Daisy Renton
The most mysterious character in the play. Inspector Goole begins by telling Mr Birling that a girl named Eva Smith has killed herself, other characters claim to know different girls of different names, including “Daisy Renton” and even “Mrs Birling” who, the Inspector states are all the same person. However, the Inspector only shows Eva/Daisy’s photograph to one person at a time, causing Gerald to wonder, just before the play’s end, whether the Inspector has tricked the family into combining incidents involving separate girls into one.
Quotes
‘I became the most important person in her life’
‘I couldn’t remember her name or where she lived’
‘we’ve no proof it was the same photograph and therefore no proof it was the same girl’
‘She wouldn’t take any more [when she found out the money was stolen]’
‘Intensely grateful’
‘One Eva Smith has gone – but there are millions and millions and millions of Eva Smiths and John Smiths still left with us’
‘But these girls aren’t cheap labour – they’re people’
‘Lively good-looking girl’
‘young and fresh and charming’
‘Girls of that class-‘
‘Just cheap labour’
‘This girl, Eva Smith, was one of [the ring-leaders]’
‘Eva smith was a bit out of the ordinary’