Saturday, January 15, 2011

How far is Eric Birling to blame for Eva/Daisy's death in An Inspector Calls?

Eric Birling has many faults. He steals money from his
father, is a drunkard and a philanderer. However, of all of the party guests that night,
he is probably the least responsible for the death of Eva Smith/ Daisy Renton. It is
when he finds out that the young lady he has been seeing is pregnant he at least tries
to make a gesture to help – however feeble and inadequate. Mr and Mrs Birling hold the
father of the girl’s child responsible until they learn he is their son. Eva/Daisy had
refused his help as she suspected that he was stealing the money he was giving to her to
support her.


Eric is different from the others in that he
did attempt to make Eva/Daisy’s plight a little better. He is repentant of what happened
to the girl and clearly learns a lesson from the incident



‘It’s what
happened to the girl and what we all did to her that
matters.’


No comments:

Post a Comment

In Act III, scene 2, why may the establishment of Claudius's guilt be considered the crisis of the revenge plot?

The crisis of a drama usually proceeds and leads to the climax.  In Shakespeare's Hamlet , the proof that Claudius is guilty...