Which techniques are used to depict Birling in 'An Inspector Calls'?

At the opening of the play dramatic irony is used to depict Birling as someone out of touch and idiotic in his views. Dramatic irony is when the audience knows something that the character(s) don't. The play is set in 1912 but was written in 1946. Birling talks about the Titanic and how it is a marvelous bit of engineering except the audience would all know how the Titanic sank! Then Birling dismisses the possibility of a war breaking out in Europe except the audience would know not only did war break out in 1914 but it was The Great War where hundreds of thousands of men died needlessly PLUS WW2 had just ended! Birling is being made to look foolish here - a man who thinks he knows it all but doesn't.