GCSE AQA English Literature - An Inspector Calls

So, I think it's quite obvious that Mr.Birling is going to come up this year :tongue:

Does anyone have any insightful points I could make about the character relating it to Priestley's themes and ideas?
Please help as I'm hoping to do English Lit at A-levels so I need an A preferably an A* in this exam :smile:

Reply 1

Chlorophile

There are tons of things you could mention - Mr Birling is a point goldmine.

One interesting idea you could mention is how Priestley presents Mr Birling. Mr Birling is presented as an idiot, which is very obviously broadcast to the audience within the first few minutes when Mr Birling makes a number of clearly wrong statements (like the Titanic is the greatest ship ever made and is unsinkable, and that the "Huns don't want war", both of which are incidentally examples of dramatic irony). Bearing in mind that Mr Birling is a symbol of capitalism in An Inspector Calls, you could argue that Priestley is making a statement about what he regards capitalism (or capitalists) as through the characterisation of Mr Birling.

Reply 2

Whitney997

Very interesting point! :smile:

thank you so much ^_^

Reply 3

Jimbo997

Mr. Birling represents upper class, ignorant, capitalist Britain at the time. Priestley uses the inspector as a mouthpiece to critisize Mr. Birling and therefore us as the audience and our views and values. Priestley displays the ignorance of Mr. Birling using the technique of dramatic irony, for example when he says about how nobody wants war, when we as the contemporary audience of course know World war one shortly followed!