In this deck, we will analyse Sybil Birling from J.B. Priestley's 'An Inspector Calls'. We'll explore how Priestley uses her as a symbol of the upper class's coldness, prejudice, and hypocrisy. You'll learn her key quotations, understand her refusal to accept responsibility, and see how dramatic irony is used to expose her cruel attitudes. By the end, you'll be able to construct a strong essay point about her character.

Sybil Birling is perhaps the most unsympathetic character in the play. She is described in the stage directions as 'a rather cold woman' and her husband's 'social superior'. This immediately establishes her as arrogant and obsessed with status. Throughout the play, she consistently looks down on people she considers to be of a lower class, and she shows no empathy for Eva Smith's situation. Priestley uses her to represent the entrenched, unchanging attitudes of the aristocracy that he believed needed to be swept away for a fairer society.

One of Mrs Birling's most revealing lines comes when she dismisses Eva Smith's story. She says, 'I don't suppose for a moment that we can understand why the girl committed suicide. Girls of that class...'. The phrase 'Girls of that class' is packed with prejudice. It shows she sees Eva not as an individual, but as a stereotype of a lower-class person who is morally inferior. In an exam, this quotation is powerful evidence of her ingrained class snobbery and her complete lack of empathy.