Who shows they have the most responsibility by the end of the play?Hannah Kennedy

What does it mean to be responsible for something? Does it mean to be merely accountable for something under mere obligation? Or is it to be depended upon? Or is it more? Is it an obligation that you can’t avoid? Is responsibility something uncountable or a choice? Well, the answer isn’t that simple; it isn’t one or the other.

In Inspector Calls, the words “responsible” and “responsibility” are uttered by almost everyone in the play at one point or another. Responsibility is a key theme in the play and J. B. Priestley was very interested in the idea at the time the play was written. He was incredibly interested in our own personal responsibility for ourselves but more importantly the responsibility we share in society. At the time An Inspector Calls was written, World War 2, which had lasted nearly six years, had just ended. The Second World War had resulted in a very different outlook of life in England. Class distinction had become less of a part of society, women were more valued and social change was very much desired. J. B. Priestly wrote this in the hindsight of the War and set the play in 1912 between the First and Second World War and this was when the theme of responsibility was more important than ever. A lot of blame was being dished out over the First World War when in fact each and every person involved shared collective responsibility.

One of the characters in the play that speaks about the context of the play is Mr Birling, who also, refuses to accept personal responsibility. At the beginning of the play, Birling starts off as quite ignorant to the facts that are surrounding him, such as the Germans and Nazis. He does say “Nobody wants war.” Which, we know from history, is an incredibly wrong fact and despite what was staring him in the face he refuses to accept it. He talks of how “a man has to make his own way – he has to look after himself – and his family too, of course.” This shows that Mr Birling believes that responsibility is only an obligation in his own back yard and that he need not look any further. He believes that he has other problems of his own, such as a Knighthood, to worry about. He doesn’t need to add other people’s dilemmas into the equation. This is a good character set up for what inevitably happens later in the play; The Inspector arrives. When the Inspector does finally arrive, Mr Birling does show a rather impatient attitude and refusal to accept what the Inspector has to say about Eva. He shows hardly any remorse when told what fate had been bestowed upon Eva. He acts quite cruelly and smugly in response to the whole event with remarks such as “And then [Eva] got herself into trouble, I suppose.” This shows that Mr Birling feels that Eva’s problems are her own using the intensive pronoun “herself” to shift the blame away from himself, which Mr Birling does an awful lot throughout the play. For example, Mr Birling also shifted the blame into his son, Eric. He actually tells Eric “you’re the one I blame for this,” which, again, shows Mr Birling’s refusal to accept the responsibility and willingness to shift it on to anyone possible. He even defends his actions by saying “there’s every excuse for what… I did.” Not to mention, compared to everyone else in the play he is one of the least remorseful and changed at the end with words to describe his mood including “rather excited” and “triumphant.”

However, Sheila, his daughter is at the complete opposite end of the spectrum when it comes to how she feels about her own responsibility to Eva’s death. At the beginning of the play she is rather childish in the way she acts calling her parents “mummy” and “daddy” which is rather unusual for a woman of her age, even in the era she lives in. However, when the inspector arrives and tells her about how her actions contributed to Eva’s death she says she feels “rotten about it” and “desperately sorry.” Her guilt ridden conscious actually makes her feel utterly responsible as though no other attribute contributed to the death of Eva with remarks such as “I know… I started it.” When, in fact, Mr Birling was the root of the problem. Compared to the rest of her family, Shelia is a lot more sincere and considerate to the events if the evening talking about how she is “ashamed” and even after they find out the Inspector was just hoax she is still the first person to say that everything that happened what in fact real. She mimics her father with the sarcastic comment “I suppose we’re all nice people now” which shows her disgust of her parents and Gerald’s reaction.

Gerald starts off like Sheila feeling somewhat responsible but by the end of the play descends into relief instead of guilt. He agrees with all of Birling’s capitalist opinions and is slightly defensive. When the Inspector arrives he seems very uneasy when he realises what is happening to the others during the questioning and when Sheila asks him about it he replies with “we can keep it from [the Inspector]” showing how he feels guilty but it is not the same form of guilt that Sheila is feeling. His guilt mainly stems from the emotional attachment he had to Eva and what Sheila feels about it opposed to the guilt he feels for her death. He becomes quite “distressed” when he says “I’ve suddenly realised… she’s dead.” Maybe, this is why, Gerald is the first to question the Inspector once he has left saying “we’ve been had.” This, perhaps, may be why Gerald doesn’t continue his guilt and instead wants to amend the whole situation by proposing to Sheila again.

Mrs Birling is quite different to her daughter and very like her husband in their views of their responsibility to Eva. She is very lady like and motherly at the start of the play trying to discipline her grown children. However, when the Inspector arrives she struggles to maintain this image when she begins to defend herself stating “I did nothing that I’m ashamed of.” She also, like her husband, blames Eric but unintentionally. She states “Look for the father of the child. It’s his responsibility” not really knowing that Eric is the father. This is when her self-righteous attitude comes back to smack her in the face. After the Inspector has left, and they find out it was all a hoax she remains unfazed by the night’s events stating “I told [the Inspector]… I had done no more than my duty.”

Eric is the most reformed, aside Sheila, at the end of the play and feels a lot more responsible than his parents. He starts off quite noisy and childish for example he says “(involuntarily) My God!” which shows his drunkenness and loudness. Once the Inspector has arrived Eric is one of the first to speak up against his father and defend Sheila. He tells his father “Why shouldn’t [the workers] try for higher wages?... I’d have let [Eva] stay” showing his remorse towards to Eva and is distaste to his father’s decision. When the Inspector finally does reveal his secret that he was the father to Eva’s unborn child and that his mother turned her away he begins to blame Mrs Birling. He tells his mother “then you killed [Eva]… and the child she’d have had too.” Once the Inspector he is the only one to stand with Sheila telling his parents “I’m ashamed of you” and admitting that “the girl’s dead and we all helped kill her.” He is one of the first to accept that everyone had a responsibility to Eva’s death and that whether the Inspector was real or not, it is everyone’s fault.

The Inspector is the voice of reason and shows the Birling family their responsibility. He is very symbolic in the play of responsibility working systematically through the family letting the others further down the line slowly piece together what is going in. He knows a lot more than a normal inspector and opposed to questioning them for information he seems to be questioning them to prove a point. His final speech is the most obvious reference to responsibility stating that “we are responsible for each other” using the context of the war to scare the family with a threat of “fire and blood and anguish.”

Overall, the person who accepts the most responsibility is Sheila, even though she isn’t the most responsible in the context, compared to Eric who receives most of the blame and takes that to heart. Mr and Mrs Birling seem completely ignorant to their personal responsibility and feel that Eva is responsible for herself and Eric was foolish becoming involved. Gerald starts of feeling the guiltiest most slowly becomes less distressed by the situation as he realises that the Inspector was a hoax. So, in conclusion responsibility is a bit of everything. It is what we feel to our loved ones but also something we are obliged to do. So quote the Inspector “we are all responsible for each other” whether that be your best friend or child or a stranger on a street. We, as a society, have a responsibility, an unconscious obligation, to care and look after each other.