When told about Eva’s death Mrs Birling speaks in an “easy tone” and she smiles which shows that she doesn’t really care about what has happened to this girl as long as it doesn’t affect her this is also show by her saying “I don’t think we can help you much”. She says this before hearing anything the inspector has to say. This shows that she doesn’t have any interest in what it is that she has been told and that she doesn’t think she has done anything wrong. Mrs Birling's reaction makes her disliked by the audience as the play moves on as she never takes responsibility for her actions and denies she has done anything wrong.
When the inspector tells Mrs Birling that the girl was pregnant she tries to pass on any blame on her to the father of the child. Unaware of who the father is, the inspector gets Mrs Birling to turn on her son and get her to blame him. “Who is to blame then” this allow Mrs Birling to feel in power again as she is being asked her opinion and she takes full advantage of this blaming the father of the child that the audience knows to be Eric. “But suppose we do what then?” The inspector is having Mrs Birling blame her son entirely for what has happened and unknowingly decides on a harsh punishment for him “he be compelled to confess in public”. This is ironic as at the beginning of the play Mr Birling is telling Gerald how he will get a knighthood “so long as we behave ourselves, don’t get into the police court or start a scandal” and what Mrs Birling is suggesting would be a scandal and may ruin Mr Birling's chance of a Knighthood.
Throughout the play Mrs Birling tries to build a wall between herself and Eva. When she starts to do this when she first meets the inspector Sheila “urgently” tells her mother not to build that wall and that “the inspector