Act 2: Mrs Birling and the Charity Committee
Mrs Birling’s Role
The Inspector turns his attention to Sybil Birling. She is a prominent member of the Brumley Women’s Charity Organisation, which helps women in distress. Eva Smith — pregnant and desperate — came to the charity for help, but Mrs Birling rejected her application.
Mrs Birling rejected Eva for two reasons. First, Eva used the name “Mrs Birling,” which Sybil saw as an insult to her family name. Second, Eva refused to accept stolen money from the father of her unborn child. Mrs Birling saw this moral decision as evidence that Eva was “giving herself ridiculous airs” — in other words, a working-class girl had no right to moral standards.
Mrs Birling is the most unsympathetic character in the play. She shows no remorse, even after learning that her actions contributed to Eva’s death. Priestley uses her to represent the cold, unfeeling face of upper-class privilege.
Class Prejudice
Mrs Birling’s treatment of Eva reveals her deep class prejudice. She uses phrases like “a girl of that sort” and “girls of that class,” reducing Eva to a type rather than recognising her as an individual. She believes that working-class people have different (lower) moral standards and do not deserve the same consideration as people of her own class.
Priestley carefully constructs Mrs Birling’s dialogue to expose her prejudice. She calls Eva “impertinent” for using the name Birling, and says the girl only had “herself to blame.” She uses the register of a magistrate passing sentence rather than a charity worker showing compassion. Her language reveals someone who sees charity as a tool of social control rather than genuine help.
The Dramatic Trap
The Inspector asks Mrs Birling who she thinks should take responsibility for Eva’s situation. Mrs Birling insists that the blame lies with “the young man” who got Eva pregnant — the father of the unborn child. She declares he should be “dealt with very severely” and made to “confess in public his responsibility.”
The audience and Sheila realise before Mrs Birling does that the young man is almost certainly Eric — her own son. Mrs Birling has unknowingly condemned her own child. This is one of the play’s most powerful moments of dramatic irony.
Sheila tries to stop her mother: “Mother — stop — stop!” But Mrs Birling, blind to the truth, continues to demand punishment for the father. Priestley uses this to show that Mrs Birling’s class prejudice has made her incapable of seeing what is directly in front of her.
Mrs Birling is the character who most resists the Inspector. She tries to pull rank (“you know, of course, that my husband was Lord Mayor”), dismiss the investigation as irrelevant and deflect all blame. Unlike Sheila, she never shows any sign of moral growth. Priestley uses her resistance to represent the entrenched attitudes of the upper class that refuse to change even when confronted with their own cruelty.
Eva refused to accept Eric’s stolen money because she knew it was wrong. Mrs Birling punishes her for this moral decision. The irony is devastating: the working-class girl has higher moral standards than the upper-class charity chairwoman. Priestley uses this reversal to undermine the Victorian/Edwardian assumption that social class reflects moral worth.