The audience’s sympathy for Eric is maintained by Priestley throughout the play in an attempt to keep him redeemable. We are shown potential reasons for Eric’s behaviour which can allow the
audience to sympathise with him.
Priestley attempts to encourage a positive perception of Eric through a deflection of blame onto his parents and the society in which he lives.
Parenting
Eric’s childhood has been within a “not cosy and homelike” environment. Instead he has been raised by a “cold woman” and a father who is “not the kind of father a chap could go to when
he’s in trouble”. Priestley therefore encourages the audience to view Eric as the product of poor parenting.
Through denying Eric care or compassion throughout his childhood, Eric’s parents have condemned him to treating others with the same callousness (cruel disregard for others) by
offering no support, they have stunted his moral development.
Priestley preceded the Inspector’s arrival with a series of lectures delivered from Mr Birling to Eric and Gerald. Considering the capitalist, individualistic and patriarchal content of Mr Birling’s
speech, perhaps Priestley uses this to show the audience that Eric is being shaped by the values of his father.
He has been taught to disrespect women and disregard the lower-classes therefore
Normal male behaviour
Priestley provides a legitimate explanation for Eric’s
immoral actions. We are shown by Gerald that “respectable” men use prostitutes therefore Eric has learnt to associate prostitution with the normal behaviour of the upper-class. His behaviour is
therefore normalised.
➔ Contextually, Eric’s behaviour can also be excused (to a certain degree) as, within 1912 society, women were perceived as being inferior to men in all aspects of life. This meant their value was measured through the utility of their bodies and sexual appeal.
Unreliable narration
Eric is left to tell the story about what he did to Eva which means his narration is likely to be unreliable and contain euphemism.
His biased telling of the story (to make himself look
less bad) enables the audience to take what they
want from the story and ignore anything they don’t
want to believe.
● He says “and that’s when it happened”. The use of the pronoun “it” allows the audience members to fill in the gaps about what ‘it’ is that Eric did to Eva.
Thus, Priestley manipulates the audience into perceiving Eric as redeemable as they retain their own opinion of
whether he actually did rape Eva
○ This implies that it is Priestley’s intention for Eric to be favoured by the audience and
serve as a medium for socialist ideas and converted capitalists.
● Priestley uses the euphemistic phrase “that state when a chap easily turns nasty” as a substitute for Eric’s admittance of being drunk.
○ Priestley’s choice of colloquial language normalises Eric’s lack of restraint which
implies that it’s the alcohol which caused him to act in that way, not his lack of morals.
This prompts the question of whether he would have abused Eva if he was sober.
Throughout the play the audience is encouraged to consider whether Eric’s actions are really reflective of his true character, or whether society has conditioned him to behave in this
manner.