Responsibility in An Inspector Calls by J. B. Priestley Priestley is very successful in putting across his views about responsibility.
He reveals his views about responsibility and many other things through inspector Goole and all the way through you get the feeling that the inspector is not at all like a real police inspector. The inspector seems to take over the whole family and have total control over who he is speaking to. I think that the way the inspector talks to the Birlings is the way that Priestley would talk to them.Priestley was a socialist and believed in freedom and was for the poor, against the rich.
The results of the Birlings irresponsibility's led to the death of Eva Smith / Daisy Renton: Mr Birling is partly responsible for her death, for throwing her out of her job at his factory. Next Sheila was at a shop called Milwards, this shop was the only place where Eva Smith / Daisy Renton had a steady and good job, when she caught site of Eva Smith / Daisy Renton laughing at her when she tried on a dress.Sheila was not a happy bunny so she complained to the manager of milwards who the sacked her. After this it was Gerald who helped her after seeing her being harassed by Joe Meggarty and coming to her rescue. It was in the Palace bar that he met Eva Smith / Daisy Renton.
The palace bar was a "favourite haunt of women of the town" meaning that it is a hangout for prostitutes. Gerald housed her and gave her money to live on, and was the one who helped (at this time) Daisy Renton the most.Next, Eric was the irresponsible one, he Saw Eva Smith / Daisy Renton in the Palace Bar, he took her back to her apartment and made her pregnant. After this it was Mrs Birling who was very irresponsible and also very ungenerous, for refusing to give Eva Smith / Daisy Renton any of her charity to this needy case. Because Eva Smith / Daisy Renton used the name, Mrs Birling, simply because she was carrying Eric Birlings child.
She did not know that it was Mrs Birling, Eric's mum who was chairman of the Charity.Throughout the story the blame for the girl's death has been passed backwards and forwards through the Birling family, in a real-time play with a good 3 act structure and only 7 characters. The inspector's methods of investigation are to create a tension by telling the family that "a young woman has just died at the infirmary. " After this it is much easier to get information from them.
Priestley tries to make the characters seem very irresponsible because he sees them as higher-middle class snobs.
