Sheila's Role In An Inspector Calls

The play “An Inspector calls” is written by the author J.B Priestley, all three acts are taken place in the dining-room of the Birlings’ house in Brumply, an industrial city in the North Midlands. The time it was set was an evening in spring, 1912. The play was first produced at the New Theatre in October, 1946. The story contains the characters: Arthur Birling, Sybil Birling, Eric Birling, Gerald Croft, Edna and INSPECTOR GOOLE. The detective thriller really gets the audience’s attention, from the build up to what's going to happen next, the cliff hanger round each corner to the terrible twists near to the end, these kind of things really catch the eye of the reader and makes them want to read more and more into the book. The lifelike picture
in your head of the great description found by the stage directions almost makes your feel as if you’re in the room with them, listening to all they have to say! The story board of this play is a rich, snobbish family (the Birlings) who have a visit from Inspector Goole, each and every family member is interviewed for the death of Eva Smith. The twist in the story is that even though everyone had recognised the picture of Eva Smith, who apparently has also had a fake name (Daisy Renton), the family works out when Inspector Goole leaves, that he may of not been a real inspector and has really given each person a different girl in the picture, they eventually ring the police and the venue where Eva apparently committed suicide, turns out there had been nothing said about a death in the area, they then get a call back hours later that some girl named Eva Smith had killed herself by drinking bleach. This cliff hanger creates great anticipation of what will happen next. During the story everyone had a huge part to play of the death of Eva Smith, including Sheila Birling! Sheila Birling is engaged to be married to Gerald Croft. She is the daughter of Arthur Birling and Sybil Birling, and sister of Eric Birling.
The whole setting in the dining-room was to celebrate the engagement of Sheila and Gerald, Sheila is a very playful and joyful character at the start of the play but as she gradually discovers through the interrogation of her family and how it effected Eva Smith, her personality changes!

J. B. Priestley describes her as "a pretty girl in her early twenties, very pleased with life and rather excited," which is really how she comes across in the first act of the play. In the second and third acts, following the scene that she has played a part in Eva Smith's death, she matures and comes to realise the importance of The Inspector's message. Priestly presents the character of Sheila very well. He uses a variety of special techniques. Priestly chose a detailed description above to describe Sheila Birling in the opening stage directions, the writer is trying to point out that Sheila is a happy, joyful and pleasant young lady. In the beginning the stage directions for Sheila are, “gaily, possessively,” “with mock aggressiveness,” and “half serious, half playful,” from just the first 3 stage directions of Sheila you can already tell she has a more serious, demanding side to
her. Later on in the story Priestly tells us the part Sheila played in the suicidal disaster. “I went to the manager at Milwards and I told him that if they didn't get rid of that girl, I'd never go near the place again and I'd persuade mother to close our account with them,” no only is this selfish but it's snobbish of her to do so. Although Sheila made this great mistake and it really had a bad impact on Eva’s life as she was poor and had no one but herself, but you can tell through out the story that Sheila fully regrets it and feels sorry for how horrible and cruel that was. No doubt the rest of the family had a huge part to play in this death but Sheila is very annoyed and flustered when her parents refuse to take a piece of the blame and instead forget about it in a blink of an eye.
I definitely see where Sheila is coming from and I think it's not the time for their parents to be self-centred, stubborn and un remorseful “I accept no blame for it all,”especially since it's basically a murder! The writer also uses another technique, use of dashes (-). These cab be used for many things; hesitation, references, dramatic effect or emphasis. “I'd hate you to know all about port - like one of these purple faced old men,” in this sentence the dash is used as Sheila paused in her sentence to refer to “purple faced old men.” Inspector Goole himself could be classified as quite a major dramatic device as his character constantly keeps the play in motion. The Inspector has different ways of making the Birlings confess to their part as he first recognises the type of person they are; strong points and weak points, then targets them. This makes Shelia increasingly vulnerable as she reacts with the most regret and sincerity. “She almost breaks down but controls herself,” “I felt rotten about it at the time and now
I feel even worse!” these quotes shows us that although we see Sheila has emotion towards the events of the suicide, this could also mean that she is the easiest to get information out of. Although parts of her words tell us she is very independent and confident she can also come around as quite snobby, “What do you mean by saying that? You talk as if we were responsible-”, “(cutting in): why should you? He's finished with you. He says it's one of us now,” you can tell that she is impatient and unaware by these quotes, she speaks nonsense even though she hasn't got a clue what's going on. Mrs Birling’s reaction to Sheila is very stubborn, remorseful and opinionated, “I accept no blame for it all,” “it isn't true!” these kind of quotes show that Mrs Birling doesn't care what Sheila says even though every one didagrees with her. Through out the story each act is ended with a huge cliff hanger, (act1) “Well?” This was said by Inspector Goole, it’s said just after Sheila and Gerald have a conversation (more like argument) while everyone was in the drawing room. This example is a clear way of trying to grab the audience more into the play, the word “well?” asks for a new story to happen, in this case what happened with Gerald and Daisy Renton. At the beginning of act 1 you can tell there is a lot of contrast and tension between Gerald and Sheila, “Now listen, darling-” “no, that's no use. You not only knew her but you knew her very well,” “Yes – except for all last summer, when you never came near me, and I wondered what had happened to you."This shows that Sheila is feeling very hurt and angry at the fact her new to be husband was cheating on her! The play also shows signs of dramatic irony, “I tell you – whoever that Inspector was, it was anything but a joke.” Through out the play you start to see clues that the inspector could just be a stranger, dramatic irony is shown in this quote as we saw it coming before Sheila and other characters. Sheila and Eric are symbolic in the story because they are seen as the young and future, “a pretty girl in her early twenties, very pleased with life and rather excited,” we underline the word excited because it tells us that she is ready for the future, she is also young and has a lot ahead of her.

Over all I think J.B Priestly has presented the character of Sheila in a descriptive, detailed way using dramatic methods and loads more. She learns her lesson. She takes responsibility and changes; she also tries to encourage others to do the same.