How is Mrs Birling presented in An Inspector Calls?

What is Mrs Birling like at the start?

Priestley's stage directions call her "a rather cold woman" and her husband's "social superior". Both halves matter. She spends the opening scene correcting people: her husband for praising the cook in front of a guest, Sheila for her slang. Manners are how she keeps everyone in their place.

She is absent for most of Act 1, so she walks into Act 2 without knowing how the Inspector works. Sheila has already learned that he gets the truth out of everyone. Mrs Birling treats him as a tradesman who has forgotten himself, and that confidence is what undoes her.

What are the key moments for Mrs Birling?

The charity committee. Two weeks before the play begins, Eva came to the Brumley Women's Charity Organisation for help. She gave her name as Mrs Birling. The real Mrs Birling calls this "gross impertinence", and admits: "I used my influence to have it refused". A charity for women with nowhere else to turn is run by a woman who decides which of them deserve it.

Her refusal of blame. Asked whether she regrets it, she says: "I accept no blame for it at all". Where Sheila says "never, never" in remorse, her mother's "at all" closes the door on any.

The trap at the end of Act 2. She tells the Inspector exactly who is to blame: the young man who got the girl into trouble. "Go and look for the father of the child. It's his responsibility." The audience, and Sheila, work out that she means Eric before she does. Priestley lets her condemn her own son in her own words, and ends the act as Eric walks in.

After the Inspector leaves. Once the family believes he was a fake, she is quickly herself again, and proud that she alone did not give in to him. Nothing has changed for her, because she never believed she had done anything wrong.

What context matters for Mrs Birling?

In 1912 there was no welfare state. A woman with no work and no family depended on charities like Mrs Birling's, run by wealthy volunteers who decided who was a "deserving" case. Priestley shows how much power that gave to one person's prejudice.

She speaks of "girls of that class" as if they were a different kind of person, with different feelings. A 1945 audience had just voted for a government that promised help as a right, and they were being asked to look at what had come before.

She also stands for the older generation. Like her husband she learns nothing, and Priestley sets the two of them against Sheila and Eric, who do.

What might an exam question on Mrs Birling ask?

AQA sets An Inspector Calls in Section A of Paper 2. You choose one of two essay questions, and no extract is printed, so every quotation has to come from memory. The question carries 30 marks, with 4 more for spelling, punctuation and grammar (AO4). Other boards also set an essay on the play, so check your own board's past papers for the exact wording.

Two focuses to practise:

• How does Priestley present Mrs Birling as an unsympathetic character?
• How does Priestley use Mrs Birling to explore ideas about social class?

What does a strong paragraph on Mrs Birling look like?

Here is an original model paragraph for the second focus.

Priestley uses Mrs Birling to show how class prejudice hides behind respectability. She dismisses Eva as one of the "girls of that class", a phrase that lumps every working woman together and makes it easy not to listen to one of them. As chair of a charity she should be the girl's last hope, yet she boasts "I used my influence to have it refused". The word "influence" shows that help depends on the mood of the powerful. When she insists the father must take the blame, saying "It's his responsibility", Priestley turns her certainty against her, because the father is her son. A 1945 audience would see why charity run by the Mrs Birlings of the world was not enough.

Key Mrs Birling quotations to learn

Short phrases you can quote exactly, each with a use.

• "a rather cold woman" (stage direction, Act 1): Priestley tells us how to read her before she speaks.
• "girls of that class" (Act 2): her prejudice in four words.
• "gross impertinence" (Act 2): she is offended by the name Eva used, not moved by what Eva needed.
• "I used my influence to have it refused" (Act 2): power used against the person the charity exists for.
• "I accept no blame for it at all" (Act 2): the opposite of Sheila's remorse.
• "It's his responsibility" (Act 2): she condemns Eric without knowing it.