Alienation from society Free Essay Example, 1750 words

Dont worry† (297). This suggests that he does not care about the hardships faced by the working class people, which was common for people of the upper class during that time. Mr. Birling does not take the laborers seriously at all. People of the upper class were also selfish. Priestley portrays Mr. Birling as being selfish: â€Å"We employers [Mr. Birling] at last are coming together to see that our interest---and the interests of Capital---are properly protected† (297). The â€Å"interest of capital† is the most important thing to most of the people of the upper class and they do not care about the well-being / interest of other people beyond their own family. Mrs. Birling also portrays characteristics of the upper class as she discriminates against the lower class people: â€Å"I dont suppose for a moment that we can understand why the girl committed suicide. Girls of that class--† (316). Mrs. Birling does not sympathize with Evas death because she belie ves it is impossible to understand â€Å"girls of that class†. As a member of the upper class Mrs. Birling believes that she is somehow superior to others, where as the lower class citizens are inferior creatures. We will write a custom essay sample on Alienation from society or any topic specifically for you Only $17.96 $11.86/pageorder now This kind of attitude is what leads to an onset of alienation between Mr. and Mrs. Birling from the rest of society. Ironically they do not even know that they are alienating themselves from society due to the fact that they are unconsciously alienating themselves from society/lower class people because of the social norm of the upper class during the early twentieth-century. The social conventions of that time also led to alienation from ones own family members. During the beginning of the play, both Mr. and Mrs. Birling believed that they understand their son, Eric, however after the inspector left the house they finally realize that their family was dysfunctional and that they have been alienated from their son for all these times. â€Å"When Eric goes for a whisky his whole manner of handling the decanter and then the drink shows his familiarity with quick heavy drinking. The others watch him narrowly† (333). The fact that the Birlings are outrageously shocked at how Eric is so familiar with handling alcohol reveals that the Birlings have little understanding towards Eric. They never knew that Eric was a heavy drinker as Mr. Birling commented that â€Å"[he] understand[s] a lot of things now [he] didnt understand before† (333). The reason why Mr. and Mrs. Birling are so blinded is because they fail to understand the problems that are present to them.