinking that made her do this, and what the alternative

His repetition of the pronouns 'we' and 'us' highlights the idea of community. This is the alternative mentioned in the above paragraph, if we are repulsed by the lack of care given to human life afforded by the isolationist and capitalist ideals, perhaps more socialist and communal ideals are needed to make people do good. As the inspector is often shown as a disruptor of these thoughts, "We hear a sharp ring at the doorbell" interrupting Arthur Birling expressing these sentiments, and he is shown to take more and more control and seem more and more impressive as events proceed, the audience is made to pay very close and serious attention to the inspectors words, and as a result "The time will come when if men do not learn this lesson, they will be taught it in fire and blood and anguish." resonates deeply with audiences, both because of the authority The Inspector has, and the context the play was written in (World War's 1 and 2 being fresh in people's memory, and clearly being representative of fire and blood and