Sheila Birling - Act 3 Key Quotations Flashcards
Sheila fully accepts responsibility for contributing to Eva’s suicide.
“I know. I had her turned out of a job. I started it.”
Sheila is shown as the moral voice in the play as she is ashamed of her actions.
“I behaved badly too. I know I did. I’m ashamed of it.”
Sheila tries to make her parents understand that they must learn valuable lessons from this experience.
“The point is, you don’t seem to have learnt anything.”
Sheila alienates herself from her family to fight for what she believes is right; she is not afraid to speak against her parents and break social conventions, also showing the increasing importance of women in society.
“It’s you two who are being childish - trying not to face the facts.”
Sheila is presented to be insightful and intelligent through her suspicions about the Inspector.
“He never seemed like an ordinary police inspector”
Sheila once again accepts responsibility and takes on socialist views.
“Between us we drove that girl to commit suicide.”
Sheila takes on the role of the Inspector and attempts to make her family understand that the fact that the suicide may not have taken place does not change anything; it also presents her as insightful and socially aware.
“Everything we said had happened really had happened.”
Sheila is worried about her parents’ attitudes and feels helpless that her attempts to make them understand the value of the Inspector’s lessons have failed.
“It frightens me the way you talk.”
Sheila once again shows that she understands that the Inspector’s lesson is valid, and tries to make her family understand that.
“Whoever that Inspector was, it was anything but a joke.”
Sheila echoes the Inspector’s words, once again portraying her attentiveness and her agreement with the Inspector and socialist views.
“Fire and blood and anguish. And it frightens me the way you talk, and I can’t listen to any more of it.”
Sheila makes her own decisions based on logic and reasoning and refuses to be a typical pre-war silent girl by refusing to immediately take back the engagement ring - cyclical structure from the start of the play that shows her increased maturity.
“No, not yet. It’s too soon. I must think.”
