Sheila Biriling

Arguably, Priestley uses Sheila Birling as a vehicle to explore a diverse range of ideas, from the issue of gender roles and stereotypes through the idea of socialism and the need of shared responsibility with which Priestley himself occupied. Sheila can be seen as a representation of people changing their attitude and approaches through mistakes. Priestley seems to use her to encourage people to change and not to stepping back into the period before the world war happened where people only cares about themselves and ignores social responsibility. The ways in which Sheila accepts responsibility and urges the other characters int the play change their way and learn from their experiences with the inspector can be sen as a message behind from Priestley to the audience not to let the lessons learnt from the second world war be forgotten.

Sheila Birling, perhaps is a representation of a very stereotypical female. Naive, probably is the most suitable word to describe this young innocent woman who is marked by unaffected simplicity. Her infantalisation can be seen by referring her parents as 'mummy' and 'daddy'. Moreover, she referred the death of Eva Smith as 'an accident' in 'Oh-how horrible! Was it an accident?' when it mustn't be 'an accident'. Sheila presents the idea that woman in this era was only seen as an object, a vase who only has a beautiful appearance and nothing else. The repetition of the word 'admiringly' when Sheila looks at her ring, we see what's Sheila cares most is her appearance, this can also be reflected when she became jealous of Eva in the shop. This characteristic of Sheila reflected the life of a woman in this era was only suppose to dress themselves beautifully and to get married. Her diction reflects her initial happiness at the start of the play; she specks in a light, joking voice about 'these purpled-faced old man' who know all about port, and in 'mock aggressiveness' to Gerald as the whether he might 'object' to jointing her