Mrs. Birling

  1. Opening stage directions
  1. Before the inspector arrives
  1. Attitudes to Sheila

'the things you girls pick up these days'

in the rest of the play

  1. To the Inspector

At Milwards

  1. Denying any responsibility for her own actions
  1. After the revelations of Act Three

'a trifle impertinent'

'my husband was Lord Mayor two years ago..he's still a magistrate

Enters briskly and self-confidently (before her interrogation)

(Coolly): I don't think that we can help you

Assumes they won't be able to help - 'Girls of that class' are nothing to do with them

  1. How she describes her involvement with Daisy

She was claiming elaborate fine feelings and scruples that we simply absurd

'a girl of that sort'

'Nothing I was ashamed of'

I was doing my 'duty'

she had 'only herself to blame'

'I didn't like her manner'

I've done nothing wrong - and you know it'

(triumphantly) Didn't I tell you? Didn't I say I couldn't imagine a real police inspector talking like that to us?

Mrs Birling: I was the only one of you who didn't give in to him. And now I say we must discuss this business quietly and sensibly and decide if there's anything to be done about it

Sheila: So nothing really happened. So there's nothing to be sorry for, nothing to learn. We can all go on behaving just as we did.
Mrs Birling: Well, why shouldn't we?

Mrs Birling: They're over-tired. In the morning they'll be as amused as we are

The general effect is a substantial and heavily comfortable but not cosy and homelike

His wife is about fifty, a rather cold woman and her husband's social superior.

Arthur! You're not supposed to say such things!

Now, Sheila, don't tease him. When you're married you'll realize that men with important work to do sometimes have to spend nearly all their time and energy on their business. You'll have to get used to that, just as I had.

Mrs Birling: (smiling) Well, it came just at the right moment. That was clever of you, Gerald. Now, Arthur, if you've no more to say, I think Sheila and I had better go into the drawing room and leave you men