While Sheila, Sybil and Arthur use their status and power to oppress Eva, Gerald, and Eric’s conduct towards her represents a double betrayal because it involved the additional subjugation of her person. In 1912, women of all classes were raised to embody modesty and society took an extremely dim view of female promiscuity. Nonetheless, there was no shortage of sex for sale in the uptight post-Victorian era and it was comfortably acceptable for upper class men to court and seduce willing women in places like 'The Palace Bar', shielded by a conspiracy of silence. What happens at the local gin joint, stays there etc. Both men took physical advantage of Eva because they happened upon her in their local, but it seems that it was the prettiness of her as mentioned by most of the characters that made her ‘seem out of place’ and left her particularly vulnerable to attack. Both Gerald and Eric decry the repugnance of the world-weary prostitutes at the bar calling them ‘fat, old tarts’ and ‘hard eyed dough faced women’. Eva represented a butterfly instead of a moth to pick the wings off; she was someone enviable to play with, to soothe their insecurities and fuel their egos. A ‘good sport’. Never mind that she had troubles of her own. Eva’s presence at The Palace Bar made her fair game in their eyes and they both took full advantage. The only major difference was that Gerald asked for her love, while Eric took it by force.
It was not part of Priestley’s intention to dwell on Eric’s sexual assault of Eva Smith. Although it is rightly a matter that outrages modern audiences, a contemporary one would not have thought it particularly odd, and no character expresses any particular concern in that regard. Arthur’s exasperated ‘So you had to go to bed with her!’ seems more out of concern for his lack of judgement, than any deemed immorality on Eric’s part. Eric got drunk and made it very difficult for her to turn him down, so she relented. Twice. But, since he readily admits to being in a ‘state when a chap easily turns nasty’, it can be assumed that even he does not romanticise their encounter. Technically though, he absolutely did rape Eva. Voluntary intoxication is a risky defence – and never a complete one. It was then and it is now. What has changed in the century since An Inspector Calls was set is attitudes in society as to what actually constitutes a rape.
In 1912, the circumstances that defined the ‘felony’ of rape were both subjective and prejudicial and had more to do with social consequences than the emotional impact on the victim. For example, in most instances, rape could not take place if there was no evidence of a struggle or physical injury and an allegation would not be deemed ‘rape’ per se, if the assailant was known to the victim, so a husband, friend or acquaintance would not generally fit the mould of an attacker. The victim’s chastity would also be taken into consideration and the gravity of an offence tended to be bound up with matters of honour, questions of paternity (if pregnancy resulted) and how it affected a woman’s marriage prospects – if at all. As you might expect in a patriarchy, it all came down to a perceived loss of ‘value’ in the victim. As ‘cheap labour’, Eva had little or no value in society at all. So, when Eric states that he was ‘in a state where a chap can easily turn nasty’, he collectivises his absolution. He doesn’t refer to himself as an individual but essentially hides behind the conventions of high society as a whole. ‘Chaps’ who were drunk and refused sexual gratification, couldn’t be blamed for taking what they wanted and that was just the way it was.
Calling Eric’s conduct ‘rape’ therefore is anachronistic and unhelpful. Priestley was making a point about his lack of social responsibility rather than labelling him as a sex offender. Much more is made of his theft of money from his father’s company than his repeated stalking and assaulting of Eva Smith. In the eyes of society, Eric’s deceptive, unfilial betrayal was more reprehensible to his parents than his conduct regarding ‘that girl’, who it was assumed naturally possessed thoroughly loose morals on account of her low class. Eva’s pregnancy was also a huge source of shame for the Birlings, not so much because he forced himself on and impregnated a woman, but because the existence of her child would endanger the family’s social mobility on many levels and particularly in terms of Eric’s marriageability, Sheila’s engagement, Sybil’s Committee and Arthur’s knighthood. It was all about them.
The parallels between the behaviour of both Gerald and Eric must be deliberate. Both admit they didn’t love her. Both make much of her beauty (virtually all of the characters do) and Eric labels her ‘a good sport’ implying that she was not only complicit, but a thoroughly willing participant in his misbehaviour. The term ‘good sport’ carries with it the idea that casual sex was nothing more than a game for rich, upper-class boys. Something to ‘do’ in your spare time along with drinking and wasting money. The fact that both men should have been able to see the damage their actions would cause to someone in Eva’s position indicates the sheer lack of importance afforded to poor women of the time. She was ‘pretty and warm-hearted and intensely grateful’. What hot blooded man about town could resist?
Of all the awkward lines in An Inspector Calls, the most squirm-worthy is when Gerald attributes his brazen abuse of Eva to her being ‘intensely grateful’. If ever there was a reason to take against a character at the stroke of a pen, claiming she was ‘intensely grateful’ does very nicely indeed. And therefore, when the Inspector seemingly lets Gerald off the hook among his final lines with “I don’t think any of you will forget. Nor that young man, Croft, though he at least had some affection for her and made her happy for a time” it does seem out of place and out of character. Yes! He took advantage of and discarded Eva knowing that she adored him - but he did a sterling job in the face of all that intense gratitude. Poor boy!
Curiously, the Inspector’s comment represents the only time in the play where he seems to purposefully relent in his moral battering of the Birling household. Although he acknowledges and accepts Sheila’s contrition, the softening of his brittle manner towards her does not manifest itself in many actual words. Yet, when it comes to his morally dubious treatment of Eva, Gerald appears to receive an actual verbal pass - and he’s not even there to hear it.
Perhaps Gerald’s behaviour towards Eva was more misogynistic and insidious than Priestley was prepared to admit to – if he acknowledged it at all. A fair few anglo-saxon attitudes still pervaded British society in 1945, no matter how liberated people considered themselves in the wake of World War II. In modern terms, Priestley could be described as a bit of a player. He married three times during which he had a number of barely concealed extra-marital affairs, Writing in 1972, Priestley described himself as 'lusty' and as one who has 'enjoyed the physical relations with the sexes…without the feelings of guilt which seems to disturb some of my distinguished colleagues' which demonstrates that, whatever his politics, Priestley was possessed of a certain moral flexibility when it came to love and the fact that the Inspector appears to go easy on Gerald at the end of the play may reflect his more liberal views in this regard.
Priestley makes much of the fact that Eva chose to reciprocate Gerald’s affection and accepted her eviction without a fuss, hinting that a degree of equality existed between her and Gerald and that their love affair ended by the mutual assent of two realists who knew it was a good thing that couldn’t last. This is deceptive. Despite, their mutual attraction, Gerald held all the cards when it came to loving ‘Daisy’. He completely controlled her environment, her income and her emotions, and he gave her no choice when the end came. Eric might have violated Eva reprehensibly, twice, but Gerald’s conduct was arguably worse. Eva’s ‘fairy prince’ sustained his betrayal of her trust in a way that was calculated and sober. He ‘installed’ her in Charlie Brunswick’s nice little set of rooms, and you ‘install’ things to use them. Like white goods and wardrobes. They have a specific purpose that is almost entirely utilitarian. Gerald insists he didn’t give her shelter ‘to make love to her’. Well what, the audience might ask, did he install her there for? It doesn’t bear the weight of scrutiny to think that he gave her somewhere he had complete control of for six months for polite conversation and the odd round of Bridge. This use of the twee phrase ‘nice little’ is repeated elsewhere in the play. The Inspector uses the words ‘nice little’ to describe Eva’s life before the Birlings weighed in like a bunch of wrecking balls. Gerald’s selfishness created for Eva the illusion of her former normal ‘little’ life of peace and security, and she could be forgiven for allowing herself to enjoy it. But it came at an awful price. The Inspector notes that, after their affair, she finally lost all sense of who she was and it is possible that, for her, Gerald’s callousness was the tipping point of no return.
Portrayed in the first instance as a bystander to events, Gerald Croft is gradually revealed to be one of the true villains of the piece to thrilling effect. His affair with Eva is revealed to the audience as a cliff hanger to the end of Act One as a stark indicator to the audience that An Inspector Calls is to be no gentle comedy of manners. The recklessness of his attitude is revealed where he candidly discloses that he “became at once the most important person in her life – you understand?” This confession demonstrates how much Gerald only cared about his own needs. He clearly relished his power with this arrogant acknowledgment of her total dependence on him, and it is this shameless self-importance that instantly unveils the patriarchal misogynist that he hides underneath a thin veneer of charm. Gerald does acknowledge some scruples for his actions as he casts about for the empathy of the audience with ‘you understand?’ but his plaintive tone smacks more of self-pity than contrition, laying bare a natural tendency to deflect blame away from his own behaviour and make excuses for himself.
He trots out a series reasons why Eva – or ‘Daisy’ as he knew her - apparently lured him in with her virtue and tellingly drops the ‘nice guy’ act when confronted by Sheila, becoming petulant and heavy-handed when she rightly demands an explanation. His denial of fault, and his hand in investigating the veracity of the Inspector’s claims with a view to exonerating The Birlings, exhibits precisely the kind of immature and immoral behaviour you would expect from a ‘man about town’ who spends his spare time in the company of prostitutes and rich drunks. Indeed, his behaviour was entirely typical of upper-class men in Edwardian society which was riddled with inequality and double-standards between the sexes. Outlets like The Palace Bar were liberally supplied for the pleasure of outwardly respectable men like Gerald, Eric, and Alderman Meggarty to prey on working class women who had little choice other than selective charitable committees and the streets, making being ‘wedged’ into dark corners by men who had a duty to be their protectors, seem like the only viable option for survival.
Even a contemporary monarch, Edward VII (1901 - 1910), was famous for frequenting Paris brothels (his favourite was the Le Chabonais where he had his own permanent suite of rooms complete with his Royal crest over the four-poster bed). He commissioned the design of a ‘love chair’ that enabled the portly, ageing lech to pleasure (and be pleasured) by more than one woman at a time and was the first member of the British Royal Family to be named as a third party in proceedings for a scandalous divorce. Many men of the upper and ruling classes were hypocritical, shameless womanisers who liberally took advantage of the working classes whenever the opportunity arose resulting in a breakdown of the moral fibre of society that appeared to outrage Priestley. Seen in this light, Gerald could be construed as the ‘Eric’ of his own family. He likes a drink and never expresses an opinion on anything important, choosing instead to simply agree with his future father-in-law who is too busy being impressed by Gerald’s status to notice how vapid and insubstantial he actually is.
Ironically, Birling’s own sense of patriarchal pomposity blinds him to the fact that Gerald displays the same kind of ignorant waster traits he roundly criticises his own son for. Gerald is so dim he doesn’t even seem to understand the significance of Birling sourcing the same port as Sir George Croft and even has the temerity to offer Sheila the ring back when they believe the whole thing is a hoax, revealing himself to be the worst kind of scoundrel. We can assume then the highly likelihood that he has been dispatched to marry as much money as possible from an inferior family who are socially desperate enough to overlook his shortcomings. Gerald may have been a second son and therefore not in line to inherit the title and empire of his father. Why - for example - does he not have his own ‘nice little set of rooms’? Could it be because Sir George and Lady Croft were putting financial pressure on him to make a ‘advantageous’ marriage to boost his stake in the family business and push him into some sort of responsible living? In revealing Gerald’s womanising and hypocrisy, Priestley appears to openly mock the smug and selfish posturing of the Birlings by making their ‘meal ticket’ yet another potential source of social ruin.
Both Eric and Gerald played a significant part in destroying Eva Smith. Eric took out his frustrations on her and Gerald saw her as an opportunity. Neither of them, it seems targeted her personally which reflects the Inspector’s point about how there are ‘millions and millions and millions of Eva Smiths’ at the mercy of hundred and hundreds of rich capitalists like these two young men. She could have been any one of them. Eva remains resolute in the eyes of the audience as a symbol of the oppressed, which is perhaps why she is not allowed to appear on stage to tell her own story. The fate of the individual is not Priestley’s point. It is the collective erosion of the values in society promoted by the upper levels of the patriarchy that he was interested in. Methodically, he gives each member of the family (Gerald included) a narrative that highlights a selection of societies’ greatest injustices which combine to create a ‘chain of events’ that securely binds the Birlings, making them all responsible. Gerald though must surely take the prize for the most sustained attack on her integrity, breaking her down over six months to the point where she lost all sense of herself and driving her back to the dark corners of Palace Bar to begin her final descent into suicidal despair.
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