Overview

A detailed Summary of Overview

The play is set in an imaginary town called Brumley, somewhere in the North of England. Mr. Burling has a selfish attitude towards life, and also an attitude to only care for himself and family, and basically 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 impression of the selfishness, and also greed.

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 themselves, or for him, 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 labour cost down" and is also a social climber, and Sheila is engaged to the son of his "friendly" rival, which is why it could mean a lot to him in the business world because Gerald's father is in a higher class t

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.

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.

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 L50 from Burliness office, he care

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Approximate Word count = 1319
Approximate Pages = 5 (250 words per page double spaced)

Category: English