Why did Priestley create the Birling family as the central characters in ‘An Inspector Calls?’
Priestley presents the Birling family as his central characters because they act as symbols for various
sections of Edwardian society. Mr Birling is the hard-nosed capitalist and his wife is a relic of
Victorian England and its associated patriarchy. Sheila Birling is typical of the feckless and
irresponsible young lady that pervaded society at this time: she represents immaturity and
entitlement. Finally, Eric Birling is a spoilt and indulged young man who has never wanted for
anything. All four of these characters are presented, at least initially, in an extremely negative way
by JB Priestley. This is because he was a staunch socialist and this family represents everything he
despised. Of course, the play was originally written and performed at the end of World War II so we,
as audience, do have the benefit of hindsight and it’s clear that we’re expected to accept a healthy
degree of dramatic irony in order for us to fully appreciate what the playwright’s message to us is:
we need to support community and look out for each other. This is illustrated very clearly in the
famous ‘fire and blood and anguish’ speech delivered by the Inspector (the voice of JB Priestley in
my opinion) where the tricolon emphasises the consequences of not abiding by the message of
Socialism that is presented in the text.
Firstly, Birling is an idiot. He’s arrogant, self-serving and frighteningly short sighted. He’s fond of
declaring himself to be a ‘hard headed man of business’ but he’s demonstrated as anything but
when we consider his lack of knowledge about the consequences of ‘labour strikes’ and his naïve
belief in the Titanic as being ‘unsinkable, absolutely unsinkable.’ The repetition here makes his brash
over-confidence particularly distasteful when we consider the grim reality of actual events. Priestley
creates Mr Birling as a figure to be lampooned: a man that commands no respect. Birling uses a
simile of ‘bees in a hive’ to criticise socialist attitudes but he just comes across as uncaring and
inhuman. Priestley has created him in this way so that we, as readers, hate him.
Mrs Birling is similarly loathsome and Priestley has created her as an illustration of out-dated
attitudes in an increasingly modern world. She lives in the past where wives have to ‘accept that’
their husbands are going to have affairs and disappear for days on end. She has a position in society,
as chair of a charity that ‘supports’ young women that could be of so much benefit. Instead, she is
power hungry and authoritarian; she seems to enjoy turning down desperate women for the most
spurious of reasons. We find her inhuman too; Priestley has certainly succeeded in creating two of
the more unpleasant characters in English literature in his portrayal of the elder Birlings.
What’s more, they never accept responsibility for their actions. At the end, they laugh and joke as if
they have got away with something. They never consider the damage to their souls and Priestley
punishes them for this when the phone rings again, setting events into motion again in a cyclical
fashion. This detestable couple will have to relive their torment at the hands of an Inspector and it’s
to be hoped that this time, they will learn their lesson.
We are given hope by the change in the personality of Sheila Birling. She did cause Eva Smith to be
dismissed from her position at Milwards for ‘laughing’ at her when she was trying on clothes. For all
of Sheila’s privilege, she is still desperately insecure. It’s to her credit that she accepts that she needs
to change: the Inspector’s words have had an impact on her and she develops some inner strength.
She rejects Gerald’s engagement ring ‘handing it back’ and maintaining her position even when the
Inspector was revealed to be not what he seemed. She challenges her parents: ‘it frightens me the
way you talk’ because she realises, as a modern woman, that her world is not the same as her
