Compare And Contrast Mr Birling And Sheila

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Sheila and Mrs Birling are from a same wealthy family, with the relationship of mother and daughter, but they have different in characteristic and attitudes throughout the novel, which show the contradiction in ideology of different generations. Right at the beginning of the play, during the engagement, Sheila and Mrs Birling have already shown contradict in their view of life. Mrs Birling advocated for Gerald when he excused for his absence for all of the last summer; “ When you are married you’ll realize that men with important work to do sometimes have to spend nearly all their time and money and business. You’ll have to get used to that, just as I had.” She revealed her conservative thought, that men can put their work at the top, needn't …show more content…

However, Sheila was not influenced by her parent’s characteristics, showing a big change in ideology in Britain’s society in the early 20th century. With Eric, Sheila represents for the younger generation, fresh and ambitious. They're emotional, curious about life that they’re about to experienced. That describes for the compassionate Sheila giving to Eva Smith: ”But they are not cheap labour, they are people.” Both of the girl might be the same age, but they’re born in different family and situation. One was born in a wealthy, upper class family, growing up with a silver spoon , the other born in the working class, growing up with misery that has followed her entire her life but there are no barrier that can stop the painful emotion to touch Sheila’s heart, showing how she cares about Eva, understanding her life, although she has never suffered from lacking of money, worried about how she gonna live on the next day. However, the Mrs Birling shows a complete opposite view towards Eva Smith’s condition, she gave a snobbish comment to Eva: “Girl of that class”; there are no understanding given to other people from other classes life by her, instead of that, all she thinks about them are just prejudices. She was the last one who can save Eva Smith from her miserably life that had been turned up and down for too many times, and she just coldly refused her proposal for help, showing the naive and ignorance characteristics of her, although she works for the charity organization, which the main objective is helping women in disadvantaged circumstances. She applied her prejudices on the girl, and her lack of moral mind had decided to refuse the proposal, assumes that the father of the child and the girl were the ones who are responsible regardless the circumstance , although

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