The play is set in an imaginary town called Brumley, somewhere in the North of England. Mr. Burling has a selfish attitude towards life, and also an attitude to only care for himself and family, and basically forget everybody else, in fact, this is exactly what he tells a speech on at the celebration of Sheila's and Gerald's engagement, "... a man has to look after himself - and his family too, of course..." which gives the impression of the selfishness, and also greed.
             Another example of this is when he tells a speech about how it is the best day of his life, "Gerald, I'm going to tell you frankly, without any pretenses, that your engagement with Sheila means a lot to me. She'll make you happy, and I'm sure you'll make her happy. Your just the type of son-in-law I wanted..." makes people think whether he wants them to get married for themselves, or for him, and whether it means a lot to him sentimentally, or a lot to him in the business world. Burling's first priority is to make money, "It's my duty to keep labour cost down" and is also a social climber, and Sheila is engaged to the son of his "friendly" rival, which is why it could mean a lot to him in the business world because Gerald's father is in a higher class than the Burling family.
             We can see that he is a man that tries to "make everything better" by using his money, "Look inspector, I'd give thousands...". I think this may be a "domineering" attitude, because he wants to dominate people, and do all he can to do it, which reflects on how he treats his employee's. In his factory, there is certain employees which ask for a pay rise, but Burling refuses to pay more than "the going rate". Burling can afford the pay rise, but returns by sacking one member of the "strike" pack, Eva/Daisy Smith. After this, Burling was blamed for sta...