Mr Birling is the founder of his company Birling and Co. His main role in play is to uphold his capitalistic viewpoints on life and to disregard what anyone else will say about him. He does this by arguing with the person to prove his point. If he feels like he is in doubt of winning the argument, he will simply just threaten them, for example, when the Inspector is questioning Birling, he starts getting nervous and almost overwhelmed by the amount of questions he is being asked. So Birling replies with, "perhaps I ought to warm you, I play golf with Chief Constable Colonel Roberts... we play golf together sometimes..." Birling is trying to keep his patriarchal and capitalistic viewpoint at a notice so he can attempt to warn the Inspector off a bit because he is not wanting to accept his own responsibility and this is portrayed throughout the entirety of the play. However, this backfires on him when the Inspector catches him out and reveales something that he has done in the past which he didn't want bringing up. The sacking of Eva Smith.
