Mrs Birling: Complete Grade 9 Analysis

Mrs Birling as you’ve never thought of her before. This is an analysis which goes much deeper than you would expect.
Here is a sample to show you what I mean:

But What if Mrs Birling is Right?
However, a counter argument to that is how Priestley reveals Eric’s exploitation of Eva last, as though to emphasise that his actions were worse. There is also a further counter argument. Eva could actually have accepted the stolen money. She could actually have accepted Eric’s offer of marriage. And she certainly did tell the charity and Mrs Birling a number of lies:
• That she was called Mrs Birling.
• That she was married.
• That her husband had “deserted her”.

So, in terms of the facts, she is quite right to say “The girl had begun by telling us a pack of lies.”

When Eva tells her that she wouldn’t take stolen money, Sybil’s reaction “all a lot of nonsense – I didn’t believe a word of it” is not just snobbery. It is also a logical doubt to have given the lies which preceded it.

Another psychological problem for Mrs Birling to accept is that Eva would rather commit suicide than take the stolen money, or marry Eric, even though she describes him as “he didn’t belong to her class, and was some drunken young idler”.