#eric birling

[artocelot]

JB Priestley didn’t die for Geric to be the top inspector calls ship on AO3 send post

[damned-juggernaut]

gcses started this week (my first exam is tomorrow), and during a computer lesson, in which all of my coursework is done, i searched up 'were Gerald Croft and Eric Birling Gay', and AO3 was the first result...

I am not sure, if I should bemore surprised at "squiffy twink", or at the fact that my school bans reddit, but you can still get on AO3...

[origami-butterfly]

Geric (Gerald Croft x Eric Birling) is possibly my only ship where:

It is not healthy for anyone involved

Gay sex does not fix the situation, it would make it worse, but it's probably the only positive outcome

I hate the characters individually, because they are cunts, but somehow enjoy the ship

They have both shagged the same woman, and also one was engaged to the other's sibling

[thatoneweirdo14]

Writing hate fics (geric) to spite my english lit exam coming up

[unsuspicious-nobody]

I type 4 Eva on the groupchat and they think I mean forever when I actually mean for Eva Smith from an inspector calls who deserves better

[windlass-abbey]

That One Time I Wrote A Geric Titanic AU To Practise For GCSE English Language

https://archiveofourown.org/works/56133613

literally what it says on the tin.

An almost word-to-word transcription of my Eric Birling x Gerald Croft from J.B. Priestley’s An Inspector Calls (a text studied in GCSE English Literature) from my old notebook. But they’re dying/have died on the Titanic.

Apologies for no actual on-screen Geric, I was doing it in timed conditions and appeared to have run out of time before any good Geric could be added in beyond subtext ;-;

hope you enjoy! (especially any former/current GCSE students who are reading geric as a coping mechanism - it’s okay, we’ve all been there)

[an-inspector-balls]

Followers are having a party, first posts in like 5 months-🦌

[krunchycrispy]

Why I would direct every character in a An Inspector Calls play to wear red and what it would represent in key scenes

For a quick breakdown, I’ll explain who these characters are in this 1912 setting in the order the plot is revealed.

Eva Smith: a young working class girl who committed suicide after many encounters that broke down her life. She is never shown, but she is arguably the most important character in the play.

Mr Birling: A middle class man who owns a factory line. He hires women in particular because he knows he can pay them less. He started this chain reaction leading to Eva’s death when he fired her for being one of the key leaders in a strike to get him to pay his workers an extra 2 pounds. Upon learning his involvement in Eva’s death, he rejected his responsibility.

Sheila Birling: a young woman and the eldest of the Birling children. She is engaged to Gerald and while she is used to the expectations she would have as a woman, she is portrayed to stray away from those ideals slightly, especially by the end of the play were she insists that change is needed. She went to a clothing shop Eva worked at after being fired by Mr Birling. Sheila tried on dress after it was modelled on Eva, and she was jealous of her (Eva’s) beauty. Feeling overwhelmed, Sheila insisted that the manager fired Eva when she thought she was being laughed at for trying on the dress. When learning of her involvement in Eva’s death, she was distraught and took the responsibility on immediately.

Gerald Croft: A higher class man from old money, and Sheila’s fiancée. He had met Eva when she was on her last penny and under a new name, and housed her for a while. It evolved into him having an affair, whether or not Eva knew he was taken is left unanswered. But she was in love with him and when he cut ties her heart was broken. When discovering his involvement, Gerald was also distraught that she was dead. When it looks like he goes out on a walk and will take responsibility, the next time we see him he has a theory that nobody died and they were all interacting with different girls. So in the end he hasn’t changed.

Mrs Birling: Mr Birling’s wife (obviously). She is as old fashioned as her husband, but she is one of the runners of a charity to help women in need. When Eva came to her with a pregnancy under a new name, the younger woman claimed to be a Mrs Birlin. The real Mrs Birling was immediately biased and turned her away knowing her position. Not only that, but she reached out to other charities just so Eva couldn’t get any help at all. When learning of her involvement, she immediately blames the rest of the cast, and mainly Eva and the father of the pregnancy. But it immediately turns on her.

Eric Birling: a young man who works at his father’s factory (in a higher up position). His relationship with his father isn’t the best, and he drinks a lot and even objects to Mr Birling’s views multiple times throughout the play. One night, he met Eva when he was drunk, and says he didn’t know what happened but he felt he did something he wasn’t proud of (this scene implies many things, but points strongly towards him SAing her). While they met a second time, Eva quickly found out she was pregnant. At the time pregnancy outside marriage was looked down upon, especially towards women. Eric tried to do the right thing, stealing money from his father’s office to support Eva, and even offering to marry her. She denied, recognising that he wasn’t yet mature enough to take on something so intense. When he learns of what he has done, he is angered by how his mother turned Eva and her pregnancy away, and he is angry at himself for not knowing what to do. Like Sheila, he takes responsibility and recognises society’s ways are flawed.

So the timeline for these events in Eva’s life are:

Fired by Mr Birling -> fired from her last job by Sheila -> met Gerald and got her heart broken -> met Eric and ended up pregnant -> went to Mrs Birling’s charity for women and got turned away. Then she ended her own life.

Now back to the red.

I want every character to have a form of red on them. While my research says 1912 fashion leaned more towards colours like salmon, greys, beige and blues, red is associated with evil and intense things, like blood and the devil, and the unusual colour against the more softer clothing would stand out to the audience. I’m looking at blood specifically because of Eva Smith’s suicide and how the cast all link into it.

Mr Birling could perhaps wear a red vest, Mrs Birling could wear a red accessory like a necklace or earrings. I want Sheila to have her engagement ring specifically to be red (more on that later). I’m thinking maybe Gerald has a red handkerchief sticking out of his pocket. Perhaps Eric has a red tie on, or even a red vest like his father. I want Sheila, Gerald and Eric in particular to have something easily removable. This is all to represent how they have Eva Smith/Daisy Renton’s blood on their hands, and how they are at guilt and to blame.

Priestley (the one who wrote the play) was a socialist, his experiences of living in the 1910’s and throughout the war into the 1940’s horrifying him of how everyone was pushed down by society’s way of living and the blatant sexism and classism. After WW2, Priestly knew he had a 1945 audience he could influence. He knew that after the war left everyone scared and wondering how to move on, he could communicate that everyone needs to abandon their old mindset.

He translates this through Mr and Mrs Birling, and their children/future son in law, Eric, Sheila, and Gerald. Why does this link to my choice of making them wear red? I mentioned I want the younger, and easier to influence generation to have their dashes of red to be easily removable to represent the change in mindset the younger generations of the 1940s were taking on after the war.

When Sheila gives Gerald their engagement ring back, and claims they’re not the innocents they thought they were, she displays maturity. She isn’t guiltless, but she is removing her red, Eva’s blood, and accepting she needs to take responsibility.

When Eric’s actor leaves the stage to take on a more disheveled appearance and show how rough the character feels, I want him to also remove his own red vest, showing that while he at first he meant to take responsibility for his actions with Eva and didn’t know how, he now knows he has to own up to it openly. He also takes off his dose of Eva’s blood as he takes the first step to redeem himself.

When Gerald leaves after his monologue due to how distressed he is, I want him to remove the red handkerchief to wipe at his face. Maybe sweat or tears. I want the audience to think that when he returns, the red will be gone and he will take responsibility like his monologue led him up to. But when he bursts in at the end of the play to proclaim his theory that it all doesn’t matter, and they haven’t driven a girl to end herself and that makes their past actions okay, the red is still there. Maybe tightly gripped in his hand to show that he is still holding onto the belief he shouldn’t be held accountable. He cheated on Sheila, he broke the heart of two women. But he still tries to give Sheila her bloody engagement ring back, to tell her that her actions also don’t matter. The younger generation is slowly changing their ideals, but there is still a lot to do.

Mr and Mrs Birling insist their innocence to it all throughout the entire play. They are still holding onto their more corrupted views, and refuse to change a single thing, so they don’t take any of their red aspects off.

That concludes my choice in costume design. Thank you for taking the time to read this and I hope you enjoyed my rambling about potential tiny details :)

[deschainartnerd]

The fact remains:

I did what I did

Mother did what she did

The rest of you did what you did to her

[thecolebrothers]

Finn Cole as Eric Birling in An Inspector Calls.

[ship-of-skitties]

kieran pokemon is so eric birling core

[aninspectorcalls]

TAGS

My organisation. Look at me go. As you can tell I am so unbelievably on top of things.

ACTS:

Act One | Act Two | Act Three

CHARACTERS:

Inspector Goole | The Birlings/Gerald | Arthur Birling | Sybil Birling | Sheila Birling | Eric Birling | Gerald Croft | Eva Smith/Daisy Renton | Edna

THEMES:

Capitalism | Socialism | Capitalism v Socialism | The Class System |Women in Ed. England | Treatment of the Working Class | The Younger Generation/Hope For Social Reform | Family Dynamics Within the Birlings

GOOLE:

Socialism (Priestley's mouthpiece) | Power

BIRLING:

Symbolic of Middle-Class Capitalism | Symbolic of the Upper-Middle Class | Uncaring and Apathetic to the Issues of the Working Class

SHEILA:

Symbolic of Hope for Social Reform | Naive and Sheltered | Remorseful and Sympathetic | An Edwardian (Upper-Middle Class) Woman

MRS B:

Symbolic of the Issues in the Upper Class | An Edwardian (Upper Class) Woman | An Uncaring Mother | Uncaring and Apathetic to the Issues of the Working Class

ERIC:

GERALD:

EVA/DAISY:

Symbolic of the Working Class | Exploited and Disadvantaged | A Character to be Sympathised With | An Edwardian (Working Class) Woman

EDNA:

Symbolic of the Working Class | An Edwardian (Working Class) Woman

EXTRAS:

Stage directions | Set/Lighting | Dramatic Irony

[rambling-idi0t]

If Sheila Birling has a million fans, then I am one of them. If Sheila Birling has ten fans, then I am one of them. If Sheila Birling has only one fan then that is me. If Sheila Birling has no fans, then that means I am no longer on earth. If the world is against Sheila Birling , then I am against the world.

[origami-butterfly]

Hello GCSE tumblr, I had an aic essay today, so I made vocabulary bingo cards to make up for the fact it was an absolute shitshow!

[nonbinary-sticks-the-badger]

thinking of making sonic aus of an inspector calls, macbeth, a christmas carol and a couple of poems literally just so that i remember the quotes better for english but also i dont wanna do that because i dont want blorbo from my shows to be a rapist.

[poppletonink]

Resources For People Studying 'An Inspector Calls'

Videos:

Mr Bruff's Analysis Videos

An Inspector Calls in 5 Minutes

Articles:

Plot Summary

Characters

Themes

Form, Structure and Language

Dramatization

Sample Exam Question

Podcast Episodes:

Act 1

Act 1 Key Quotes

Act 2

Act 2 Key Quotes

Act 3

Act 3 Key Quotes

Structure and Chronology

Setting, Lighting and Dramatic Irony

Character Analysis: Sheila

Sheila Key Quotes

Character Analysis: The Inspector

Character Analysis: Mr Birling

Mr Birling Key Quotes

Character Analysis: Eva Smith

Character Analysis: Mrs Birling

Mrs Birling Key Quotes

Character Analysis: Gerald Croft

Gerald Key Quotes

Character Analysis: Eric

Eric Key Quotes

Mr Birling and Pride

Themes: Class

Themes: Responsibility

Themes: Gender

Attitudes To Women

Blame and Responsibility

Socialism VS Capitalism

Abuse of Power and Corruption

Social Class and Inequality