Arthur Birling: the man who was sure about the Titanic

Minutes before the final telephone call, Arthur Birling is laughing at his own children. Now look at the pair of them - the famous younger generation who know it all. Everyone else in the room has been shaken by the evening - and Birling ends it where he started. Priestley built a man who learns nothing, on purpose, and this video is about what that is for.

For the plot from start to finish, go to An Inspector Calls: An overview first. This video stays with the father.

Right, start with a word that changes how you read him. A device is a character built to carry an argument, so the first question about Birling is what he is for, and only then what he is like. Birling tells you his type himself. I speak as a hard-headed business man. Hard-headed means practical and unsentimental. He says it twice before the doorbell, once as a hard-headed business man and once as a practical man of business. Then he tells the young men that the Titanic is unsinkable, absolutely unsinkable. But the audience knows how that voyage ended. That is dramatic irony: the audience knows something the character does not. From here on, every confident thing Birling says arrives with a warning attached. Then comes the rule Priestley has built the play to take apart. A man has to mind his own business and look after himself and his own. And the doorbell rings seconds later. Two students write about that speech. One says Birling is a proud father who wants the best for his family. The other says the playwright gives Birling this creed just before the doorbell, so the evening that follows tests it and breaks it. Which of the two sentences treats Birling as a device? The second treats him as a device. It asks what Priestley is doing with him, while the first only describes a man. One examiner's report places that way of reading at the top of the range: at the upper end of the ability range, students focused on Birling as a device used by Priestley for dramatic effect. The habit that goes with it: before you describe Birling, name what Priestley is using him to show.

Now, the clearest place to watch Birling work as a device is one refusal. Eva and the other girls at his factory asked for a small rise, and he said no. The Inspector tells him it's his duty to ask questions, and Birling throws the word straight back. Well it's my duty to keep labour costs down. Read it first as business. Wages are a cost, and an owner who keeps his costs low makes more profit. On those terms, he did his job. Now, read it second as a moral choice. He borrows the Inspector's own word, duty, for a decision that took away a girl's living. Then he explains the sacking as a rule rather than a temper. If you don't come down sharply on some of these people, they'd soon be asking for the earth. Why does it matter that he calls it policy, not temper? A temper is one man's fault. A policy is a system, and a system does the same thing to the next girl, which is the thing Priestley is attacking. That is the third reading, Priestley's argument. One refusal carries business, morals and argument, and only the third explains why Birling is in the play. Here the chapter's handle takes its first link. One chain, five links: every link hands her on to the next. The first link is a man doing his job and sleeping well afterwards.

Later, Birling tries to scare the Inspector off by mentioning that he plays golf with the chief constable. The reply comes from the Inspector, not from Birling. I don't play golf. He has already told the Inspector he was Lord Mayor two years ago, as if that rank should put him above questions. One examiner's report puts it like this: it was interesting to note how many thousands of responses included the exchange between Mr Birling and the Inspector: I don't play golf. Nothing is wrong with the line. But when thousands of answers lean on it, it no longer shows your own reading of the play. So the fix is to put a less obvious line beside it, one that does the same job in Birling's own voice. His duty to keep labour costs down does that, because it shows the system, not only the snub.

That is why the play leaves him where he started. Birling is not a man to be explained; he is a position to be discredited, and the question is always what he is for.

And his last big speech proves it. He mocks the famous younger generation because he has heard every word the Inspector said and changed none of his own.

Right, time to pull his own words back out of memory. Finish Birling's words about himself: I speak as a hard-headed what? Business man. I speak as a hard-headed business man, and he means it as a boast. Now his reason for the sacking: it's my duty to keep what down? Labour costs. Well it's my duty to keep labour costs down. Next, Birling reminds the Inspector he was once Lord Mayor. What is Priestley using that for? To show a man who thinks rank puts him above questions, so when the Inspector is not impressed, the rank is discredited along with the man. And that is why the man mocking the famous younger generation at the end learns nothing: he is the one person the play was built to prove wrong.

Once Birling reads to you as a job rather than a man, thumbs up, because that one is in the bag. Saying the three readings of his refusal out loud once is usually enough to fix them.

Next in the chapter: Sybil Birling, the coldest person in the room.

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