First World War Essay

I have focussed my monologue on the character of Sheila Birling. Her role in the play was significant as it is coming from the point of view of a young, upper class woman. Her naà ¯Ã‚ ¿Ã‚ ½ve views represent her role as an authoritative figure in society who has the ability to help Eva Smith, but her selfishness and her egotistic manner contradicts the main theme running through out the play of An Inspector Calls that one person’s actions impact another’s and we all have a duty in helping people lower in the system. JB Priestley wrote the play in 1942 about a retrospective time just before the First World War. Sheila’s main role in the play was that she was able and had the power to get Eva sacked because of her position in society, whereas Eva, who was of a lower class than Sheila, was not able to stand up for herself because she did not have enough power. Sheila abuses her superior position in society for petty reasons of that Eva is prettier than her.  I chose to write about her, as she is a very expendable character who has no firm reason or purpose in firing Eva Smith. When the inspector questions Sheila about the photo Sheila says ‘You Knew it was me all the time, didn’t you?’ By saying this Sheila opens herself up (explain) and seems to accept responsibility for her actions and is showing this to the inspector, rather than trying to cover the truth up with lies, or try to pass on the blame to others as some characters in the play do. Her character I think is important in the play, as I believe that Priestly was trying to demonstrate later on in the play that the youth could change. The setting of my monologue of Sheila alone and isolated symbolises her distance from what she was once in the play. The year now being 1916, four years down the line, she has turned her back on the aristocratic life and is trying to dissolve into an unprivileged life.  Her clothes are the colour of green and brown that shake off her previous character of wealth and affluence as to her new attempted classless status. Sheila has disconnected herself from the Birlings and perhaps is trying to punish herself by living the life that the Eva Smith once led. Sheila’s job now includes working at homeless shelters and working for charities. Her language has become less energetic and fluent than it once was. I have however tried to include some of the phrases from the play ‘it was a mean thing to do’ I tried to make use of punctuation and grammar to create her feelings and emotions. In the monologue I have use ellipsis to show pauses, when she might be thinking or reflecting on painful memories. Exclamation marks are used to get her point across that she is getting agitated and snappy To the audience, I was trying to convey the ideas of Sheila being a changed woman. That she has come to realise that status and power isn’t everything. She can look past this now and look forward to a happy future with her new baby and Gerald, her husband.  I think the Play writer’s view on Sheila and all the characters from the play was that the younger generation can learn from their mistakes, and he directs strong criticism towards businessmen who are only interesting in making money and will never lean from their mistakes. Sheila’s the second person to be questioned by the Inspector and her response to Eva’s death is the most caring and heartfelt. She is genuinely upset by the death of Eva. The play is set in 1912. The periods between 1910 and 1945 were a great period of social change. In 1912 was the year that the titanic set sail, the year that the Suffragette movement started campaigning for women’s rights in society. The war being a main factor, affecting society greatly and it began the process of merging class boundaries. The upper class young men were sent to the front line as officers and where many of the great landed families of Edwardian Great Britain began to disappear. My overall intention with this monologue was to understand the significant character of the young, impressionable Sheila Birling and how she is central to the key themes in the play and how the Inspector plays the social conscience on all the characters minds.  By the close of the play, Sheila has come to realise that herself and her family have lied to each other, and also to the Inspector. She begins to see her whole life was a lie, the relationship she had with Gerald and lying to herself. She begins to see that she needs to start her life again with truth, starting with correcting her mistakes.