We watched this last night, my daughter studying this for her GCSE. I remember reading this when it came to my GCSE, and before I watched it, I did say it was quite left wing. it was a shock for my wife who was not expecting something so depressing but it did lead to some intersting discussions about the characters. I considered the issues raised by Arthur Birling to be that of the importance of unions and union laws to protect workers rights, a contempory example of how important this is being the way P&O sacked their workforce and replaced them with cheaper labour. My daughter also pointed out how women were treated as the factory paid women less than men would have been paid. To me, Sheila Birling showed how without workers rights that people could be fired on a whim, but also could be denied the refernces needed to get a new job afterwards. In the film, hunger is how the affair starts with Gerald Croft, and this is poignant when we consider how foodbank use has increased, this being before the increases in the cost of living thanks to fuel price increases and the rise in national insurance payments. My wife was not happy with how Sybil Birling acted, but in 1912, the charitable organisation that she ran would have had to make choices about who they could fund and who they could not. Being an unmarried mother had even more stigma then than it had in 1945 when play premiered in the Soviet Union, but even then, thanks to the numbers of unmarried mothers after the war, things started to slowly change. This raises the importance of the Welfare State in helping support those who have fallen on hard times considering the lack of help otherwise. Last of all, Eric Birling the rapist. He did not mean to be one, but the victim did not want to be raped, or fall pregant due to this. Both tried to be honourable afterwards, but only one faced and died due to the consequences. I consider Inspector Goole, after watching the film, to be the dead father, though I cannot recall what I felt in the past.
Even today, there is a view that the poor deserve to be poor and could have not been so if only they worked hard. This shows otherwise.
On a different note, my COVID symptoms are that of a cold. I did my work telephone calls this morning but now need to chill as I have run out of energy. My son has continued his isolation in his room. Hopefully he will not get this.
