Gerald essay from lol

At the beginning of the play Gerald presents himself as a gentlemanly, well- mannered “man about town”. Yet as the play unfolds so does the true persona of Gerald croft and we see his cunning, self-preserving attitudes and capitalistic views. However this part of him is not truly exposed until the inspectors interrogation and is keen in preventing himself from being incriminated into this “scandal”.
Gerald is a middle class citizen and a part of the very wealthy and respected Croft family, who is now marrying in to the Birling family; a family of a lower social status to his. This presents him primarily as quite a dignified young man who is truly in love with Sheila and “insist[s] upon being one of the family now”, as a man of such wealth would have no financial nor social gain from marrying lower down in the social ladder. However in reality he is much more calculating and perhaps more interested in the “Crofts and Billings no longer competing” but rather “working together for lower costs and higher prices” than he is his new fiancé Sheila. He presents this capitalistic self preserving view when describing “those hard-eyed dough-faced women” demonstrating his shallowness and contempt towards the lower classes.
Gerald can also be viewed as a compassionate character. Although he may have more self preserving motives towards his marriage with Sheila he is presented to be quite considerate and kind towards Daisy Renton, or Eva Smith, saving her from the disgusting “old Joe Meggarty” and only approaching her due to her glance at him that could only be a “cry for help”. Here his intentions seem to be quite sincere and in other times in the play seems to display the same sense of genuine concern for her: “I’ve suddenly realised...that she’s dead”. This non-superficial empathy for Eva Smith makes him far less detestable than other more arrogant characters like Mr Birling. By Priestly contrasting Gerald's more sincere reaction to her death and Mr and Mrs Billings indifferent reaction to her death makes the audience have sympathy him. The stage direction “distressed” also validates his concern for her rather than the entire speech being just a ploy for his own personal gain.
Gerald is often very evasive and uses is intellect and articulate vocabulary, as well as his social status to try and stay out of trouble. This is very current for the time the play is set in where people, often men, in high social positions use there status to avoid persecution. He is very often reluctant to tell the truth only giving pieces of information and a level of detail where he sees it suits him best: “Alright I knew her. lets leave it at that.” His refusal to tell the
truth hints at how reluctant the upper class are in taking responsibility for their actions and Gerald could be seen as a mouthpiece of Priestly’s attempt to make this point.
In order to dodge such responsibility he uses his artful, diplomatic, calculating disposition to find loopholes in his responsibility, resembling that of a lawyer, analysing all the information in order to predict an outcome that favours his own agenda. He leaves the house saying he must “just go out-walk about-for a while” In which he has his suspicions over the inspectors validity leading him to confirm that the police force has no officer named Goole. “There isn’t any such inspector” and it is he who realised that it may have not been the same girl :“but how did we know it’s the same girl” but a photo of different girls corresponding to each person. As a result of this he takes it as a triumph over this false inspector who had previously exposed him so much and returns to the house unchanged. This, as his last great act makes the audience far less sympathetic towards him. The speed at which he recovers his composure thinking they have just “been had” and wants to pretend that nothing happened represents his business like nature and his disregard for moral entanglement.
In conclusion Gerald is man who’s public image is that of a sophisticated, decorous, gentle boy who cares for those around him and especially his loving fiancé, Sheila. However in reality is a more cunning, narcissistic, ruling class citizen who by the end of the play has not gained a sense of social responsibility unlike Eric and Sheila and still fights to uphold his status. He is caught in the middle of the two generations however finally chooses the older, more self-idealistic generation due to his aristocratic ancestries and his necessity to keep the status quo in order to protect his own interests.