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Who is Essa J. B. PRIESTLEY Who is to blame? The play has seven characters and is set in 1912. The whole play is conducted from the Berling's dining room that is in an industrial city called Brumley in the North Midlands.
The play opens with the Berling family celebrating Sheila engagement to Gerald Croft who is also at the party. We see that Gerald and the Berling's are fairly wealthy because they can afford to have a party unlike most people at that time. On page 11 the Inspector is introduced and commences to tell the Berling's that two hours ago a young woman died in the Infirmary. The young woman was dead because she had drunk some bleach. Suicide was suspected. Her name was Eva Smith.
He starts his investigation by questioning Mr Berling and slowly works his way through the family, including Gerald. Mr Berling is the first person the Inspector confronts with the responsibility of the young women^s death. Mr Berling is the type of character that thinks that Titanic is unsinkable and that there will never be a war which is a dramatic irony. Eva had been employed at Mr Berling's factory but had been sacked for leading a strike to get the workers more pay. At first Mr Berling will not accept responsibility which is shown when he says Still, I cant accept any responsibility. If we were all responsible for everything that happened to everybody wed had anything to do with, it would be very awkward.
Mr Berling shows in this way, that he has a lot of power to say if the workers have a steady income or not and does not care about the consequences. The Inspector thinks that Mr Berling is partly to blame for Eva being so depressed that she killed herself. ^She was out of work for the next two months. Both her parents were dead, so that she^d no home to go back to. And she hadn^t been able to save much out of what Berling and Company had paid her. So that after two months, with no work, no money coming in, and living in lodgings, with no relatives to help her, few friends, lonely, half-starved, she was feeling desperate. ^ The second person questioned by the Inspector was Sheila who is the only one who does accept some of the blame. Sheila is a young woman who tends to over-react to things.
Sheila is engaged to Gerald. When she thought that a dress looked better on Eva than it did on her she became very angry. This was clearly shown when she says When I was looking at myself in the mirror I caught sight of her smiling at the assistant, and I was furious with her. Id been in a bad temper anyhow. Sheila shows she has a lot of power and wealth when she tells the shops manager that if he doesnt get rid of her then shell stop coming to the shop and will persuade her mother to close her account with them.
After Sheila had got Eva sacked from Millwards she became a prostitute which is a horrible occupation for any woman especially if she has been forced in to it. Gerald is the kind of character that is strong-willed and probably the complete opposite of Sheila. At first Gerald tried to deny knowing Eva because he got to know her while he was courting Sheila. Eva had changed her name to Daisy Renton so no one knew her name when she was being a prostitute. This was the time Gerald got to know her. She was at the favourite haunt of the prostitutes, the Palace bar, when Gerald met her.
I met her first, some time in March last year, in the stalls bar at the Palace. I mean the Palace music hall in Brumley-. After they met he took her to the County Hotel and bought her a meal, this was after she had mentioned that she had no money. Gerald, after a couple of nights, moved her into a flat of a friend who was away in Canada and had left Gerald the keys. At this point Eva became Gerald's mistress and was lulled into a brief sense of comfort and prosperity but after a while Gerald breaks it off because he is going to go on a business trip somewhere and knows that the relationship has got to end. He does not think about Eva's feelings.
Eva spoke to Gerald as if she had been expecting the break up for a while, She told me shed been happier than shed ever been before, but that she knew it couldn^t last, hadnt expected it to last. It is clear that in a short time Eva had fallen in love with Gerard, and had allowed herself some hope. But Gerald just threw her to the curb and didn^t care that he had probably broken her heart and that she now had no place to call home and very little money. When it came to Eric he told the Inspector that he had met Eva in the Palace bar and had stood her a few drinks, so he was not to sober when they left. He insisted on going into her room ^I insisted- it seems.
I^m not very clear about it, but afterwards she told me she didn^t want me to go in but that- well, I was in that sort of state when a chap easily turns nasty- and I threatened to make a row^. After awhile Eric found out that Eva was pregnant ^And the next time- or the time after that- she told him thought she was going to have a baby. She wasn^t quite sure. And then she was. ^ After he found out that she was pregnant he asked her to marry him but she said that she couldn^t because he didn^t love her and she couldn^t marry some one like that. Eric had been giving her money that he had stolen from his father^s study but when she found out she started to refuse his money so he broke it off. Eric could be blamed for giving her a baby and then leaving her to deal with it and for making her feel unloved.
Mrs Berling was the prominent member of the Brumley Women^s Charity Organisation that helped women that came to them for help. Two weeks before Eva killed herself she had gone to the organisation at which Mrs Berling worked and on this day was the Chairperson. When Eva introduced herself as Mrs Berling (taking Eric^s name) the real Mrs Berling took it as an insult and was prejudiced against Eva. The Inspector asked her ^ Was it owing to your influence, as the most prominent member of the committee, that help was refused the girl? ^ As she was talking to the Inspector she said that whoever made Eva pregnant should be made an example of, ^ I blame the young man who was the father of the child she was going to have. If, as she said, he didn^t belong to her class, and was some drunken young idler, then that^s all the more reason why he shouldn^t escape. He should be made an example of.
If the girls death is due to anybody, then it^s dues to him^. In conclusion I think that the whole party is to blame because they all had a hand in making Eva^s life a living hell. You could blame Gerald for breaking her heart or you could blame Mrs Berling for giving her the final push or you could even blame Eva herself for thinking there was no other alternatives. I could say that society had a large part in her death in the way we make people think and the way that at the time there was such a class separation that even people of different classes couldn^t get married. So as the Inspector says in act 2 page 56, ^We don^t live alone. We are members of one body.
We are responsible for each other. And I tell you that the time will soon come when, if man will not learn that lesson, then they will be taught it in fire and blood and anguish. Good night^. 30 c
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Research essay sample on Young Woman Didn T
