An Inspector Calls Characters - Mr Birling Flashcards
(7 cards)
Give 5 quotes that show Mr Birling’s capitalist views
“look forward to a time when Crofts and Birlings are no longer competing but working together - for lower costs and higher prices”
“I speak as a hard-headed business man”
“You’d think everybody has to look after everybody else, as if we were all mixed up like bees in a hive”
“community and all that nonsense”
“look after himself and his own”
Give 4 quotes that show Mr Birling is foolish
“We’re in a time of steadily increasing prosperity”
“nobody wants war, except for some half- civilized folk in the Balkans”
“unsinkable, absolutely unsinkable”
“You’ll hear people say war is inevitable - fiddlesticks!”
Give 3 quotes that show Mr Birling cares about social status
“I have an idea that your mother … feels you might have done better for yourself socially”
“Just a knighthood, of course”
(a heavy looking, rather portentous man)
Give 3 things Mr Birling says in an attempt to intimidate the inspector
“How do you get on with our Chief Constable, Colonel Roberts?”
“I ought to warn you he’s an old friend of mine”
“What did you say your name was, inspector?”
Give 5 quotes that show his views on responsibility
“Horrible business. But I don’t understand why you should come here Inspector-“
“wretched girl’s suicide”
“A good worker too”
“my duty to keep labour costs down”
“I can’t accept any responsibility”
Give 3 quotes that demonstrate how Mr Birling dodges responsibility
“There’s every excuse for what your mother and I did”
“Makes all the difference”
“The famous younger generation who know it all. And they can’t even take a joke-“
Give 5 quotes that show Mr Birling is most worried about his social standing
“there’ll be a public scandal - unless we’re lucky”
“He must have known I was an ex-Lord Mayor and magistrate”
“down-right public scandal”
“don’t be in such a hurry to put yourself in court”
“I’d a special reason for not wanting any public scandal right now”
