Comparison Of Mr. Burling And Sheila Burling Essay, Research Paper

An Inspector Calls

Comparison between Arthur Burling and Sheila Burling

Arthur Burling is the main man in the Burling family, and

seems to control it, i.e. whatever he says – goes! The play is

set in an imaginary town called Brumley, somewhere in the

North of England.

Mr. Burling has a egotistical disposition towards life, and a

manner to only care for himself and family, and essentially

forget everybody else, in fact, this is exactly what he tells a

speech on at the celebration of Sheila s and Gerald s

engagement,

… a man has to look after himself – and his family too, of

course…

which gives the understanding of the selfishness, and also

covetousness. Another example of this is when he tells a

speech about how it is the best day of his life,

Gerald, I m going to tell you frankly, without any pretenses,

that your engagement with Sheila means a lot to me. She ll

make you happy, and I m sure you ll make her happy. Your

just the type of son-in-law I wanted…

makes people think whether he wants them to get married for

Gerald and Sheila s good, or for himself, and whether it means

a lot to him sentimentally, or a lot to him in the business world.

Burling s first priority is to make money,

It s my duty to keep labor cost down

and is also a social climber, and Sheila is engaged to the son of

his friendly rival, which is why we can see it means lot to him

in the business world because Gerald s father is in a higher

division (class) than the Burling family. We can see that he is a

man that tries to make everything better by using his money,

Look inspector, I d give thousands… .

I think this may be a domineering attitude, because he

wants to command people, and do all he can to do it, which

reflects on how he treats his employee s. In his factory, there

is certain employees which ask for a pay rise, but Burling

refuses to pay more than the going rate . Burling can afford

the pay rise, but returns by sacking one member of the

strike pack, Eva/Daisy Smith. After this, Burling was blamed

for starting the domino effect of Eva/Daisy s suicide, but

refuses to accept the blame.

Appearance plays a big part of Burling as well. How he looks

is very important to him indeed in the respect that he always

has to look posh and always dresses cleanly and smart, and

acts as we would call with a stiff upper lip as though he is

higher than everybody else. I think he does this not because

he always want to be clean and smart, but to keep a good

reputation with other high class people, and not to make them

think that he is any lower than themselves. When the inspector

asks questions to/about his family, he tries to protect his

reputation by acting the innocent to the questions, even

though we know, that he knows the answers to the questions,

but wont tell them, to protect his reputation (hard to

explain!!).

Burling cannot see the consequences of neither his, nor his

family s actions. We know this because Burling makes

comments which seem ridiculous to us now, in the 90 s and

the year 2000. Things like the Titanic being unsinkable and that

European nor World war would never happen. According to

Burling, war will never happen because in his eyes, it would

affect business, but Burling does not stop to think that people

may care more about things other than business, which is why

he cannot see the consequences of his own actions and is also

another example of the selfishness within him.

Burling hates stealing. When Eric (Burling s son) steals 50

from Burliness office, he cares about nothing more than that

he stole from him, and the amount he stole (because 50 was

quite a bit of money in 1912), and Burling wasn t really

concerned why Eric stole the money. Burling then exclaims,

You dammed fool – why didn t you come to me when you

found yourself in this mess? .

Eric s reply indicates that Mr. Burling was never close to his

son,

Because you re not the kind of chap a man could turn to

when he s in trouble .

Such a response indicates that things aren t going to improve

much after the play ends, and also indicates that there may be

a bad family relationship.

Sheila is Mr. Burling and Mrs. Burling s daughter, and is

engaged to Gerald, Burling s rival. Sheila has a totally different

attitude to Burling, and we see this emphasized as the play

progresses. She is very happy with life at the beginning of the

play, young, and attractive. Although her happiness is about to

be destroyed, as in her faith in her family. Her response to the

tragedy is one of the few encouraging things, which I think,

came out of the play. She is genuinely upset with the death of

Eva/Daisy, and learns from her actions, unlike Burling. Not only

she admits her faults and it seems as though see takes too

much guilt on her shoulders, but seems keen and anxious to

change her behavior in the future,

I ll never do it again she exclaims.

I think Sheila is aware of the mystery surrounding the

inspector, yet realizes there is no point in hiding the facts from

him, which is also a totally different attitude to Burling,

because Burling seems to think he can hide the facts, and it will

be okay, but Sheila, unlike Burling is not bothered about

impairing her reputation, she is only bothered about the

suicide.

Sheila is amazed that her parents have not learned anything

from the episode, and thinks that even though the inspector

may be a hoax, I think she is convinced that her parents

behaved in an entirely unsuitable manner, the way they were

hiding facts, etc. Eric agrees with her, and is like Sheila in many

ways. For example, Eric is also amazed that their parents have

not learned anything in the episode.

Sheila s family have tried to block knowledge of everything

that is unpleasant in life, but Sheila respects the truth and her

parents don t know that she has more knowledge of

unpleasant things that happen, and sometimes even more

than her parents, e.g.., Eric s Drinking. At the start of the play,

Sheila is selfish, moody and has a bad temper, which she may

get from her father. So at the beginning, Sheila is rather like

her father, but she cannot see this. One day, her bad temper

goes too far because Mrs. Burling says her dress does not suit

her, and Sheila unleashes her anger on Eva/Daisy, resulting

her getting sacked from the fashion store. I think she regrets

this later on, when she changes, and sees how ill tempered

and selfish she was, but makes no attempt to do anything

about it.

Sheila does realize, in the end, the harm she has caused, and

still wonders why her parents cannot see what they have

done. Although the inspector does turn out to be a hoax, her

parents seem to carry on as normal, especially Arthur, because

he is just happy that the scandal will not get out, thus Arthur

loosing his Knighthood, but, Eric and Sheila will probably never

be the same again, as they have learned what they have done.

There are a couple of comparisons between these two

people, e.g., Arthur being selfish, and Sheila being selfish (at

the beginning of the story) but overall, these are two very

different people, the way they turn out in the end, and even

the beginning when they are a little like each other.

I did enjoy this book, although I think there should tell more

about what the inspector actually is, instead of leaving it in

suspense, but it cant really be suspense because it doesn t

ever tell you what he is, because it is the end of the story, and

suspense is where you really want to know what it is, but it will

tell you in the end. I think suspense at the end of a story is not

good, because it puts a bad ending for the story, because you

really want to know the end, or something.