An Inspector Calls
An Inspector CallsIntroduction:
The question asked was: Who, in your opinion, is most responsible for the death of Eva Smith. Use evidence from the text to justify your answer. The best way to answer this question is to firstly find out what each person did to contribute to the death of Eva Smith due to this play being very ironic. All the characters involved in this play are responsible, in some way, to the death of Eva Smith but the task is to find out who gave her the final push to commit suicide.
Answer:
The first person that seems to be responsible for the death of Eva Smith was Mr. Birling. He was the owner of a mill and hired Eva Smith to work there. He admitted that she worked well but had to make her redundant due to her asking for an increase in wages and protesting against Mr. Birling not giving her a rise. “We were paying the usual rates and if they didn’t like those rates, they could go work somewhere else. It’s a free country,” says Mr. Birling.
From Mr. Birling’s actions it does not seem to be the responsibility of Mr. Birling for the death of Eva Smith. He was looking at the best interests of his firm and it his firm would not run very efficiently with a troublemaker. I also think he is not responsible because Eva Smith must have thought of the consequences of protesting against low wages.
The next person that seemed to be responsible for the death of Eva Smith was Sheila Birling. After Eva Smith was made redundant from the mills she managed to get a job at Milwards, a respectable upper class department store. Sheila complained to the manager of Milwards because Eva Smith giggled at her when she was trying on a hat.
I think that Sheila’s action of complaining to the manager of Milwards can be justified. Sheila was jealous of Eva being prettier that herself and she used her superiority from being of an upper class family to fire Eva Smith which I think, to certain degree, is very unfair. Although Eva Smith was made redundant once again I think that Sheila did contribute to the death of Eva Smith but is not the most responsible person. When Sheila went shopping that day at Milwards she was prepared to pay for the best service and she did not receive it and thus complained which I think can be justified. Later in the text Sheila admitted that she would have never complained if she knew that Eva would have been fired.
After the incident at Milwards Eva Smith met a young man called Gerald who, at that time, was dating Sheila Birling. They both had a short-term romance. After seeing each other they thought it best to stop meeting for several reasons, one being that Gerald was engaged to Sheila. Gerald gave some money to Eva...
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