Gender Roles In J. B Priestley's An Inspector Calls

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An Inspector calls were written by J.B Priestly whom had added hidden meanings and ideas of the patriarchal society of how the divide of class and gender was shown. in the early 20th century everyone acted according to class, for example the Birling’s whom was upper class had looked down on the social class and women and men were expected to marry before they have children: only men were allowed to work and women had to stay at home go care for the children and the household those who did not keep these ideas were not accepted in society.
When we first meet the Birling family Sheila (the daughter) when she was having an engagement party as she had been recently been engaged to Gerald Croft. She is described as “a pretty girl in her early twenties, very Pleased with life and rather excited." This shows that she may be naïve and that it is quite unusual attitude in the patriarchal society. There are many ideas behind why she got engaged to Gerald this as it may be simply love but, some may argue …show more content…

This is shown when both Eric and Gerald had used her for sexual relations. When Gerald describes Eva as “very pretty-soft dark hair and brown eyes” gives me the impression that he only got to know Eva because of her looks and not because of her personality. It is also arguable that Gerald helped Eva as he was “I was sorry for her;" his shows that he may be just a good person for giving her a place to stay but it took at first when we was confronted by the inspector he kept it a secret for a while as he did not want Sheila to know or maybe because it would affect his place in class for having an affair. Eric also had a relationship with Eva when he met her he was drunk as "Oh - my God! - how stupid it all is!” this is giving me the impression that he is trying to avoid the fact that he had a responsibility and that he felt guilty for leaving Eva as she fell prevent with his

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