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Mr Birling In J. B. Priestley's An Inspector Calls

481 Words2 Pages

J.B. Priestly, presents the character of Mr Birling to show how business was an important aspect of life, ' hard-headed business man'. The alliteration 'hard-headed' has dual meanings of both ruthlessness in terms of business and 'hard-headed' as in arrogant. This presents a capitalist society and how Priestly wants the audience to understand that business was practically the heart of a man's life. Also, Priestly wanted to infer how the capitalist view was wrong. There is an atmosphere of misplaced optimism during 1912. Priestly demonstrates this through Mr Birling, 'the Titanic.... absolutely unsinkable.' The use of the superlative 'absolutely' can be associated with the words: affirmative, certainly, definitely. This assists the audience in viewing Birling as a Pompous character as the audience already knew that the titanic sank that night. Through this dramatic irony, Priestly undermines the position the older generation and how they thought that they were right . Seeing as Birling was incorrect, the audience are made to loose trust in him as a character. …show more content…

The comparative adjective 'prettier' has connotations with the words: attractive, lovable, glamorous. This demonstrates how Birling thought all women were the same and that they had expectations to live up to, to please a man. The audience come to an understanding of a patriarchal society. Priestly wanted to show that everyone should be seen as an individual and that women shouldn't be looked down on by

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