Sheila Birling in An Inspector Calls Literary Analysis Essay Example

Sheila Birling is a young woman presumably in her early twenties. She is the daughter of two of very significant people around town known as Arthur Birling and his wife Sybil birling. In this play, Sheila forms the picture which prestley had about the typical rich and wealthy classed of the 1912. At the start of the play in act 1, we get an insight of the Birlings celebrating the engagement of Sheila Birling to Gerald croft, the son of a famous man around town, by having a family dinner. From this scene, we picked up many of Sheila’s characteristics, as she’s presented as childish, naïve and unaware of the problems of the world. However later on in the play towards act two and three as Sheila begins to open her eyes to the troubles of others in the world and how her own actions have partially led to their destruction like how she played a major part in the death of Eva smith, we find a growth of Sheila’s personality into an assertive, more mature woman who possesses better qualities like humility and withholding anger. Priestley specifically shows this change in Sheila’s personality gradually throughout the different acts, through her interaction with her fiancé, through her interaction with her parents and how she reacted to the inspector and what she’d learnt afterwards.  

At the start of Act 1, Sheila is represented as a naïve girl who is under the authority of her fiancé, Gerald Croft. Priestley presents this through Sheila’s attitude when Gerald proposes to her as she excitedly proclaims, “oh - Gerald - you got it - is it the one you wanted me to have?” From this the audience get the impression that Sheila is a young girl who doesn’t make her own choices, rather expects Gerald to make her own choices for her as indicated through the use of the pronoun “you” instead of the personal pronoun “I”. Priestley relates this back to the 1912, where women had less of a say than men did, an example presented is that even the wealthier women couldn’t choose their own wedding rings since society only expected them to do house chores and look after children, which would seem like an unfitting idea in today’s modern society, as women now have many more opportunities than ever in the past.  Moreover, Priestley also represents Sheila as a girl who seems to get excited quickly as shown by the stage directions which represent her reaction when Gerald gives her the ring. She is described as being “(excited)” a typical childish and spoilt girl, this is also supported by the use of hyphens throughout her speech which suggests that she is very excited to the extent that she is lost for words. 

Moreover, Priestley also represents Sheila as a childish girl, through her initial interaction with her parents; this is shown towards the very beginning of the play when the Birling family are celebrating the special occasion of Sheila and Gerald’s engagement by having food and drinks. Mrs. Birling is then encouraged to have a drink by Sheila as she says to her, “Yes, go on, Mummy. You must drink our health”. From reading this at the very start of Act 1, the audience gets a first impression that Sheila is childish for a young woman in her 20’s who lacks maturity as she still refers to her mother using the vocative noun “Mummy”. In addition, Priestley also represents Sheila as a superficial girl. This is shown when Arthur lectures them about his hopes for the future and notices Sheila unfocused, “still staring at her ring”. These stage directions indicate that Sheila cares more about materialistic objects than actual social aims for the future. Potentially, this could cause audience to initially dislike Sheila’s character. However, Priestley also represents Sheila as an obedient girl though still imature through her quick apologic reaction as soon as her father scolds her by saying, “I’m sorry, Daddy. I actually was listening”. Sheila’s obedience is further supported by the stage direction describing her as looking “attentive” which suggests that she isn’t falsely apologizing to avoid trouble, rather she acts on obedience. Sheila’s immaturity regardless of her obedience, is still shown by her using the vocative noun, “Daddy” instead of “Dad” or “Father”.

This all changes in Act 2 where Priestley represents Sheila as a more genuine and accountable young woman. This is when the inspector arrives to bring the unexpected news of Eva smith’s death to the the birling family and explain to them how each of their actions had played a major part in her death. As soon as the inspector shows Sheila the picture of Eva smith, Sheila, “Looks closely and recognizes it with a little cry”. From this we can infer that Sheila recognized who Eva smith was and felt immediately accountable and guilty for her own actions. The audience gets the impression that Sheila, as well as being the overly excited, childish girl, she can also feel sympathy for others as the “little cry” she gave suggests that she felt sorry for Eva’s death and guilty of her own actions that she’d done in the past with Eva smith. The use of the adjective, “little” suggests that she is trying to stay put together but she isn’t able to hide the sadness and guilt that she feels inside. The audience now seems to like Sheila’s character more as they are able to see her honesty and humble feelings of remorse, in comparison to her parents who stayed tranquil and arrogantly not taking responsibility. Priestley creates this difference between Sheila’s reaction and her Parent’s reaction to show the audience that Sheila as part of the young generation can be more virtuous and righteous than her parents. In addition, Priestley also shows that Sheila has learned her lesson later in Act 3 even when the inspector turned out to be a false inspector, as she challenges her parents who wanted to go back to their old ways by saying, “You’re pretending everything is just as it was before”. This suggests that Sheila didn’t care about the family’s reputation unlike mr and mrs Birling, rather she realized that many of her actions could potentially bring harm to people. This suggests that now she has become a more assertive woman who fights for the right and not just blindly obedient to her parents like before. The stage direction describes her as saying this, “Passionately” Which further show her sincerity and that Sheila is speaking true words coming out 

Moreover, In act 2 and 3, Priestley now represents Sheila as a more mature woman through her interaction with her Parents and Her fiancé. Sheila no longer refers to her mother and father using the vocative nouns, “mommy” and “daddy”, rather she uses the formal, “Mother” and “Father” as she addresses her mother in the phrase, “Oh-Mother”, which is what is expected from a young adult in her 20’s. The audience can now see the maturity change in Sheila’s character and how aware she has become about the world outside, this makes the audience gain respect for Sheila.  In addition, in act 2, Sheila is a woman with her own choices and not under the force of any man unlike most of the women her age in the 1910’s. Priestley presents this idea to us when he reveals Sheila ending the engagement with Gerald as shown in the phrase, " but just in case you forget – or decide not to come back, Gerald, I think you'd better take this with you. (she hands him the ring.)”. Sheila the girl who has claimed before that she would never let this materialistic expensive gift out of her site, is now standing and handing it back. Sheila was not compelled into this choice, rather she made it out of her own pleasure and her response to Gerald cheating on her. The audience now can see the assertive quality rising in Sheila and how maybe the story of Eva smith has taught her how to be independent. Priestley adds a hyphen right after “forget” to show the amount of strength Sheila needed to reveal the truth about him not wanting to return with acceptance, as he has now seen her “true colours”. However, Sheila didn’t pause the same way when she gave Gerald her ring back, which reveals that she’s less sad because of the destroyed engagement than her actions against Sheila. In addition, Her certainty in giving her ring back and her pause before claiming that Gerald may not be returning, could symbolize she’s become more of a sympathetic person who cares about others more than objective materials. In the audience’s eyes, Sheila has now become the perfect example of a young, assertive woman who Priestley used as an example for all the younger generation during that time period.

In conclusion, Priestley proves to the younger generation that change is possible and he does this by revealing a young, childish, oblivious girl named Sheila at the start of Act 1, who commences throughout the acts 2 and 3 as a young, mature and assertive woman who learns from her mistakes and makes the correct choices in the end.