AN INSPECTOR

CALLS

STUDY GUIDE

NOTES BY VERNON LACEY BA. MA.

Copyright © 2013 by Vernon Lacey.

ISBN-13: 978-1490574158
ISBN-10: 1490574158

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be

reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any
means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic
or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission
of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations
embodied in critical reviews and certain other non-
commercial uses permitted by copyright law such as for
academic purposes.

First Publication, August 2013

Photographs of J.B. Priestley and his birthplace by kind

permission of J.B. Priestley Archive, University of Bradford,
UK

Stills from the 1954 Guy Hamilton film of An Inspector Calls by

permission of STUDIOCANAL FILMS Ltd, 50 Marshall Street,
London. W1F 9BQ. UK

All quotations from An Inspector Calls reprinted by permission

of United Artists on behalf of: The Estate of J.B. Priestley.
United Agents. 12-26 Lexington Street. London. W1F 0LE. UK

2
 Preface
The study notes provide students with a comprehensive guide
to An Inspector Calls.

The notes include a biography of the writer, a summary of the

play, alternative interpretations, detailed character and scene -
by-scene analyses, and in-depth discussions of the historical
and social contexts. There are also sections on how to write
essays, two examples of student responses that achieved an
‘A’ grade with an examiner’s comments, typical questions,
and essays on three of the dominant themes of the play. All
the key quotations from the play are included and italicised for
quick reference.

The notes will help any student gain a comprehensive

understanding of the play and reflect current requirements of
all exam boards.

The stills from the Guy Hamilton 1954 film are a first in study
guides for An Inspector Calls and result from s special
collaboration with Studio Canal Films, London. In Chapter 6,
the scene analysis section, the images can be used as a
storyboard sequence to remind the reader of key moments in
the play. The student must remember that the film includes
scenes that the play refers to, but does not include such as Eva
Smith in Birling’s factory.

NOTE ON PAGE REFERENCES

The page references to An Inspector Calls are based on the

excellent Heinemann version of the play (see bibliography for
the ISBN). All quotations taken from this edition are done so
by kind permission of United Artists, London.

3
Dedication
The author would like to thank both Alison Cullingford at the
J.B. Priestley Archive, University of Bradford, UK, and
Massimo Moretti at Studio Canal Films, London, for their kind
help with providing the images for publication. Their patience
and assistance is much valued.

To all students. When confronted by the tyranny of the blank

page remember what JB Priestley said: ‘If you are a genius,
you'll make your own rules, but if not, go to your desk no matter
what your mood, face the icy challenge of the paper - write.’

To Dariusz O’Leary and Alison Burns at the European School

Munich. Thanks for facing the icy challenge and providing the
example student essays (pages 96-102).

4
 The Main Characters Appearing in
An Inspector Calls

The Inspector

Mr Birling Mrs Birling

Sheila Birling

Eric Birling

Gerald Croft
Stills from the 1954 Guy Hamilton film

5
 Contents
Chapter 1 JB Priestley Biography (pages 7-11)

Chapter 2 Summary of the Play (12-16)

Chapter 3 How to Read the Play (pages 17-22)

Chapter 4 The Social and Historical Context (pages 23-30)

Chapter 5 Character Analyses (pages 31-51)

Chapter 6 Detailed Scene Analyses (pages 52-90)

Chapter 7 How to Write a Good Essay (pages 91-95)

Chapter 8 Two Student Essays on the Play with Examiner’s

Commentary and Grades (pages 96-102). Dariusz
O’Leary and Alison Burns at the European School
Munich

Typical Questions (pages 103-105)

Chapter 9 Analysis of Three Key Themes (Social

Responsibility, The Plight of the Poor, Capitalism
versus Socialism) with Quick Reference Theme
List (pages 106-112).

Chapter 10 Useful Literary Terms (pages 113-115)

Bibliography and Web Sources for further reading page 116

6
7
 Chapter 1

Biography

JB Priestley 1894-1984

Cranks, Socialists, and Silly War Scares

In the play An Inspector Calls, the fictional Birling robustly

dismisses HG Wells and GB Shaw as cranks and socialists. His
condemnation is deeply ironic since they, like JB Priestley,
were ardent socialist writers who argued passionately for a
fairer society. In so creating Birling, Priestley also created his
ideological opposite. To trace the origins of Priestley’s
socialism we must first look to his upbringing.

Born on September 13th 1894 in

Manheim, a salubrious suburb of
Bradford in the north of England, JB
Priestley grew up in a liberal and
supportive home. He once described
his father as the man socialists had in
mind when they meant socialism. He
called him a most lovable man and was
a clear role model for the young boy.

In the Priestley home issues such as

Priestley’s Birthplace labour agitations, suffragism, and the
plight of England’s poor were regularly discussed with JB
Priestley encouraged to participate in the debates. When, after
a long absence, he visited his native city in 1933 on a tour of
England, the basis of travelogue English Journey, Priestley was
quick to focus on the women in the mills, their miserable long
hours and low pay. Twelve years later, struggling with hard-

8
ship and restricted worker rights, these women re-emerge in
the universal figure of Eva Smith in An Inspector Calls. Shaped
in his childhood, Priestley’s socialist instincts never left him.

Priestley’s decision not to go to university on leaving school

was unusual. He had attended Belle Vue Grammar School, a
highly regarded school in the city, and was the son of a school
headmaster. Priestley, however, had other ideas.

Bored with school and determined to become a writer,

Priestley took a job as a clerk in a local wool firm called Helm
and Company, a fitting enough place in a city once called the
wool capital of the world. His experience here between 1910
and 1914 provided him with the real life experience he wanted
in order to develop a literary career. With characteristic single-
mindedness he commented, I believed the world outside the
classroom would help me to become a writer.

When the First World War started in

1914 Priestley was nineteen. Typical
of the young men of the time, he was
convinced of his duty to serve and so
enlisted as an officer. In France he saw
active battle and was exposed to
great danger, narrowly escaping
a gas and mortar attack.

Years later Priestley talked

about his experience as part of
a collective, national pain – an
open wound as he called it, and
one made all the more painful
since the war, in his view,
resulted from a catastrophic
failure of leadership, a huge,
murderous public folly.

9
When from the comfort of his suburban home the fictional
Birling boasts - in 1912 - that talk of world conflict is no more
than ‘silly war scares’ the irony and gross ignorance of Birling’s
position takes on new and portentous meaning.

In 1919 Priestley finally went to university, choosing to study

literature, history and political science at Cambridge. Later, in
the 1920’s, Priestley worked hard at his writing and by the end
of the decade he published The Good Companions. The novel
was released in July and though at first the sales were slow, by
Christmas his publisher had resorted to using taxis to rush
copies to bookstores, so great was the demand. It was the
success Priestley longed for and marked a momentous start to
a career in which he published a prodigious twenty-six novels.
His approach was always practical, If you are a genius, you'll
make your own rules, but if not - and the odds are against it - go to
your desk no matter what your mood, face the icy challenge of the
paper - write.

Priestley was also a gifted radio presenter, playwright and

essayist. In 1940 he wrote and broadcast for BBC radio a series
of short Sunday evening programs called Postscripts. In them
he commented on the conditions of wartime such as the
evacuation of Dunkirk in early summer 1940. They were
highly topical broadcasts and Priestley’s skill in capturing the
mood of the nation, of presenting the war spirit, brought peak
audiences of up to sixteen million, a figure that only Churchill
could match.

As soon as the war ended An Inspector Calls appeared. For a

work of such lasting appeal and complexity it is astonishing
that Priestley finished the play in under a week. Its first
performances were in Moscow in 1945 where it appeared
simultaneously in two theatres, a result of Priestley not
finding for the 1945 season an available theatre in London.

Perhaps surprisingly for such an enduring play, An Inspector

10
Calls attracted some decidedly negative criticism. The critic
Lionel Hale, for example, called it pitiful and another, JC
Trewin, said that it was far too long. In Spain, especially in
Barcelona, it was, in contrast, a great success, una obra maestra,
a great work, as Perez Minik called it in the early 1950’s. In
1947 An Inspector Calls was performed on Broadway and at the
end of the decade in translation in Tehran. Whatever the
critics said about the play, its message has spread globally and
it has certainly stood the test of time.

In his later life Priestley served as a British delegate in

UNESCO (United Nations Educational Scientific Cultural
Organization) conferences. He was also a founding member of
CND (Counter Nuclear Demonstration), established in 1958.
When he was eighty-three the Queen conferred on him
membership to the Order of Merit in recognition of his life’s
achievements. Priestley died in 1984 aged eighty-nine in
Stratford Upon Avon, the birthplace of William Shakespeare.

11
 Chapter 2

Summary of the play

Act One
The play opens with a celebration of the engagement of Sheila
Birling to Gerald Croft. Sheila is the daughter of a self-made
businessman, Arthur Birling, and his upper class wife, Sybil;
and Gerald the son of the owner of a very successful and long-
established business, Crofts and Co.

Following the celebration meal, Mr Birling delivers a speech

about industrial progress, advances in science and
engineering, and the relationship between employers and
workers. In the speech he dismisses socialists as ‘cranks’ and
argues strongly for capitalism and the rights of the factory
owners. His speech is pompous and self-serving and his
materialistic view of life is made clear when he says that the
marriage will allow two business families to unite in the
common interest of gaining ‘lower costs and higher prices’.

The arrival of an inspector at the engagement party interrupts

the festive occasion. He introduces himself as Inspector Goole
and informs the family he has come to investigate the death of
a young woman who has committed suicide by drinking
disinfectant. The Inspector then goes on to inform the family
that the dead girl left a diary in which she referred to
members of the Birling family and for this reason he has called
at the house.

The Inspector conducts his investigation into the suicide by

showing each of the family members a photograph of the
dead woman, Eva Smith. He is insistent in only showing it to
one person at a time. Whereas some family members openly

12
recognize the dead woman, and some do not, it will later
become clear that each at different points met her.

The first person to see the photograph is Mr Birling who,

though vague about her name, recognizes Eva Smith
immediately. When the Inspector asks him questions, we learn
that Eva Smith was sacked from his factory for being a
ringleader of a group of women that went on strike for a
higher pay. His open admission that he knew Eva Smith is
then followed by a forceful rejection of the Inspector’s
suggestion that he did any wrong in sacking her. When
Gerald agrees with Mr Birling that factory owners have the
right to dismiss workers whenever they choose, we see that
the two men share a capitalist ideology. In contrast to this,
Birling’s children – Eric and Sheila – show sympathy for the
workers (Eric, Why shouldn’t they try for higher wages?’; Sheila
‘But these girls aren’t cheap labour – they’re people.’). These
differences of view become stronger as the play develops.

After Mr Birling, the Inspector questions Sheila during which

she admits that in a fit of jealous anger she ensured that Eva
Smith was sacked from her job at Milwards department store.
In order to ensure this she abused her position as a member of
a well-respected family that has an account at the store,
threatening to close the account if Eva Smith was not
dismissed.

When Gerald is informed that Eva Smith changed her name to

Daisy Renton he reveals, at least to Sheila through a sudden
repetition of her name, that he, too, knew the woman.
Although he tries to suppress his shock recognition at the
woman in the photograph, Sheila is not fooled and in a private
moment together, Sheila insists that Gerald tells the truth
about his connection with Eva Smith. The seeds are now sown
for the playwright to reveal both Gerald’s unfaithfulness
towards his fiancé and his influence on Eva Smith.

13
Act Two
Gerald now admits that he met Daisy Renton at the Palace
Theatre Bar and had an affair with her that lasted for six
months. Before Gerald leaves the house, Sheila shows that
although she is deeply hurt by his deceit, she respects his
honesty on this occasion. Both Arthur and Sybil Birling are
shocked by Gerald’s admission.

The Inspector then turns to Mrs Birling whom he identifies as

a member of The Brumley Women’s Charity Organization, a
charity for women in difficult situations. The Inspector reveals
that Eva Smith went to the charity for help, but was denied it
as a result of Mrs Birling’s intervention. Mrs Birling happened
to be the Chair of the meeting where Eva Smith’s case was
discussed and used her influence to convince the other
members that Eva Smith was lying about her difficult
situation, and that help should not be given. Unbeknown to
Mrs Birling, however, is that at the time she requested help
from the charity Eva Smith was pregnant with Eric’s child.

At the end of the act the Inspector plays his ace card. He leads
Mrs Birling into arguing that the father of the child, the
‘drunken young man’, should accept responsibility for
abandoning Eva Smith. Mrs Birling vehemently denies any
wrongdoing herself and argues that the father of the child
should not only be held responsible but be forced to make a
‘public confession’. As such, she unwittingly condemns her own
son Eric. Sheila is the first to realize the implications of her
mother’s ironic judgment and though she pleads with her
mother to try to understand, ‘don’t you see?’, it is too late.

14
Act Three
Eric now enters the room and in response to the Inspector’s
relentless questions he admits that he had sex with Eva Smith
and stole fifty pounds from his father to give to her. Eric also
discloses that he became violent towards Eva who relented in
allowing him into her home after he accompanied her there
from the Palace Bar. Eric comments, ‘I threatened to make a row’
and seems to blame drink, saying he was ‘in that state when a
chap turns nasty’. The threat of aggression in order to gain
sexual gratification is clear, and with it Eric’s failure greater.

Having abandoned Eva after his affair with her, Eric left her to
the terrible fate of a lone, pregnant working class woman in an
economically hostile and prejudiced world. On learning what
happened to Eva Smith afterwards, her attempt to seek help at
Brumley Women’s Charity Organization where his mother
presided, he breaks down, angrily accusing his mother of
causing the death of Eva Smith, ‘you killed her’, and along with
her, his unborn child.

At this point the family descends into accusations and

recriminations. In an attempt to escape the impact this will
have socially and publicly on the family, Mr Birling offers the
Inspector a huge amount of money, ‘thousands (over £300,000
in relation to average earnings in 2011). The Inspector turns on
him and condemns his attempt at bribery as yet another
example of his moral stupidity. For Birling, as we have seen
before, the issue is reduced to money and reputation.

The Inspector’s investigation is now over but before he leaves

he tells the family that no one individual is responsible for Eva
Smith’s death, but rather each person must accept some role in
causing it, ‘each of you helped to kill her.’ In his final speech, full
of urgency and warning, he argues that Eva Smith’s struggles
in life were far from isolated, ‘there are millions and millions and

15
millions of Eva Smiths and John Smiths.’ The Inspector also
argues a case for a fairer society, one not based on aggressive
individualism but one where people cooperate with one
another in a caring world, ‘We are members of one body, we are
responsible for one another.’

After the Inspector has gone, Gerald returns and argues that
the whole inspection was a ‘hoax’. He has spoken to a
policeman who informed him that there is no Mr Goole on the
local police force. Mr Birling then calls his acquaintance
Colonel Roberts, who informs him that this is the case. Gerald
goes on to argue that since the Inspector’s identity is false, the
story about the dead woman has no validity. When Gerald
calls the hospital to see if a young woman has committed
suicide he is informed that there have been no ‘suicides for
months.’

Convinced they are off the hook Gerald, Mrs Birling and Mr
Birling start to celebrate, their jubilant reactions contrasting
sharply with Eric and Sheila who believe there is still a lesson
to learn from what the Inspector has revealed about the
family.

The play then ends abruptly when Mr Birling takes a

telephone call informing him that a young woman has
committed suicide by swallowing disinfectant. To add to the
mysterious turn of events, he is also informed that an
Inspector is about to arrive to ask the family questions about
the death. He turns to the others, and by implication the
audience, and breaks the news and at the end of the play each
character is left dumbfounded.

16
 Chapter 3

How to Read the Play

The Inspector Has Triumphed Over Time

The Times, 2009

An Inspector Calls can be studied from different perspectives.

The following approaches, by no means to be seen in isolation
from each other, are key ways to read the play.

Social Protest

The social protest element forms the fabric of the whole play.
The Inspector is an embodiment of the writer’s ideals, a
vehicle for Priestley’s criticism of an unjust world where the
sharp divisions between the rich and the poor are both acute
and widespread. The lack of worker rights and a massive
underclass of female employees who toiled long hours, often
in dangerous conditions, were, for Priestley, an indictment on
the developed nation. In An Inspector Calls the writer takes
these issues and dramatizes a dire outcome in Eva Smith
whose life might easily have been saved if the Birlings and
Gerald had used their abundant resources and the ample
opportunities presented to them to help her.

The play condemns the arrogance of people like Mr Birling

and his hypocritical wife whose membership of a local charity
is used to illustrate her narrow understanding of the world
and her shallow grasp of charity. The social protest element
also relates to the idea of opportunities, the criticism of the
assumption of a meritocracy that assumes that opportunities
are available for all. Birling argues that a man ‘must look after
himself’, but the Inspector is quick to attack such aggressive
individualism, arguing the case for an equitable society based

17
on cooperation and fairness.

Perhaps the clearest and most cogent comment the Inspector

makes in respect of social protest comes right at the end.
Turning to the family members he warns of social collapse, a
profound deepening of problems. Having argued a case that
there are ‘millions and millions of Eva Smiths and John Smiths still
left with us, with their lives, their hopes fears, their suffering and
chance of happiness’, the Inspector then goes on to describe in
quasi-apocalyptic language the devastating future
consequences of ignorance and exploitation, ‘And I tell you, the
time will come when, if men will not learn that lesson, then they will
be taught it in fire and blood and anguish.’

Whodunit

Early critics of the play were quick to spot the ‘whodunit’,

detective format. An inspector arrives, questions a number of
people while the audience is held in suspense as surprising
details emerge and twist after twist is created, leading towards
a final revelation. This ‘whodunit’ element is certainly in the
play, but it is used to serve a dramatic purpose: the creation of
the foreboding and dominant presence of the Inspector, and a
series of dramatic revelations, rather than an overall, complete
design. An Inspector Calls is not concerned with crime per se,
with criminal law, but rather with moral and humanitarian
failure and in this sense the ‘whodunit’ element must be taken
flexibly, as a vehicle for Priestley’s wider aims.

Philosophical and Socio-political

When the play was performed in Spain in the early 1950’s it

met with widespread acclaim. However, references to strikes
and worker representation were omitted in performances in
Barcelona, such as when Eric Birling argues that women have
a right to fight for ‘higher wages’.

18
The dictator, Franco, who held power had declared strikes
illegal in Fascist Spain. In a country where workers were
under the heel of fascism, the play, with its message of
exploitation and injustice, suffered automatic censorship. This
theme of exploitation and conditions in industry points to a
key issue in the text: worker representation and the right to
bargain through industrial action. In essence An Inspector Calls
is a socio-political play.

The Spanish critics also saw the play as deeply philosophical,

presenting and confronting the audience with the debate
about the rights of individuals in democracies. When Birling
argues ‘it is a free country’, for example, and workers can go
wherever they like to find work, he is assuming that free
choice and dire economic hardship are somehow separate; an
assumption that the Inspector utterly rejects.

Spanish critics also saw this philosophical aspect in the debate

about crime and responsibility. Birling’s simplistic notions
about reputation, for example, ‘we are not criminals, we’re
respectable people’, are met with the Inspector’s immediate and
decisive rebuttal, ‘sometimes I wouldn’t know where to draw the
line’. His direct and pithy riposte points to a central
philosophical debate about the nature of crime, public image,
and the presumptions about wrongdoing in relation to
privilege.

The Role of Women in Society

Another aspect of the play is gender issues, embodied in the

deeply symbolic name - Eva Smith. Like Winston Smith in
Orwell’s 1984, Priestley used a resonant English surname to
suggest a representative type, a woman whose story,
undeniably individual as it is, represents a much wider
situation for women in the industrialised nation.

The play as Stephen Dawdry, the director of modern

19
adaptations of An Inspector Calls, has said, is very much about
the fate of single mothers. It raises questions about how
society treats them, how people abuse them, and in what ways
social structures legitimatize their exploitation. When the
Inspector says ‘there are millions and millions and millions of Eva
Smiths and John Smiths still left with us’ the idea about her
transcending particular restrictions is made absolutely clear.

One of the great ironies of the play is the way in which

Priestley makes the influence of Eva Smith more powerful by
her absence. Marginalised, exploited and abused, her story is
then used to confront others with the consequences of their
behaviour and their essential moral fibre.

For Gerald, Mr Birling and Mrs Birling, Eva Smith’s suicide

has little, if any, personal impact. Gerald, who initially seems
to have felt some sympathy is ultimately indifferent, Mr
Birling consistently arrogant, and Mrs Birling callous and self-
righteous. Such core values isolate and even protect them
from the realities of exploited women illustrating, in turn, the
corrosive nature of each.

The impact of what happened to Eva is registered at the level

of the Birling siblings, Eric and Sheila, as though in the new
generation social awareness is possible. How much this relates
particularly to women in work or to workers in general is
open to much debate; but clear echoes of women’s rights in
the workplace, discussed in detail in Chapter 4 on contexts,
show that An Inspector Calls can be fruitfully read as a play
about the rights and the role of women in society.

Marxism

The conflict between labour and capital can be read in Marxist

terms. Classical Marxism talks about the owners of the means of
production, in this case Mr Birling, and the proletariat, the ordi-
nary workers who are subject to gross exploitation, disenfran-

20
chised economically and politically, and are key issues that
provide an important perspective on the play.

Looking at the play in this way can be supported by the

writer’s own views and with how others saw him. It is very
interesting to note, for example, that in the 1940’s JB Priestley
said that pure Marxism had not been properly presented to
the public. Was this part of his purpose in the play?

Priestley’s interest in Marxism did not go unnoticed and a

surprising example of this is connected to George Orwell who,
working for the British government intelligence, placed
Priestley on a secret list of possible communist sympathisers.
Was Priestley’s brand of socialism far too left wing even for
Orwell, himself an ardent socialist, defender of free speech
and the downtrodden?

Modern productions of the play still invite powerful reactions

in relation to the political aspects of the play. Stephen
Dawdry’s 1992 Royal National Theatre production, for
example, drew extreme reaction in America. When one
associate producer, Julian Webber, was on tour with the play
in Texas he ended up in a fight with a theatregoer who
objected to what he saw as its communist message. As a
country with a long tradition of suspicions about communism
the reaction in America is hardly surprising. In contrast, as
Julian Braine points out, the play is well known for its
popularity behind the former iron curtain.

Mirror of Modern Times

The emptiness of individual lives, divorced from one another and turned
into existential nightmare

Dawdry’s 1990’s production came when Margaret Thatcher

had been in power for more than a decade. Her influence on
the political landscape was enormous. Her ideas about indi-

21
vidualism and meritocracy are very much like those of Birling.
In an interview with Woman’s Own she once argued that,
‘There is no such thing as society. There are individual men and
women, and there are families.’, a sentiment that Birling shares
when he dismisses the idea of ‘bees in a hive’, or ‘community and
all that nonsense.’

Dawdry’s particular production with its Alfred Hitchcock

style music to heighten suspense, the wasteland in the
settings, as if to suggest the emptiness of individual lives,
divorced from one another and turned into existential
nightmare, explored the socio-political aspect of the play in a
new context. This production is a world made from the radical
assertion of individuals over communities, and the producers
felt that Thatcher’s views were unacceptable. Such slants on
the play reveal that, at its core, An Inspector Calls is deeply
political and can only be fully understood as such.

Morality Play

Yet another way of looking at the play is to see it as a

twentieth-century version of a medieval morality play. These
plays were once performed open-air in town and city centres
all over England, where vice is held up and punished in the
context of a central source of moral authority, traditionally the
Church, and in this case the Inspector. Although the genre
conveyed simplistic notions of right and wrong in a society
dominated by the Church, it is nonetheless very interesting to
note how each of the seven deadly sins – lust, envy, gluttony,
sloth, covetousness, avarice and pride - all figure in the lives
of Gerald and the Birlings.

Conscious or not, the moral aspect is a fundamental part of

the play. The Inspector’s closing words ‘we are members of one
body’, reveal a final call for unity and cooperation in a viable
and shared ethical context.

22
 Chapter 4
The Social and Historical Context

Industrial England: Omelettes and Eggshells

An Inspector Calls is set in 1912, but events that happened in

the decades prior to this lie in the background of the whole
play.

In his brilliant travelogue English Journey (1933) Priestley

traces the roots of British industrial development in major
cities in England. During the Industrial Revolution towns and
cities grew rapidly as factory after factory was built to
produce goods, especially textiles, which were sold all around
the world. This unprecedented change in society with the
divisions and problems it brought, the rich becoming richer
and the poor more exploited than ever, is very much
Priestley’s focus. It was an age, Priestley said, that produced
omelettes for too few, and eggshells for too many.

Bradford for example, Priestley’s native city, grew from 13,000

to 280,000 between 1803 and 1901 as a result of rapid
industrial development. With this expansion slum housing,
dangerous factory conditions and an absence of key rights
were the norm for workers. London experienced similar
massive growth and social problems expanding in the same
period from a population of 958,000 to 4,140,000.

In the factories of 19th Century England industrial diseases

became commonplace. Flour and micro-fibres in textile mills,
for example, destroyed lungs and, in London in the
matchmaking factories, the euphemistically named phossy jaw,
or phosphorous necrosis, illustrated a cynical exploitation of
workers. The disease took its name from how workers
through exposure to white or ‘yellow’ phosphor, a known

23
health hazard, developed the horrifying disease.

Phosphorous necrosis typically began with terrible toothaches,

excruciating pain in the jaw and swollen and inflamed gums.
As it developed it attacked the bones in the jaw and often
caused brain damage. Once it took hold there was only one
remedy: the surgical removal of the jaw. This incredibly
painful process left the patient permanently disabled and able
only to gain nutrition by taking liquid foods.

When William Booth, a socialist and the founder of the

Salvation Army, heard about this he decided to set up a
matchmaking enterprise in Bow, east London, using the much
safer red phosphor. He also attempted to empower women
who became sellers of the matches, fittingly called Lights in
Darkest England. Salvation Army campaigns to sell them in
War Cry, its official publication, and asking retailers to change
to safer red phosphor matches also had some success.

The London Match girl’s Strike of 1888 at the Bryant and May
factory underlines the appalling conditions for many women
workers whose struggle for better conditions is evident in An
Inspector Calls.

A cocktail of poor pay, fourteen-hour days, excessive and

arbitrary fines, and the horrifying phossy jaw created a potent
atmosphere of discontent and when one of the women was
sacked the reaction was immediate. At the end of the first day
hundreds of women were on strike.

In her account, Striking A Light, Louise Raw argues that the

matchmakers’ strike at Bryant & May influenced the Dockers’
strike. Although this strike with its male workforce is often
seen as the beginnings of collective industrial action, a united
body of female matchmakers had already set a precedent the
year before.

24
Raw calls this the beginnings of gender class-consciousness, a
new development in England’s labour market. The links to An
Inspector Calls are clear: the exploitation of women;
determined factory owners; and an attempt by women to gain
better conditions.

A New Gender Politics

Issues of women in work leads to a key aspect of the age in

which An Inspector Calls is set (1912): gender politics. Two
important figures emerged: Emmeline Pankhurst (1858-1928)
and Isabella Ford (1855–1924), both of whom fought
passionately for social justice, enfranchisement and female
suffrage (the right to vote).

As leading suffragists they played a key role in arguing for the

rights of women, a theme evident in both the Guy Hamilton
(1954) film of An Inspector Calls and in the play itself.

In the film we see it in the spirited but short-lived attempt, led

by Eva Smith, to secure higher wages. Standing in the office of
Mr Birling the issue of the rights of a group of women, mostly
silent as if to underline their powerlessness in the patriarchal
system, is memorably revealed. They are provided a cursory
hearing, a chance to speak that Eva Smith takes; but their
request for better pay is swiftly rejected and, as the ‘ringleader’,
Eva Smith soon pays the price with a summary sacking. Like
the products of the factory itself she is, in this world, no more
than a commodity.

In the play the story of Eva Smith’s attempt to secure better

wages is narrated solely through the Inspector, and responses
by the Birling siblings to his account are most revealing.
Where Sheila comments ‘You mustn’t try to build up a wall
between us and that girl’, and ‘these girls aren’t cheap labour,
they’re people’, Eric argues, ‘Why shouldn’t they try for higher

25
wages’. Both children reveal a capacity for social awareness
and so mark a line between themselves and their father. Like
the Inspector’s comment later, ‘There are a lot of young women
living that sort of existence in every city and town in the country’,
the comments echo the gender issues that leading figures of
the age pushed into the public arena, and point to the historic
conflict between labour and capital. Unlike the comments of
the Inspector, however, those of Eric and Sheila are academic,
even superficial, since both of them belong to a group of
privileged people who have, ultimately, failed Eva Smith.

This significant issue of rights, especially of female workers,

can also be found in Isabella Ford’s social activism. Like the
Priestleys, she was an ardent socialist and was brought up to
believe in the importance of humanitarian issues, values that
are embodied in the universal figure of social conscience, the
Inspector himself.

Encouraged by her mother, the young Isabella became

prominent early in the fight for the rights of women. She
became a leader, for example, in the tailoress’s strike in Leeds
in 1889 and played an active role in the Manningham Mills
dispute of 1890-91, marching with strikers in the very area
where the Priestley family later lived.

Isabella Ford was also a founder member of the Leeds

Independent Labour Party and contributed to, and spoke
regularly at, key organizations such as the Women’s Liberal
Federation, contributing leaflets and pamphlets. She embodies
a growing movement and consciousness about the rights of
women and the poor, the dominant issues on which An
Inspector Calls is based.

The Manningham Strike

The Manningham Strike in Bradford in the area where

Priestley grew up was a struggle between striking textile

26
workers and mill owners. It lasted for nearly nineteen weeks
from December 16th 1890 until April 27th 1891.

Both the workers and the factory owners were utterly

determined that the other side had to give in. It was called a
war of attrition, each side determined to wear down the
resources of the other, and its impact on British industrial
development was widespread.

The Manningham Mills were owned by Samuel Lister and,

with twenty-seven acres of floor space, the complex was the
largest silk factory in the world, approximately the space of
twenty-seven average-sized football pitches. Views from
vantage points across the city still show how the mill once
dominated the urban landscape. It was an industrial monster
devouring a thousand tons of coal a day. At the time of the
strike its workforce of eleven thousand toiled for long hours in
harsh conditions.

The Background to the Dispute

Overseas competition from emerging economies such as

Germany and the United States had certainly threatened the
textile industry and Lister’s response was to cut wages. Mr
Reixach, the mill manager, argued that the workers had been
paid ‘unnaturally high’ wages all along, and must accept that
market forces would mean a reduction in wages. This conflict,
springing from wages and labour, is reflected in Mr Birling’s
defence of his treatment of Eva Smith and how he dealt with
wage demands in his factory.

Although processions became a weekly event in Bradford and

support for the strikers was widespread, the position of the
owners did not change. In April 1891, realizing that they could
not win, the workers returned to work.

Although the outcome for the workers was negative, the real

27
impact of the strike is best seen in its legacy. As most of the
strikers were women the Manningham dispute illustrated, like
the matchmakers’ strike in London, that women were
prepared to undertake collective militant action. In this
context the struggle of the women in Birling’s factory is very
much part of this wider movement.

Another development was a surge in trade union

membership. This led naturally to the formation of the
Bradford Labour Union and, also in Bradford, in 1893, the
Independent Labour Party. This is the environment in which
Priestley grew up, the spirit of the age: fully aware of the
labour issues, the plight of the poor, the struggle of female
workers and the formation of parties that sprang from
unionism and the representation of the poor.

Edwardian England and the Social Context

The play is set in 1912 in the home of the Birlings who live in a
‘large suburban house’ in Brumley, an industrial city near
Birmingham. The house represents the privileges enjoyed by
Mr Birling, a prosperous businessman. Married to Sybil
Birling, a symbol of the upper class, it is clear that he
represents a different social level, the nouveau riche. If Arthur
Birling embodies the entrepreneur, the new industrialists who
were ‘self-made’, rich and successful, Mrs Birling represents an
old established social order with very different social
expectations of behaviour and presumptions of wealth and
social position.

Part of the responsibility of privileged women in Edwardian

England sprang from notions of public duty, an idea rooted in
Victorian constructs of public endeavours. In its purest form
these endeavours involved philanthropic ventures and self-
sacrifice such as with the Jebb sisters who founded Save the
Children (1919), and Vera Brittain, an upper-class woman who
cut short her undergraduate studies at Oxford to work as a

28
nurse in France during WWI. An Inspector Calls presents these
noble ideas in corrupted form: through the satirical portrayal
of Mrs Birling whose public duty, her membership of a local
women’s charity, is invalidated by hypocrisy.

The privileges enjoyed by the Birlings stand in stark contrast

to the experience of Eva Smith who can barely survive on the
wages she receives. Her symbolic Christian name suggests the
corrupted innocence of Eve in the story of the Garden of Eden,
whilst her surname, one of the most common names in
England, suggests she represents many: the match workers in
London, for example; the millworker in Bradford; or the
tailoresses in Leeds.

The fictional name of the play, Brumley, a conglomeration of

industrial towns all over England (Birmingham, Bradford, and
Bramley in Leeds for example) serves to illustrate her
representative role even more.

1912 Nobody wants a war

The play is set in the spring of 1912, a week before the Titanic
sank on her maiden voyage, a reference the writer uses to
illustrate Mr Birling’s ignorant assumptions about industrial
progress. ‘Unsinkable, absolutely unsinkable,’ he boasts. In a
world of unlimited economic growth and engineering
innovation, capitalists and entrepreneurs like him will have
unprecedented opportunities to make money.

In addition to this, Priestley uses the historical context of a

looming war to show Birling’s ignorance even more. Whereas
many observers were voicing concerns about a conflict in
Europe as early as 1912, Birling casually dismisses the idea,
‘nobody wants a war’. He anticipates a future based on
opportunities and peace, ‘there’ll be peace and prosperity and
rapid progress everywhere’, all ironic reminders of the
catastrophic effects of war soon to follow.

29
If the decades leading to 1912 were characterised by growing
industrial unrest, the specific year itself reveals an intensity of
strike action. Unions were calling for this more and more and
in March 1912, over a thousand taxi drivers went on strike in
protest at the British Motor Cab’s decision not to pay them
when they were not engaged.

In addition to this, the miners’ strike that started at Alfreton in

Derbyshire on 26th February 1912, and which focused on
better conditions and the demand for a minimum wage, soon
took on far-reaching significance. In his prayer to the churches
the Archbishop of the Church of England talked about a ‘time
of strife and unrest’ and the need for a ‘fuller realization of
brotherhood’.

The miners’ strike sent shock waves across northern Europe.

German miner union delegates, for example, were present at
the miners’ Conference in England in November 1911; and in
the spring of 1912, the German miners went on strike in the
Ruhr with the situation soon spreading to Hannover and
Saxony. As in England, the demand for a minimum wage lay
at the heart of the conflict.

When the Minister for Trade and Customs in Germany, Herr

Sydow, stated the strike was a clear sign of increased
international tension between labour and capital, we might
see a contrast with Birling’s flagrant ignorance, claiming, in
direct reference to the Miners’ Strike of 1912, there is no
chance of unrest: ‘Last month,’ asserts Mr Birling, ‘just because
the miners came out on strike, there’s a lot of wild talk about labour
trouble…Don’t worry.... we’re in for a time of steadily increasing
prosperity.’

30
 Chapter 5
Character Analyses

The Inspector

The voice of universal social conscience

The Inspector’s importance

is symbolized in the opening
stage direction, well before he
arrives. Priestley sets the scene,
‘The lighting should be pink and
intimate until the Inspector arrives,
and then it should be
brighter and harder.’

He is relentless in his
aim of impressing on
the family the deva-
stating effects their
exploitation and indifference had on the suicide victim, Eva
Smith. In doing so the meaning and moral urgency of the
tragedy as an indictment becomes all the more powerful.

As a symbol of truth, the Inspector embodies a central theme

of the play, signified by the metaphor of the light changing.
His arrival disrupts the convivial celebration atmosphere,
transforming the intimate confines of a private occasion into a
public issue, bringing to light the tragic loss of life and the
impact people in the room had on the woman in question. It is
ironic that, when Edna the maid announces the arrival of the
Inspector, Mr Birling says, ‘Give us more light’. This close

31
association of the Inspector with light indicates ideas of truth
and the exposing of moral failure through stage symbolism.

Another aspect of the Inspector’s identity is his name, Goole, a

homophone of ‘ghoul’, implying a ghostly presence. His name
alone might well provide the strongest clue as to how we
understand the Inspector’s enigmatic role in the play. Is he a
symbol of the dead woman? Whose spirit, as it were, visits the
living in order to expose the follies of a selfish world, the
ghosts of A Christmas Carol visiting Scrooge?

Yet another view of the Inspector is expressed by the critic

Gareth Lloyd Evans who says that the Inspector is ‘an
embodiment of a collective conscience’ – a conscience that will not
compromise in its robust and compelling case for social
responsibility and a fairer world.

The Inspector claims to have transferred recently to the

Brumley area police force. Birling, however, who knows
Colonel Roberts, the Head of the local police, has never heard
of an Inspector Goole personally, as if early clues in the play
suggest a mysterious identity. Interestingly, the Inspector is
evasive when Birling asks if he knows Roberts, ‘Only recently
transferred.’

At the end of the play Gerald argues convincingly that the

Inspector is nothing more than a hoax. After leaving the
Birling home Gerald coincidentally meets a local policeman
who knows nothing about the Inspector. This, argues Gerald
on his return, is proof positive that Inspector Goole is not a
genuine inspector and, as such, has no valid case against the
family.

Gerald’s view is restricted, however, to blame in its criminal

sense, not in the deeper meaning of moral failure, the central
theme of the Inspector’s indictment of the family. Does Gerald
ever understand this? It is important, therefore, to consider

32
not whether the Inspector is real in a naturalistic sense, but
rather to consider what purpose he serves in developing the
play’s central issues.

Inspector Goole’s manner is described as direct and very

serious. ‘He speaks carefully, weightily’ and ‘looks hard at the
person he addresses before actually speaking.’ His impact on the
various changes of mood and atmosphere, on the rise and fall
of moments of tension, is pivotal.

The rocking chair at the end of the 1954 film is a

symbolic reminder of the Inspector’s mysterious
identity.

His evidence to the family includes various items that

belonged to Eva Smith, a photograph, a letter and a sort of a
diary. They are used to add veracity to the impression of a real
inspector, someone qualified to talk about her death, someone
who has had access to her private life. At first Birling agrees
with the Inspector’s method of questioning only one person at
a time. His comment, ‘I agree with the Inspector’, however, has
only temporary value since the two men will soon violently
disagree.

33
The Inspector functions in what many have called the
traditional role of the inspector of the ‘whodunit’ genre of
murder mysteries, a genre that reached its peak in the 1920’s
and 1930’s with writers like Agatha Christie and Dorothy L
Sayers. In the ‘whodunit’ genre an inspector questions one
person at a time, exposing the villain at the end of the plot. We
see part of this pattern in An Inspector Calls, although the end
of the play is different since, in this case, the Inspector in his
closing speech argues that each person, and not one, is
responsible.

A key technique of the Inspector’s is insinuation, used to

create subtle moments of dramatic tension. One example is
when he shows Mr Birling the photograph of Eva Smith, ‘I
think you remember Eva Smith now, don’t you Mr Birling?’ The
Inspector goes on to argue that when Mr Birling fired Eva
Smith, he started a domino affect, a ‘chain of events’ as he
calls it, that ended in suicide, ‘What happened to her then may
have affected what happened to her afterwards...may have driven her
to suicide.’ The image of a chain is central to the theme of
collective responsibility mentioned earlier.

During the inspection the Inspector sometimes uses second

person pronouns (we and us), ‘It would do us all a bit of good if
sometimes we tried to put ourselves in the place of these young
women.’ In doing so he places himself in the position of the
family, and by implication the audience, too, where empathy
and understanding override questions of accusation and
blame. Seen in this context the Inspector’s role can be
understood as that of the traditional poet or artist, whose role
is to hold up a mirror to a failing world, to argue for a fairer
society, for social responsibility, and to expose folly.

The poet John Donne (1572-1631) expressed this idea of the

inter-connectedness of human life brilliantly in the poem No
Man is an Island. Here Donne argues that there is no such thing
as actions that do no affect the lives of others, that all human

34
life is connected by intricate webs of influence. The critical line
in the poem, ‘Do not ask for whom the bell tolls, it tolls for thee’, is
symbolic and thematic: the tolling bell perhaps Eva Smith’s
unheard funeral bell, and the idea of collective responsibility
implied emphatically in ‘thee’.

After the Inspector has questioned Mr Birling, he then

questions Sheila. He points out that Eva Smith was sacked
from Milwards department store when a customer
‘complained’, even though there was actually nothing wrong
with how she was doing her job. We soon learn that the
reason for her dismissal resulted from Sheila’s intervention,
blackmailing Milwards that should they not sack Eva Smith,
she would close the family account at the store. As such she
has abused her position in an influential family. This is a key
issue that shows the difference in power relationships
between the rich and the poor: the limited rights of the poor
and the arbitrary abuse of power that wealth and status make
possible. Once again, Priestley symbolizes the moment of
truth by using light as the Inspector ‘moves nearer a light.’

Later, when Birling argues that his family are ‘respectable

citizens, not criminals’, the Inspector responds caustically:
‘Often if it was left to me, I wouldn’t know where to draw the line.’
His message is blunt: that moral failure is found at all levels of
society and that outward respectability is no guarantee of core
honesty and decency. When Birling attempts to bribe the
Inspector we see the opposing qualities of arrogance and
integrity. Where Birling is desperate to preserve his public
image, hoping that he will still gain a knighthood, the
Inspector is resolute in preserving universal justice. In this
sense, Birling’s worldview is wholly material and temporal,
while the Inspector’s is ethical and timeless.

In questioning Sheila, the Inspector says, ‘You might be said to

have been jealous of her’. However, jealousy alone has not
brought about the suicide, and so now he turns to Mrs Birling,

35
to whom he apportions particular blame, accusing her of
shocking hypocrisy, ‘She came to you for help, at a time when a
woman could not have wanted it more.’ He hammers the point by
saying that Eva Smith ‘was alone, friendless, almost penniless,
desperate’, and yet, as a key member of a local women’s
charity, Mrs Birling’s position in making sure Eva Smith was
refused help could not be more contradictory.

Before he leaves, the Inspector argues that, ‘We don’t live alone.
We are members of one body. We are responsible for one another’, a
final appeal to a sense of shared humanity to the now divided
family.

The Inspector’s role is, therefore, clearly both moral and social.
He embodies the socialism of Priestley, a writer who remained
radically opposed to the exploitation of working people
throughout his life. It is interesting that on one occasion
Priestley famously said that Marx’s manifesto about equality
had never been properly represented. Did he feel in some
ways responsible for articulating the communist ideals of
equality?

Such comments made the Establishment suspicious of

Priestley. The BBC, for example, distanced itself visibly from
Priestley, despite his massive popularity on radio broadcasts
at the beginning of the war (see ‘Biography’ section).
Ironically, the English writer George Orwell (1903-1950),
famous for his defence of the freedom of speech, grew very
suspicious of what he thought were communist leanings and
recommend that Priestley was placed on a list of communist
agitators.

The idea of the Inspector as only a mouthpiece for the writer’s

particular ideology is, however, too narrow a definition. His
role has many complex functions such as to drive the plot
forward and to create and maintain dramatic tension. He
questions Mrs Birling at the end of Act Two, for example,

36
about what should be done to the father of Eva Smith’s
unborn child. In leading her to demand that the father of Eva
Smith’s unborn child should be forced to make a ‘public
confession of responsibility’, he gets Mrs Birling to condemn
both her own son, and herself for moral blindness.

It is a brilliant moment in the play where the contrast of youth

and age comes to light as Sheila, realizing ahead of the others
that the father is Eric, pleads with her mother, ‘don’t you see.’
In this sense the Inspector acts as a catalyst for the
disintegration of a family whose underlying divisions,
especially between the generations, are exposed rather than
created by him.

In his closing speeches the Inspector argues that the blame for
the death must be shared. Again he uses the second person
pronoun, implying that he, too, is ultimately involved in the
tragedy, ‘You see, we have to share something. If there’s nothing
else, we have our guilt to share.’

He goes on to say that that the tragedy of Eva Smith must

never be understood in isolation, ‘there are millions and millions
and millions of Eva Smiths and John Smiths still left with us’,
where the adverb ‘still’ and the representative and symbolic
name Smith, an idea that George Orwell used in 1984 for the
protagonist Winston Smith, imply that her experiences have
widespread significance (see page 19). So common is her
surname, her fate might easily have been that of any one of a
massive number, had they been born into her background and
suffered in the way she did.

The Inspector’s final plea is that the family recognize that the
world can only function properly when people accept their
obligations to one another, ‘We are responsible for one another’. It
is, for him, the ultimate moral imperative in a civilized,
healthy society since, ‘We are members of one body.’

37
Mr Birling
Bumptious and self-opinionated,
Birling fanatically supports
industrial capitalism.

Birling represents the

opposite views of society
from the Inspector’s,
completely disagreeing
with the idea that
people have to accept
any responsibility for
the lives of others.

His attitude towards

ideas of socialism is
revealed very early
in the play, before the Inspector arrives, saying to Eric, ‘as if we
were mixed up like bees in a hive, community and all that nonsense.’

As an industrialist in an age just before the First World War he

embodies widespread assumptions of unlimited economic
and technological growth where individuals are responsible
for making their own success, regardless of their background.
As the director Stephen Dawdry argues, it is a romantic view
of the world, which typified the pre-war Edwardian era. A
brilliant portrayal of this as a worldview is captured in Philip
Larkin’s poem MCMXIV (1914) where England is presented as
enjoying the end of an idyll of familiar and safe traditions
where everyone knows their place in society.

Birling’s sarcastic dismissal of the image of the beehive is

ironic since, traditionally, it is an image of productive work
achieved through shared goals and a common vision in a
cooperative society. Priestley uses this image to represent the

38
possibilities of socialism, but it is one which for Birling who
espouses capitalism and individualism, remains absurd.

Throughout the play, Mr Birling’s views about the world

remain wholly materialistic and pragmatic. Unlike his
daughter he never shows any capacity for moral growth. His
evaluation of the marriage between his daughter and Gerald
is completely mercenary, a chance to further his business
interests as revealed when he comments, ‘Birlings and Crofts
are no longer competing’ but ‘working together for lower costs and
higher prices. When Gerald wholeheartedly agrees we see
clearly how the playwright aligns the two men’s shared
capitalistic ideology.

Another aspect of Mr Birling is his blind faith in industrial

progress. He talks emphatically about the progress of science,
discovery, and engineering achievements, all of which
indicate the victory of industry over nature and the idea of un-
limited development: ‘In a year or two we’ll have aeroplanes that
will be able to go anywhere’. His reference to the Titanic, ‘un-
sinkable, absolutely unsinkable’, which, in the context of the play
(spring 1912) is set to sail on her maiden voyage in one week,
illustrates Priestley’s ironic portrayal of Mr Birling’s
ignorance. He represents established assumptions about
man’s place in the natural hierarchy; the idea that nature is a
vast, even unlimited, resource ripe for exploitation in the new
world order of the industrial age, and entrepreneurs like him.

This ignorance about the limits of mankind is part of a wider

arrogance and ignorance about the world generally. Although
many serious and enlightened commentators were warning of
a war in Europe as early as 1912, Mr Birling remains defiantly
dismissive of any possible conflict, ‘all these silly little war
scares.’ He cannot resist making a comment about the role of
progress and the chance to expand industry and profit,‘There’ll
be peace and rapid progress everywhere’, he boasts.
Although such naivety might be read as optimism, it is tainted

39
by flagrant racism since he finishes the comment with, ‘except
of course in Russia which will be behindhand naturally.’

He also remains boastful and fanatically assertive of his

position in society as a self-made man, ‘We hard-headed business
men must say something sometime.’ He represents a character
type that Charles Dickens (1812-1870) satirizes memorably in
Hard Times (1854). Like Mr Birling, Dickens’s Mr Bounderby
has made a lot of money in industry and yet remains utterly
indif- ferent to the plight of the poor, even blaming them for
their pitiful state. Mr Birling’s pretensions are clear: gaining a
higher social position and status, ‘I might find my way into the
Honours list…Just a knighthood of course’ he says to Gerald,
indirectly trying to compete socially with his future
son-in-law.

Ultimately Mr Birling’s position is one of complete denial of

any responsibility in the death of Eva Smith, ‘I can’t accept any
responsibility.’ He argues that sacking Eva Smith is justifiable
in terms of the nature of capitalism itself, ‘It’s my duty to keep
labour costs down.’ He goes on to argue that ‘it’s a free country’
and that such women can ‘go and work somewhere else’. Unlike
the Inspector he assumes that freedom of choice and actual
economic conditions are independent from one another.

When he criticizes Eric for not asking him for help, Mr Birling
shows crass intolerance and ignorance towards his son, ‘You
damned fool.’ Eric’s reaction to his father’s anger is telling,
‘Your not the kind of father a chap would go to when he’s in trouble.’
Clearly, there is a long history of alienation. Mr Birling’s
attempt to bribe the Inspector to keep quiet about the death of
Eva Smith, offering him ‘thousands’ (see note below) reveals
his assumptions of a social order founded on mercenary
values. The Inspector whose purpose is much higher is, of
course, above being bribed. Mr Birling’s comment that he ‘was
almost certain for a knighthood in the next Honours list’ reveals
his superficial values even more, a man more concerned with

40
appearance than reality, with social status rather than with
social duty.

Note: The value of a thousand pounds in 1912 can be measured in

different ways in modern times. In 2011 the sum was worth over
£80,000 in terms of what you could buy with it, and over £300,000
in terms of the average salary. Try to calculate values for yourself
using the webpage below. You could enter £50.00, the sum that Eric
stole from his father for Eva Smith, and see what it is worth today in
sterling or dollars.

http://www.measuringworth.com/ukcompare/

41
Mrs Sybil Birling

Self- righteous and moralistic

Mrs Birling’s treatment of
Eva Smith exposes her
hypocritical and shallow
understanding of
true charity

Mrs Sybil Birling is a

conventional woman
whose ideas about the role
of men and women in society
are shown early, ‘I think
Sheila and I had better go
into the drawing room and
leave you men.’ She
accepts and even
asserts the structure of
the patriarchal family,
her only real criticism
about her husband is based on his faux pax where he suggests
that the cook receives a compliment for the meal, ‘Arthur,
you’re not supposed to say such things.’ As her husband’s ‘social
superior’ she thinks his comment is vulgar.

It is interesting to note how Mrs Birling responds to the news

of the suicide, suggesting that the dead woman’s social class
alone explains the reason for the suicide, ‘Girls of that class.’
Her attitude throughout the play is arrogant and
condescending, as though the suicide is somehow less
important because of Eva Smith’s working class background.

Mrs Birling is also portrayed as a hypocrite. Although she is

42
a prominent member of The Brumley Women’s Charity
Organization she ensured personally that Eva Smith did not
receive any help when she most needed it. In Edwardian
England many women of Mrs Birling’s background were
involved in charity work. We see this in the Jebb sisters who
founded Save the Children. It was something a woman like her
often did out of expectations of what was right to do and there
is no doubt that much good work was done in this area. Mrs
Birling, however, shows herself to be shallow in her
understanding of true charity and convinces herself on flimsy
evidence that it was right to reject Eva Smith’s requests for
help.

One reason Mrs Birling gives for doing this is that Eva Smith
used the Birling surname. No doubt ashamed to be associated
with someone in Eva Smith’s position, she saw a threat to her
reputation and so acted selfishly to protect herself. The
revelation that Eva Smith used the Birling surname when she
appealed to the charity foreshadows Eric’s involvement in the
case. The contrast in this scene between children and parents
is shown dramatically when Sheila says that her mother’s
actions were ‘cruel and vile.’

Mrs Birling distances herself further by arguing that the father

of the child should be held responsible, ‘Go and look for the
father of the child. It’s his responsibility.’ Her position is always
moralistic and judgmental and utterly contradictory. Her
heavily ironic comment takes on deeper meaning where
defence turns to further hypocrisy once the Inspector goes on
to reveal how Mrs Birling, abusing her position as Chair of the
meeting, ensured the other members of the Committee
complied with her insistence in rejecting Eva.

The most striking characteristic of Mrs Birling is her superior

attitude. Despite what happens, this only gets stronger as the
events unfold. In his portrayal of her, Priestley satirizes the
moralist and self-righteous attitudes of people whose actions

43
are defended from a base of entrenched ideas about a
hierarchical system of social class.

Unlike her children she shows no signs of remorse or moral

development. Initially she argues that the suicide is to be
blamed on the victim herself, then the father. And when she is
exposed for what she has done she starts to blame others in an
attempt to pass on responsibility, ‘It wasn’t me who had her
turned out of her employment.’ Like her husband, she ultimately
fails to see how her actions impacted on the suicide victim.

44
 Eric Birling

Morally irresolute but unlike his

parents Eric shows empathy

Sheila’s early reference to Eric

indicates that he has been
drinking too much,
‘You’re squiffy’. It is an
issue that comes up later
in the play where we
learn that the problem
is a very serious one
and of which his
parents remain
ignorant, as when
Mrs Birling says to
Eric, ‘You don’t get drunk.’

When he is questioned, it becomes clear that Eric met Eva

Smith at the Palace Bar. He refers to the ‘women of the town’,
who visit the place, a euphemism for prostitutes, and we sense
that in his drunkenness he is now associated with a place of ill
repute. Was Eric visiting with the view to paying for sex?
Had Eva Smith been forced into prostitution? Both points
seem plausible during Eric’s interrogation.

Eric admits that he threatened Eva Smith after accompanying

her home from the Palace Bar. It is clear he was insistent on
intimate contact through aggression, ‘I threatened to make a
row’. Along with the excuse about being ‘in that state when a
chap turns nasty’ the audience now realises he intimidated Eva
Smith for sex and so Eric shows himself capable of sexual
aggression.

During Eric’s inspection we see a clear social awareness

45
developing. Early in the play he is quick to reveal concern for
ordinary workers, opposing his father’s defiant position about
limiting wage costs with, ‘Why shouldn’t they try for higher
wages.’ He also later criticizes his mother directly, once the
suicide has been brought to light, ‘You don’t understand
anything. You never did.’ His comment to his father that he was
never ‘the kind of father a chap could go to when he’s in trouble’
underlies the division and antipathy that emerges between
parents and children.

Unlike his mother and father, Eric shows great anger and even
remorse for what has happened. More than any of the others
he feels, as the father of the unborn child, the loss personally.
In one of the strongest indictments in the play he turns to his
mother and accuses her of being singularly responsible for the
death, ‘You killed her.’

Eric’s moral development is significant and at least equal to

that of his sister’s. At the end of the play he supports Sheila’s
views about the tragedy. Like her, he accepts some level of
responsibility, even if the Inspector is a hoax, ‘Whoever that
chap was, the fact is that I did what I did. And mother did what she
did. And the rest of you did what you did to her. He argues that
the real meaning of the Inspector’s visit has nothing to do with
who the Inspector is, but how each person in the room reacts
to the tragedy, ‘we all helped to kill her, and that’s what matters.’
As the Inspector had hoped, Eric grasps the deeper meaning
of the suicide.

When Gerald and Mr Birling argue that the whole event is an

elaborate sham and, as such, will allow them all soon to laugh
it off and return to normal, (Gerald even offering the
engagement ring back to Sheila), Eric disagrees strongly,
‘You’re beginning to pretend that nothing’s really happened. And I
can’t see it like that.’ Whereas Gerald’s grasp of what has
happened is superficial, that of Eric’s is profound and life-
changing.

46
Sheila Birling
Initially self-centred and naïve,
Sheila is perceptive and, like her
brother, capable of empathy

The play begins with the family

celebrating the engagement of
Gerald and Sheila. Initially she
seems to be a typical young
woman of her class and
period.

Devoted to Gerald, she is

thrilled at the prospect of
marriage. Her reference
in the opening scene that
Gerald stayed away
from her ‘last summer’ is deeply ironic given that they are
celebrating her engagement, and that the reason for Gerald’s
distance was a result of his affair with Eva Smith. At the end
of the play, these initial impressions change drastically.

When the Inspector arrives she responds very superficially to

the news of the suicide, asking only whether the dead woman
was ‘pretty’. Despite this display of shallowness, however, she
is capable of acute social observation and expresses an
instinctive sense of compassion and humanity, ‘But these girls
aren’t cheap labour, they’re people.’ In this respect she reflects the
sympathies of her brother who argues that women like Eva
Smith have the right to go on strike in order to improve their
difficult social circumstances.

When the Inspector confronts her about the question of

responsibility in the suicide she is quick to consider the
influence she might have had, ‘So, I’m really responsible?’ A

47
deeper sense of moral awareness has awoken leading her to
insight which stands in stark contrast to her parents who
defiantly deny any wrongdoing.

After Eva Smith was dismissed from Mr Birling’s factory, she

found a job in a prestigious department store called Milwards.
However, her chance of a new opportunity was cut short as a
result of Sheila’s intervention when she complained about the
conduct of the new employee. When we learn that Sheila’s
motives for ensuring that Eva Smith was dismissed from
Milwards sprang from jealousy we realize that Sheila is
capable of great spite.

During Sheila’s visit to the store she saw Eva Smith holding
up a dress in a mirror, as if she was wearing it, and could not
help feeling that the dress looked much better on the attractive
shop assistant. Sheila also believed that Eva was laughing at
her and in a fit of jealous anger she was provoked into
demanding that the managers sack Eva Smith, threatening
that she would close the family account if they did not.
Despite Milwards’s later admission to the Inspector that Eva
was otherwise doing her job well, she was dismissed and so
exposed, once again, to an extremely difficult labour market.

Sheila’s intervention and influence in bringing about Eva

Smith’s dismissal reveals she also has a clear capacity for
blackmail that springs from her privileged social position.
However, once she realizes what affect this had on Eva Smith,
she shows remorse. In comments that stand in complete
contrast to her parents she promises, ‘I’ll never, never do it again
to anybody.’ Sheila’s capacity for change and moral growth is
shown when she accepts that what she did was not simply
churlish, very damaging for Eva Smith.

When given the chance to leave the room and so avoid the
awkward details of the Inspector’s examination of the other
family members, Sheila decides to stay. Her decision to do so

48
shows moral fibre, stemming not from morbid interest but
rather from a genuine interest to learn, ‘why the girl killed
herself.’ Unlike her mother whose self-protection springs from
superiority, Sheila remains sensitive and alert to deeper
meanings.

Sheila shows this when she argues for recognition of how each
person affected the life of the dead woman. She says to
Gerald, for example, ‘You mustn’t try to build up a wall between
us and that girl’, a metaphor that represents the deep-rooted
assumptions about social class and hierarchy. Her awareness
of what has happened is rooted in a desire to empathize, and
all of her development and growth to new understanding
comes out of this characteristic.

Sheila also shows an instinctive capacity for moral insight and

this grows as the plot unfolds. We see it where she realizes
ahead of all the others that Eric is the father of the unborn
child, that it is Eric who had the affair with Sheila. She shows
it in her dealings with Gerald. Although she is deeply hurt by
his unfaithfulness she sees clearly what the Inspector has
taught her about her relationship with Gerald, ‘You and I are
not the same people who sat down to dinner here.’

When the Inspector leaves, Mr Birling comments, ‘He wasn’t a

real inspector’. If this is true, Birling assumes, they have
nothing to worry about. In contrast to this superficial
understanding, Sheila insists, ‘He inspected us all right’, a view
that points to the deepest level of purpose of the Inspector’s
visit where deceit, hypocrisy, arrogance, and petty jealousies,
along with layers of respectability, are systematically stripped
away to reveal a family divided in ways they never imagined
before the Inspector’s visit.

49
Gerald Croft

Like Birling, Gerald sees the

world in a pragmatic and
mercenary way

Gerald shares Mr Birling’s

views throughout the play.
We hear him responding
approvingly to Birling’s
boasts about industrial
progress, about
labour costs, and the
role of businessmen
in society.

When Mr Birling
comments that the
marriage between
Gerald and his
daughter will serve to enhance their business interests, Gerald
responds, ‘Hear, hear.’ Like Mr Birling he sees the marriage in
mercenary and pragmatic terms, and this alone might help us
to understand his indifference to the moral impact his affair
with Eva Smith has had on his relationship with Sheila.

He is a man clearly able to enter into married life having

deceived his fiancé; and had the Inspector not revealed his
affair with Eva Smith he would have done so. His initial
reasons for taking Eva Smith out of the Palace Bar seem
genuine, even altruistic. When he sees the drunken
womanizer, Alderman Meggarty, harassing her, or as Gerald
says, trapped in a corner by ‘that fat carcass of his’, his instinct
is to help suggesting he is capable of care and understanding.

However, once she knows the full details, of the affair, Sheila

50
sees Gerald as primarily egoistic. Berating him for a selfish
pursuit of attention and sexual gratification she comments
with much sarcasm, ‘You were the wonderful Fairy Prince. You
must have adored it.’ Although Gerald’s initial contact with Eva
Smith appears to have sprung out of concern for her wellbeing
his actions are, however unintentional, part of the ‘chain of
events’ that led to her suicide.

Gerald’s arguments at the end of the play about the

photograph, about the real identity of the Inspector whom he
now portrays as an imposter, reveal that he sees no wrong has
been committed. He contrasts completely with Sheila since he
fails to accept any responsibility whatsoever, seeing the
Inspector’s visit as nothing more than an elaborate hoax.

Sheila had returned the ring earlier in the play indicating she
can no longer consider marriage to a man that lied to her. In
an attempt to win her back at the end of the play Gerald says,
‘Everything is all right now. What about this ring?’ In doing so he
once again displays the superficial attitude we saw earlier in
the play; a man whose values are far removed from those of
the woman he wants to marry.

51
 Chapter 6
Detailed Analyses

Act 1

The Dinner Celebration (Pages 2-7)

Overview.

♦ The   play   opens   with   the   Birlings   and   Gerald   Croft  

celebrating  the  engagement  of  Sheila  Birling  and  Gerald.  

♦ Mr   Birling   makes   a   speech   where   he   reveals   his   fixed  

views  on  his  daughter’s  planned  marriage.    

♦ Gerald  presents  the  engagement  ring  

♦ Mrs  Birling  and  her  daughter  Sheila  retire  to  the  drawing  
room  leaving  the  men  to  enjoy  cigars  and  port  

The family toast Gerald and Sheila on their engagement

52
Analysis

The opening stage direction provides key information about

the Birling family. Their house is described as that of a
prosperous manufacturer, and the interior with its expensive
furniture, the lavish meal, and the servants all indicate a very
privileged family. The writer later uses social position and the
evident trappings of wealth to illustrate the stark differences
between the rich and the poor.

The characters are all wearing evening dress indicating

privilege and a high social class, details that will be used by
Priestley to contrast starkly the conditions of the poor,
represented in the play by Eva Smith.

Priestley’s use of the lighting is an ironic reference to later

events. During the meal it is described as ‘pink and intimate’;
though when the Inspector arrives with the grim news of a
suicide case the lighting will become ‘brighter and harder’, as
though by association the Inspector’s role is symbolic, to
reveal truth.

The initial atmosphere of excitement in the Birling home is

created, in part, by Sheila’s excitement. She is in good spirits
for obvious reasons and her mood clearly affects the others.
Her comment that Gerald avoided her the previous summer is
said in a half-serious, half playful way and is another example
of how Priestley foreshadows later events, the later disclosure
that Gerald was, in fact, having at this time an affair with the
suicide victim.

In this opening scene, however, Sheila’s comment is no more

than light-hearted banter. Priestley’s techniques of irony and
foreshadowing are key techniques in the play generally and
provide a rich source sub-textual meaning.

Mrs Birling then comments on her daughter’s future married

53
life with Gerald and we see clearly the life of conventionality
and predictability in store for Sheila. In her marriage Sheila
will be expected to sacrifice her expectations about married
life to her husband’s career path, as all women must to ‘men
with important work to do.’ Her mother also points out that she
herself deferred to Arthur Birling, a reference to the clear
gender roles of Edwardian England.

Sheila’s use of ‘squiffy’ to describe her brother’s alcoholism is

contemporary slang for being drunk. It is a phrase her mother
considers vulgar, beneath her class. Later, when Mrs Birling
criticizes her husband for asking Edna to pass on a
compliment to the cook (‘Arthur, you shouldn’t say such things’),
she once again reveals strict ideas about language etiquette as
an indicator of one’s place in the social hierarchy.

In the opening scenes of the play, Birling makes clear that he

views the marriage as an opportunity to extend his business
interests. He sees Gerald not so much as an individual but as a
type: a young man whose wealthy background provides the
basis for acceptance, ‘just the type of young man.’. He goes on to
say that the marriage will unite the families and bring about
‘lower costs and higher prices’. His outspoken manner contrasts
clearly with everyone in the room and illustrates a strictly
practical and materialistic view of marriage.

It is clear that Gerald shares Mr Birling’s views. Neither men

talk about love, but rather see marriage pragmatically, as a
transaction, a way of strengthening the interests of business.
When Gerald comments that his father ‘would agree’ their
financial approach is extended even further.

As we have already seen, it is left to Mrs Birling to complain,

telling the two men that they ought not to talk about business
on such an occasion. Their indifference to what she says,
however, only underlines the patriarchal and capitalist views
they share.

54
The mood changes direction when Gerald presents the engage
-ment ring to Sheila. Although Gerald says he hopes he can
make Sheila happy, the ring he offers to Sheila symbolizes his
hypocrisy given his secret affair with the suicide victim.

Following the surprise of the engagement ring in the opening

scene, Mr Birling proposes a toast where he wishes the couple
‘all the best that life can bring.’ His comment, the genuine
sentiment of a proud father, is another example in the play of
foreshadowing as a dramatic technique; an ironic reference to
the contrasting ugly truths of Eva Smith’s short and miserable
life.

Following the toast and in keeping with historic conventions,

Mrs Birling announces it is time for the women to retire to the
drawing room so that the men can talk privately. Before they
leave, they will be subjected to Birling’s boastful claims about
his role in society and the direction of national policies.

Mr Birling’s speeches that follow reveal a bombastic and self-

serving man whose rigid ideas about capitalism versus
socialism set up a dramatic contrast with the views of the
Inspector. Birling makes reference, for example, to the Miners’
Strike of 1912 (see pages 29-30) and argues the worst has
passed. He talks about himself as a ‘hard-headed business man’
whose responsibility it is to contribute to the economic success
of the nation. Such claims about an age marked by
widespread labour agitations, the deepening crisis of the
miners’ strike, serve to illustrate his ignorance of the world in
which he lives.

Birling argues that free enterprise, business and capital will

prevent all possible labour problems. He argues a case for
‘steadily increasing prosperity’ created by businessmen like him.

Birling’s ignorance also extends to the idea of war, a growing

threat as early as 1912, two years before actual war. He has

55
failed to understand or even take heed of the documented
militarization of Germany and so dismisses war as nothing
more than rumour, ‘There’s a good deal of silly talk about these
days’. When Eric challenges such assumptions Birling becomes
even more stubborn in his views, ‘there isn’t a chance of war’.

For Mr Birling, industrial progress and the presumption of

man’s supremacy over the natural world signify the very
heights of a new phase in civilization where war is simply
‘impossible.’ His comments, particularly relevant for Priestley
who fought in the First World War are, in fact, symptomatic of
a wider contemporary ignorance about the impending
conflict.

Birling’s ignorance and bombast are reflected further when he

dismisses the idea of war as a result of German officers ‘talking
nonsense’ and ‘scaremongers’. Full of pride and boasting he then
reveals racism and xenophobia when he refers to ‘half civilized
folks’ in the Balkans, and to Russia, ‘which will always be
behindhand naturally.’

When Birling envisages life in 1940 he assumes everyone will

have forgotten the labour agitations and ‘silly war scares’ of
1912, the year in which the play is set. It is doubly ironic that
he refers to 1940 since this date marks the second year of
World War II, yet another indication of Birling’s tenacious
assumptions about progress. In dismissing the socialist
writers H.G. Wells and G.B. Shaw with whom Priestley
identified the stage is now set for the clash of ideologies that
the Inspector’s arrival is soon to start.

56
Mr Birling confides in Gerald (Pages 8 – 9)

Overview

♦ Gerald  and  Mr  Birling  are  left  alone  in  the  dining  room  

♦ Birling  reveals  that  he  is  worried  about  what  Gerald’s  

parents  think  about  him  and  his  family.  They  are  of  a  
higher  social  class,  Lord  and  Lady  Croft,  and  he  is  clearly  
worried  that  they  might  well  think  Gerald  is  marrying  
beneath  himself.  

♦ Birling  tells  Gerald  that  he  might  have  a  chance  of  getting  
a  knighthood  in  the  next  Honours  List  

♦ Birling  jokes  about  how  a  public  scandal  might  ruin  his  

chances  of  a  knighthood,  an  ironic  reference  to  the  events  
that  follow.  

Gerald listens to Mr Birling

57
Analysis

In this short section Birling reveals his social pretensions and

ambitions about climbing the social ladder. He wants to
impress Gerald whose family enjoys great wealth and status,
and tries to do so by taking care to let Gerald know that he
was Lord Mayor ‘when royalty’ visited the town a few years
previously.

His intention is clear: to create the impression that his family’s

status is growing significantly.

Birling’s comments about the knighthood reveal, however,

hypocritical views of the knighthood. The title traditionally
implies service to the community or to national interests, and
yet Birling’ motives are nothing more than self-
aggrandizement.

Shortly before Eric re-enters the room, Birling once again

makes a reference to his reputation, and how a scandal might
ruin his chances of the coveted knighthood. His comment
about keeping out of trouble in the following months is
another example of foreshadowing and an ironic reference to
the events that follow.

58
Eric Re-enters the dining room (Pages 9-11)

Overview

♦ Birling talks to Gerald and Eric about his social views.

He argues that it is the duty of everyone to look after
him or herself.
♦ Birling dismisses the idea of ‘community’
♦ The central image of ‘bees in a hive’ is used
♦ Edna informs the family that an inspector has arrived

Birling talking to the two young men, Gerald and Eric

59
Analysis

Eric remarks that the women are talking about clothes in the
drawing room. When his father replies that clothes are a token
of a woman’s self-respect Priestley reminds the audience
again of the theme of gender roles. Later, when we hear the
news of the suicide victim and her desperate struggle to
survive in a hostile world, such concerns seem trivial.

In this section Eric’s slip of the tongue at the mention of how

clothes are important to women (‘Yes, I remember’)
foreshadows the revelation of his connection to Eva Smith.
Gerald’s response, ‘sounds a bit fishy’, serves to underline the
irony of the situation.

In the speech that begins ‘But this is the point…’, Birling talks
about the idea of self-reliance, determining one’s future,
seizing opportunities, and about looking after oneself and
one’s family. He sees society as a meritocracy, the idea that
everyone can be rewarded for their merits, their talents and
their efforts since access to opportunities is available for all. In
contrast to the struggles of Eva Smith, however, such
comments are empty and absurdly presumptuous.

Birling develops his ideas of individualism by dismissing any

notions of communal responsibility, ‘community and all that
nonsense’. This dismissive view of social ideas is seen in his
sarcasm about ‘bees in a hive’, an image otherwise representing
ideas of communal goals and equality in a productive and
functioning society.

Birling, in all, is the epitome of the idea of the self-made man,

prevalent in the century before, the great age of
industrialization in England, and satirized superbly in Charles
Dickens’s Hard Times (1854). Like the principal character of
that novel, Mr Bounderby, Birling also argues forcefully that
self-preservation is a man’s first and even only duty, ‘a man

60
has to mind his own business and look after himself.’ At this point,
Edna the maid enters and informs the men that an inspector
has arrived. The events now will take a dramatic turn.

61
The Inspector arrives and proceeds to question Mr Birling
(pages 11-17)

Overview

♦ The  inspector’s  arrival  changes  the  mood  dramatically.    

♦ The  convivial  atmosphere  of  the  party  is  contrasted  with  

the  news  of  a  suicide.    

♦ Birling  tries  to  use  his  influence  to  take  control  of  the  
situation.    

♦ Birling  recognizes  the  young  woman  and  we  soon  learn  

she  was  an  ex-­‐employee  whom  he  sacked  because  of  her  
leading  role  in  a  strike  for  a  higher  wages.  

♦ Significant  differences  emerge  between  Birling,  Gerald  

and  the  Inspector  and  Eric.  

The towering presence of the Inspector

is felt from the moment he arrives

62
Analysis

The arrival of the Inspector with his graphic descriptions of

the suicide, ‘Disinfectant…burnt her insides out’ changes the
mood completely. This change is symbolized, too, in the
Inspector’s appearance of ‘massiveness, solidity and
purposefulness’, and the symbolic change of lighting from ‘pink
ant intimate’ to ‘harsher’.

Birling’s impassive reaction, ‘I don’t understand why you should

come here’, contrasts with Eric’s reaction who involuntarily
says ‘My God’. Whereas the father is concerned with
practicalities, the son is concerned with human life.

The Inspector’s technique is to show the photograph only to

one person at a time. Even though Gerald asks to see it at the
same time as Birling, the Inspector refuses. This technique is
best understood as a plot device designed to dramatize the
deliberate revelation of truth as it relates to individuals in the
family. Birling describes Eva Smith’s dismissal from his
factory in purely practical terms, ‘a straightforward case’.
Practicality and the lapse of two years prove he is free from
any blame, ‘I can’t accept any responsibility.’

He repeats his position about individualism, ‘a man has to mind

his own business and look after himself’, an idea developed
further where he argues that individuals can not be held
‘responsible for everything that happened to everybody’.

Birling’s indifference to the suicide victim is revealed when he

asks presumptuously whether Eva Smith went on the ‘streets’,
a euphemism for prostitution, after he sacked her.

In contrast, Eric is represented as a sympathetic character. He

is quick to dismiss as falsehood his father’s argument that
England is a ‘free country’ where workers like Eva Smith can
go and get jobs elsewhere saying, ‘It isn’t of you can’t go and

63
work somewhere else’. The Inspector’s reaction, ‘Quite so’,
establishes a bond and points to the opposing forces in the
play of narrow capitalism and socialism.

Eric’s other comments about the right to wage negotiations,

‘why shouldn’t they try for higher wages’, and the unfair way Eva
Smith was sacked ‘just because she had a bit more spirit that the
others’, are a clear indication of fundamental differences
between father and son.

The power of factory owners is questioned further through

the Inspector’s heavy irony, ‘It’s better to ask for the earth than to
take it’. At this point Gerald argues that Birling had no other
choice and so reveals
he is ideologically
aligned with his
prospective father-in-
law.

In an attempt to assert
his influence, Mr
Birling then tries again
to gain the upper hand
in the exchange.
Eva Smith in Birling’s factory

He asks the Inspector to repeat his name and when the

Inspector spells it out, ‘G. double O-L-E’ we sense the irony of
the playwright at work. Although Birling is trying to establish
the veracity of the man’s identity he fails to see the hidden
meanings, Priestley cleverly punning on Goole and ghoul to
suggest the mysterious and supernatural nature of the
Inspector.

64
The Inspector questions Sheila (pages 17-25)

Overview

♦ Sheila  enters  the  room  and  will  soon  be  questioned  by  the  
Inspector.  As  though  to  illustrate  the  next  link  in  the  chain  
of  events  Birling  asks  what  happened  to  Eva  Smith  after  
her  dismissal  

♦ The  Inspector  explains  to  Sheila  about  the  suicide  

♦ Birling  denies  any  responsibility  arguing  he  cannot  be  to  

blame,  although  Eric  disagrees  openly,  ‘That  might  have  
started  it.’  

♦ Sheila’s  initial  sympathy  turns  to  shock  when  she  realizes  

that  she  is  involved  in  the  life  of  Eva  Smith  

♦ When  she  is  shown  a  photograph  of  Eva  Smith,  Sheila  

runs  from  the  room,  crying.  
 

Sheila Birling (left) and Eva Smith at Milwards

65
 Analysis

The section illustrates the stark differences in the family.

Unlike her father and Gerald, Sheila accepts some degree of
responsibility and shows capacity to learn from the tragedy.

Sheila’s initial responses are a mixture of instinctive care and

superficiality. Although she is shocked that a young woman
has committed suicide, she then asks if the victim was pretty.

The Inspector elaborates on Eva Smith’s background telling

the family and the audience that with both parents dead and
no siblings she was without family support. Added to this
was a spell of two months unemployment following dismissal
at Birling’s factory. They are points the Inspector uses to
exemplify her vulnerable position: lonely, desperate and ‘half-
starved’.

Her situation was, argues the Inspector, indicative of

widespread social problems, ‘There are a lot of young women
living that sort of existence in every city and town in the country’.
When he then goes on to comment that such women are a
source of cheap labour, Sheila reacts by aligning herself with
the Inspector’s humanitarian view, arguing they are not
commodities but ‘real people’.

The Inspector then appeals to the family asking that we ‘put

ourselves in the place of these young women’. He argues here for
an equitable society, and through his reference to women in
‘dingy’ bedrooms counting their pennies he emphasizes these
views further. Although Birling and Gerald are silent, Sheila
shows imagination and compassion in agreeing with the
Inspector about the fate of such impoverished, desperate
women.

The Inspector goes on to reveal how Eva Smith, now using a

different name, got a job as a shop assistant at Milwards, an

66
upmarket department store where the Birlings have an
account. He recounts the story of how a customer complained
about her and used her personal influence to get the assistant
fired, despite the fact that Milwards admitted that she was
doing a good job. At this stage of the inquiry we see Eva Smith
as a victim of personal malice and jealousy.

Although Sheila, like the others, is not guilty of an actual

crime she has, like them, failed morally.

The time at Milwards, brief as it was, gave Eva Smith a new

sense of purpose, new hopes in life. Unlike the factory work,
she was among pretty clothes in a professional environment
making a new start in life, a point that relates closely to the
theme of hopes and dreams.

When the Inspector shows Sheila the photograph of the dead

woman, and in stark contrast to her father, she is horrified and
briefly leaves the room. Does the photograph only confirm
what she has already figured out for herself?

At this point, Eric is told by the Inspector that he should not

go to bed, a clear hint to the reader that he, also, is involved in
the tragedy. Then, in an attempt to defend the family position
through reputation Birling argues, ‘we’re respectable citizens, not
criminals.’ His comment is an important reference to the
themes of outward appearance and reality, and, as yet,
concealed moral conduct.

The Inspector’s sardonic comment, ‘Sometimes there isn’t much

difference’, is nothing less than a dismissal of Birling’s
presumptuous attitude and reminds the reader of the
Inspector’s role in exposing superficiality and hypocrisy.

Under questioning by the Inspector, Sheila reveals that a foul

temper provoked her to complain about Eva Smith. In
addition to this she realized on the shopping day that the

67
dress she wanted to buy was wrong for her, and looked right
when held against Eva Smith. When she comments about Eva
Smith’s big, dark eyes and how the dress suited her we realize
her reaction was nothing more than jealousy.

Guilty of vanity, Sheila now appears petty, selfish and even

cruel. However, unlike her father, Gerald and her mother,
Sheila reveals heartfelt remorse, ‘Why did this have to happen?’
She says she never imagined her actions would have such
devastating consequences, and in doing so we see how the
chain of events is linked in Sheila’s case to moral growth.

68
Gerald’s connection to Eva Smith is revealed (pages 25-26)

Overview

♦ The  Inspector  insists  he  will  not  leave  until  he  has  
established  what  exactly  happened  

♦ The  Inspector  reveals  that  Eva  Smith  changed  her  name  

to  Daisy  Renton  

♦ Gerald  reacts  with  surprise  when  he  hears  the  name  

Daisy  Renton,  a  sign  for  the  reader  that  he,  too,  is  
involved.  

♦ Eric  and  the  Inspector  go  to  get  Mrs  Birling  from  the  
drawing  room  

♦ Sheila  realizes  immediately  that  Gerald  has  lied  to  her  

about  what  he  was  doing  the  previous  summer  

♦ Gerald  initially  denies  any  involvement.  Alone  with  Sheila  

he  then  confesses    

Gerald reveals to Sheila his affair with Eva Smith

69
Analysis

The section develops the theme of truth and lies. Although

Gerald tries to maintain he is free from any involvement,
Sheila who shows insight and a clear understanding of the
situation, ‘I hate to think how much he knows that we don’t know
yet’, quickly detects his deceit.

Left alone with Sheila, Gerald tries to play down his secret
affair with Eva Smith. Gerald’s attempt to get Sheila to collude
in keeping the affair secret illustrates his shallow
understanding of both Sheila and the nature of the tragic
death. He has undergone a swift change from denial of the
affair to confession, and yet what the audience witnesses is a
complete lack of remorse and a short-sighted attempt to trick
the Inspector.

Perceptive and alert to moral implications and to the

Inspector’s superior understanding, Sheila realizes Gerald’s
stratagem is pointless. Incensed no doubt by his hypocrisy
and shaken by her own involvement she looks at Gerald
‘almost in triumph’ as she realizes he is about to be exposed by
the Inspector. As the Act ends Priestley dramatizes the
quickening disintegration and double standards of the family.

70
 Act 2

Gerald’s Inspection (Pages 27 – 40)

Overview

♦ Gerald is questioned by the Inspector. He attempts to

get Sheila to leave the room, but she refuses. In the
course of the act the full details of Gerald’s affair with
Eva Smith are revealed
♦ The impact of the Inspector on Sheila deepens
♦ Birling tries to gain the upper hand, asserting he is an
influential man locally
♦ Under continued pressure, Gerald admits his affair.
♦ At the end of this scene Sheila comments that she
respects Gerald’s honesty

Gerald and Eva during their affair

71
 Analysis

The word well links Acts 1 and 2. It is the last and first word of
each act and represents the idea of ‘continuous action’, a
dramatic technique that comes from Aristotle’s ‘Poetics’ where
he talks about the unities of time, place and character, and
how each of these should be completely consistent with each
other. This close knitting of events and time in ‘An Inspector
Calls’ is what critics often mean when they refer to a ‘well
constructed play’.

Early in the act Gerald attempts to be questioned without

Sheila present. She understands the suggestion of
schadenfreude immediately, ‘so that’s what you think I’m really
like?’ Her indignation grows as Gerald’s arrogance about his
lies becomes more evident.

The Inspector’s comment that Sheila should stay so that she is

not left ‘alone with her responsibility’ refers clearly to the theme
of collective responsibility, ‘we’ll have to share our guilt.’
Although his influence on Sheila is profound, she still remains
puzzled about his identity. In a moment of heightened
dramatic tension the action momentarily stops when they
exchange looks, as though Sheila now comprehends a deeper
but as yet unarticulated truth about Goole’s identity and
pivotal role.

Shortly afterwards Mrs Birling enters the room and with

everyone present the stage is now set to expose dramatically
Gerald’s connection to Eva Smith. Sheila’s comment to her
mother about ‘starting out all wrong’, when her mother enters
the room, illustrates preconceived ideas about the nature of
the inquiry. In contrast to her daughter Sheila, Mrs Birling
tries to take the upper hand, telling Sheila she ought to go to
bed. When Sheila refuses Mrs Birling accuses her of ‘morbid
curiosity’ showing she fails to understand Sheila’s higher
motives.

72
This inability to think outside her limited world-view is
revealed in Mrs Birling’s stereotypical views and crass
snobbery. Suicide, she insinuates, is typical of ‘girls of that
class.’ Her attitude, superior and judgmental, represents a
powerful and self-serving barrier between herself and people
of Sheila Smith’s background.

Again it is Sheila who questions her mother arguing that it is

absurd to put a ‘wall’ between the family and the dead
woman since the Inspector will only knock it down again. She
has seen, that is, the essential role of the Inspector as truth
bearer.

Like her husband before her, Mrs Birling then tries to threaten
the Inspector by pointing out that her husband was Lord
Mayor, a man of renown in the town and still a magistrate.
Her attempt is, of course, symptomatic of how she has been
blinded by arrogance and indifference.

When Sheila cuts in, appealing to her mother to stop trying to

intimidate the Inspector in such a way, her mother talking
about ‘silly pretences’, we witness the growing generational
tensions and the beginnings of Sheila’s growth to
independence.

This difference between generations is also revealed by Birling

talking outside the room to Eric about how much he has been
drinking; Eric’s experience of alienation, division between
himself and his parents becoming even stronger. Eric’s
alcoholism, about which both parents are in denial, and Mrs
Birling’s reference to him as a ‘boy’, indicate that naivety and
even ignorance form the basis of the divisions that have so
clearly emerged.

Shortly before Gerald confesses his affair, Mrs Birling

ironically asserts freedom from any wrongdoing. Her
assertion is one of the many hints at future revelations and

73
part of the ironic structure of the play where assumptions and
claims about innocence are systematically exposed as lies.

When Mr Birling re-enters he is indignant at the Inspector’s

methods. He comments that he will not give the Inspector ‘any
more rope’, a well- known idiom that only serves to
foreshadow the exposure of Mrs Birling herself. Alert to the
implications of what is happening, Sheila sees the significance
of the image immediately, ‘we’ll hang ourselves.’
The metaphor is also a grim and ironic reference to the tragic
suicide itself, and is critically important to how the revelation
of truth has now become an unavoidable process.

Whereas the
Inspector argues a
case for a chain of
events leading to
a suicide, his visit
itself starts this
reaction where
truth is revealed,
and blaming
clashes with
confession and
understanding.

Under questioning, Gerald finally admits that he met Eva

Smith, now called Daisy Renton, at the Palace Bar in Brumley,
the town where the play is set. The place is obviously a place
of ill repute, visited by ‘women of the town’, a euphemism for
prostitutes. What, then, were Gerald’s motives for going there
in the first place?

Gerald goes on to comment how he saw Eva Smith trapped by

Joe Meggarty, a councillor-friend of the Birlings. His
description of Meggarty as ‘goggle-eyed’, drunk and having

74
‘wedged’ Eva Smith into a corner all indicate sexual
harassment.

The predatory
Meggarty forces
himself on to
Eva Smith in the
Palace Bar. As
alderman and
friend of the
Birlings he
represents the
corruption
of so-called
respectable citizens

When Sheila comments that Meggarty molested her friend at

the Town Hall, lucky to escape with only a ‘torn blouse’, her
mother reacts in astonishment, showing her ignorance of her
acquaintances, and leaving the image of Meggarty as sexual
predator clear.

Gerald goes on to argue that his initial reaction to seeing Eva

Smith in such a position was to try to help her. Although we
are never totally clear about why she went to the Palace Bar,
there is a reference to another woman who perhaps tried to
introduce her to prostitution.

The image of Eva Smith as an essentially good person who is

destroyed by the world around her is revealed when Gerald
narrates her physical condition, how terribly hungry she was.
When the Inspector comments that Gerald exploited the
situation for sexual gratification, this initial act of kindness,
however, soon turned to selfishness.

Sheila comments sarcastically about Gerald as a wonderful

‘Fairy Prince’, having loved the attention given to him by an

75
impoverished girl in a hostile world. Behind the comment we
hear the socialism of Priestley highlighting stark social
differences.

Gerald goes on
to reveal that he
ended the
relationship in
September when
he gave Eva
Smith enough
money to get by
until the end of
the year.

Gerald and Eva during their affair

After this, Eva Smith went away to a seaside town where she
stayed by herself. The sentiments expressed in her diary
where she said she could not imagine ‘anything as good again’
underline the fragile nature of hopes and dreams in an
economically hostile world.

It is interesting that Gerald, like Eric later, offered Eva Smith

money at the end of the relationship, as though both men have
tried to free their conscience through a material transaction.
Like Mr Birling later who tries to bribe the Inspector to save
his own neck (‘I’d offer thousands’), the play is very much
concerned with the misuse of money.

Before Gerald leaves, Sheila comments that she respects his

honesty. She affirms her own responsibility in the death and,
since she had met Eva Smith previously, admits she is in some
way responsible for subsequent events.

76
Mrs Birling is questioned (pages 41-49)

Overview

♦ Eric  leaves  the  house  

♦ Mrs   Birling   reveals   she   is   a   member   of   the   Brumley  

Women’s   Charity   Organization,   set   up   to   help   women  
who  are  in  difficult  situations  

♦ The   charity   interviewed   the   woman   two   weeks  

previously   and   Mrs   Birling   was   responsible   for   making  
sure  Eva  Smith’s  request  for  help  was  refused.    

♦ Mrs  Birling  justifies  her  position  and  refuses  to  accept  she  
is  in  any  way  responsible.    

♦ The   play   reaches   one   of   its   climaxes   –   the   revelation   of  

Eric’s   affair   with   Eva   Smith.   The   Inspector   impresses  
upon   everyone   present   that   Eva   Smith   was   pregnant  
when  she  died  

Mrs Birling (centre) at the Brumley Women’s Charity Meeting

77
Analysis

The section reveals clearly Mrs Birling’s hypocrisy. Her

involvement with the charity typifies the strongly felt sense of
public service of women of her background where
expectations of doing good for the society were part of the
legacy of Victorian ideas of duty to the underprivileged in a
Christian nation. In this light we would expect women like her
to be sympathetic, understanding and capable of compassion.
She is, of course, none of these.
In her position as
chairwoman she was able to
ensure that Eva Smith’s
pleas for help were rejected.
Her manipulation of others,
like her daughter’s at
Milwards, illustrates malice
and her show of charity is
nothing more than a sham.
Mrs Birling presides at the meeting
When questioned, Mrs Birling’s prejudices become stronger.
She claims that the dead woman had only herself to blame.
And when she insists she only did her ‘duty’ in rejecting Eva
Smith’s request for help, we see she is a woman incapable of
genuine acts of charity.

It is Sheila who reacts with horror at the thought of the

woman dying with an unborn child, a helpless victim of a
cruel world.

Destroyed before its birth the unborn child is seen as a

powerful and shocking indictment on the nature of society.
Mr Birling had talked earlier about the expectation of
grandchildren. In contrast, Eva Smith’s death, along with her
child, serves to illustrate the opposites of wealth and abject
poverty.

78
When the Inspector comments about her callousness, ‘You’ve
had children’ / ‘You must have known what she was feeling. And
you slammed the door in her face’, it is possible to see Mrs Birling
as the most uncaring of all. True to her nature she remains
implacable, defiant and protected by a shield of self-righteous
justification.

The play now is about to reach one of its dramatic climaxes:

the revelation that Eric had an affair with Eva Smith and that
he is the father whom his mother holds responsible for what
happened.

In the lead up to this the Inspector displays his growing anger,

‘I’m losing all patience with you people’. Middle class
respectability and petty concerns are contrasted with the ugly
details of the victim who ‘lies with a burnt-out inside on a slab’ in
a hospital.

Mrs Birling’s admission that she was offended by Eva Smith’s

use of her surname when she came to the charity for help
reveals further her pettiness and prejudice. Sheila then
attempts to warn her mother at the end of the act that the
father of the child is actually Eric. It is a moment that both
illustrates Mrs Birling’s moral limitations and which increases
the dramatic revelation greatly.

79
 Act Three

Eric is questioned (pages 50 – 57)

Overview

♦ We  learn  that  Eric  had  an  affair  with  Eva  Smith  and  was  
the  father  

♦ Eric’s  selfish  treatment  of  Eva  Smith  is  revealed  

♦ Eric’s  capacity  for  sexual  aggression  is  revealed  

Eric Birling shortly before his inspection

80
Analysis

The Act opens with Eric commenting in a resigned tone to the

Inspector, ‘You know, don’t you?’

His mother, naïve and ignorant, cannot believe her son is the
father of the dead woman’s unborn child. Her shocked
reaction where she resists realization, the ugly truth that she
has already condemned her son emphasizes further her
ignorance. Consistent with her pride and blinding self-
righteousness, Mrs Birling has unwittingly exposed not only
herself as a hypocrite, but also her son as a callous user.

When Eric says of Eva Smith ‘she was a good sport’ we see
sexual gratification as his motive and moral ignorance in his
view of others. This capacity for sexual exploitation illustrates
how, despite his good education and wealth, a good
background does not necessarily develop nobility and
compassion. His disregard for a desperate woman on the
margins of a hostile world becomes more apparent under
investigation

In a short interlude before this happens we see a growing

sense of family disintegration and recriminations as in a
comment made by Birling to his daughter, ‘Where’s your sense
of loyalty’. The Inspector’s comment that the family will all
have time to ‘adjust’ family relationships when he has gone,
exemplifies the familial divisions that will only accelerate once
he leaves.

Like Gerald, Eric met Eva Smith at the Palace Bar, an

admission that might well suggest that Eva Smith had sunken
into prostitution given what we now know of the place.
Taking her home one night, Eric reveals that he used threats to
gain entry to Eva’s lodgings, and yet in doing so brushes off
any suggestion of wrongdoing, ‘I was in that state when a chap
easily turns nasty – and I threatened to make a row’.

81
 Eric outside Eva’s
slum lodgings. The
scene portrays him
as a pathetic figure,
contrasting with
Eva’s decency and
understated
dignity.

Eric then says ‘that’s when it happened’, a polite euphemism for

sex. It comes right after his admission, ‘I threatened to make a
row’ and, along with the excuse about being ‘in that state when
a chap turns nasty’ implies he intimidated Eva Smith for sex.
When Birling insists that both Sheila and Mrs Birling leave the
room we are reminded of the social context of Edwardian
England when such matters were far too shocking for the ears
of women.

Having exploited her sexually, we learn that Eric met Eva

Smith by chance a fortnight later in the Palace Bar. Although
he criticizes the ‘respectable friends’ of his father’s who
womanize and cavort with the ‘fat old tarts’ of the town, the
prostitutes, he simultaneously indicts himself in his admission
of aggression. Similarly, he did not remember Eva’s name
when he met her again revealing he had no intention of
helping her or seeing her again, only exploiting her.

He then admits to stealing money for Eva Smith, but only

because he was worried about the consequence after she told
him she might be pregnant. At this point Mrs Birling and
Sheila re-enter the room. The playwright, observing
Edwardian manners, has allowed the men to talk about the
matter of sex and pregnancy without the women present, a

82
clever touch giving verisimilitude (see page 114) to the social
norms of the day.

Birling’s reaction is to try to cover up the theft as it could

clearly damage his reputation given that the stolen money
(fifty pounds, or about 4,000 pounds today) might fall under
the scrutiny of a tax audit. When he criticizes his son for not
informing him of needing money in a time of trouble Eric
responds, ‘You don’t understand anything. You never did. You
never even tried’. His comment is pointed and reveals a life of
alienation from his father.

In a poignant and ironic twist we learn that Eva Smith

stopped taking the money when she realized it was being
stolen. Unlike Eric she showed moral fibre. It is now,
therefore, even more ironic Eric’s mother falsely judged Eva
Smith, ‘As if a girl of that sort would refuse money!’

The Inspector’s comment that the family can ‘divide

responsibility’ between themselves when he leaves anticipates
one of the dramatic peaks in the play. When Eric learns that
his mother refused help to the destitute and pregnant young
woman he accuses her of callousness and vile betrayal, ‘you
killed her’. His comment about her ignorance completes the
picture of Eric’s alienation from both parents.

Before he leaves the Inspector returns to the idea of the chain

of events and collective responsibility, ‘each of you helped to kill
her.’ Then, in a desperate attempt to save himself from public
scandal, Birling offers the Inspector ‘thousands’ (see page 41).
Birling’s shallow act contrasts with the Inspector’s warning
that he will soon pay a heavy price for what he did, and
shows him capable of reducing the whole meaning of the visit
to a bribe, one designed to save his own neck; an act that
typifies both his selfishness and material values.

83
 The Inspector’s
closing speech
is both an
indictment and
appeal to
fairness. He
argues that Eva
Smith was like
millions of
others: lonely
and desperate,
impoverished
and hoping for
a better life. He argues that despite the horror of her death,
there is something to learn from the tragedy. He appeals to
shared values, a common humanity, ‘We are members of one
body. We are responsible for one another.’ in a comment where
we hear the socialism of the writer himself arguing for a fairer
and equitable society.

Ultimately, the Inspector’s closing speech is Priestley the

socialist speaking. It is a message that lies in the tradition of
the great socialist writers who went before and came after. Of
William Blake in his poem London and Chimney Sweeper. Of
Dickens who in Hard Times wrote about the impoverished
multitudes in the north of England.

84
Recriminations Fly (pages 57 – 61)

Overview

♦ Once  the  Inspector  leaves  recriminations  fly.  The  

divisions  in  the  family  have  never  been  greater  
♦ Eric  pours  scorn  on  his  father’s  pretensions  for  a  
knighthood  
♦ Mr  Birling  defends  his  position  
♦ Eric  and  Sheila  condemn  their  father  for  his  attitude  
♦ Sheila  is  shocked  by  her  parents  and  Gerald’s  refusal  to  
consider  the  implications  of  the  suicide  

The Inspector’s visit creates sharp divisions in the family

85
Analysis

After the Inspector leaves, recriminations fly. The family now

is clearly divided, especially along the lines of parents and
children. Since Gerald has so clearly sided with Mr Birling the
divisions lie not simply between generations, but between
ideological positions.

Eric pours scorn on his father’s shallow concern about a

knighthood and how public image matters more to him than a
tragic death. Typical of his narrowness, Birling excuses his
own behaviour, even saying he is ‘ashamed’ of his own
children. Like his wife, he remains blinded by self-
righteousness and vanity.

Sheila, of course, cannot comprehend such fantastic ignorance,

‘I don’t know where to begin.’ She is revolted by her father’s
comment, ‘It turned out unfortunate, that’s all’, in which he
reduces the impact of the suicide to bad luck. His fear of a
public scandal, already mentioned previously, only underlines
Mr Birling’s inability to empathise.

It is also interesting to note that Mr Birling argues that the

Inspector was probably some kind of socialist or some such
‘crank’, and in dismissing him so we are reminded of the
central theme of capitalism versus socialism, introduced in the
opening scenes of the play.

It is now Sheila who turns on her father, ‘You don’t seem to have
learnt anything’. Confounded by her parents’ position and
disgusted by moral failures the divisions between the
generations could not be stronger.

86
Gerald Returns with surprising news to argue the case of an
elaborate hoax (pages 61-71)

Overview

♦ Sheila  and  Eric  remain  united  in  their  disgust  about  what  
happened  
♦ Gerald  tries  to  argue  that  the  inspection  is  nothing  more  
than  a  hoax  
♦ Mr  and  Mrs  Birling  seize  upon  this  argument  
♦ Mr  Birling  calls  his  friend,  Colonel  Roberts,  at  the  local  
constabulary  and  discovers  no  one  has  ever  heard  of  an  
Inspector  Goole  
♦ Gerald  calls  the  local  Infirmary  to  establish  whether  there  
has  been  a  suicide  case  
♦ A  telephone  call  then  curtails  the  short-­‐lived  change  of  
mood  when  the  family  is  informed  that  an  Inspector  is  
about  to  arrive  to  investigate  a  suicide.  

Gerald’s argues the case for an elaborate hoax

87
Analysis

Gerald returns to argue that the Inspector is a fake, his visit a

‘hoax’, and the mood changes quickly. Mr and Mrs Birling are
quick to seize the possibility this presents of escaping a public
scandal. In contrast to her parents’ sudden sense of victory,
however, Sheila comments, ‘He inspected us all right’. The
comment is one of the great metaphors in the play, perhaps
the most important of all, relating to the theme of justice.

Gerald argues that as an imposter, the Inspector should be

dismissed outright. The good names of the family will survive
and, after the necessary adjustment to the shock of the visit,
life will continue as normal. This short scene, that reveals the
triumphalism of Gerald and Mr and Mrs Birling, serves to set
up the dramatic twist at the end of the play.

Gerald’s account of meeting a local police officer on duty who

told him he had never heard of an Inspector Goole is similarly
confirmed when Birling talks to his friend, Colonel Roberts, at
the local constabulary. Birling, like Gerald, senses an elaborate
deception, ‘We’ve been had.’ He goes on to speculate that the
Inspector could have been a local person, jealous of his wealth
and bent on defamation.

Towards the close of the play, however, the depth of contrast

between the siblings Sheila and Eric who accept what they did
was wrong and the others who deny this could not be
stronger. Where Sheila argues the family’s response is a
simplistic resumption of pretence, ‘You’re just beginning to
pretend all over again’, Eric states emphatically, ‘we all helped to
kill her.’

Sheila also remains disgusted with Gerald’s shallow grasp of

what he has done, ‘I suppose you’re going to prove now you didn’t
spend the summer keeping this girl instead of seeing me, eh?’

88
Gerald’s argument for an elaborate hoax that frees everyone
from blame reaches a new height when he argues that the
photograph shown to the various family members might not
have been a photograph of the same girl, that there were
‘probably four of five different girls’. If this is the case, there is no
evidence that it was the same girl. Having so invalidated the
Inspector’s credentials it is now Gerald who senses victory.
When he does he refutes the idea of a chain of events as no
more than a series of intricate lies, woven by a wily imposter.

In response, Eric protests that such a counter-argument cannot

negate the horror of a suicide. At this moment, Gerald decides
to call the Infirmary on the pretext he is worried about one of
his employees at Crofts and Co. When he is informed that
there has not been a suicide case for several months his
argument seems proven, and the Inspector’s claims no more
than ‘moonshine’.

In the moments before the final twist of the play, the coup de
theatre grande-finale, Gerald, Mrs. Birling and Mr Birling are
all visibly relieved. For them, life can go as normal. Gerald
will soon offer the ring to Sheila, Mr Birling will ‘laugh it off’,
as Mrs Birling will, ‘Why shouldn’t we’. The effect of all of this
is, of course, to add to the dramatic twist at the end of the
play.
When Birling takes
a telephone call
informing him that
an Inspector is on
his way over to ‘ask
some questions’
about a suicide,
everyone, and
possibly the
audience too, is left
‘dumbfounded’.

89
Gerald’s argument has now been rubbished and the
assumptions of a hoax turn quickly to uncanny repetition
where the end of the play takes us back to the beginning.

The ending with its richly symbolic representation of the

cyclical nature of time and events, the question marks about
the Inspector’s identity – (ghost or real?) - shows Priestley at
his theatrical best, returning in a clever and dramatic twist to
the central themes of moral conduct and respectability and
wealth.

In a very recent production of the play the director, Stephen

Dawdry (follow the link below to watch an interview with
Dawdry), presents Mr Birling as a modern day banker,
egoistic and utterly indifferent to others. As the son of a bank
manager Dawdry’s production has a particular resonance.
Priestley’s ideas of exploitation of the underprivileged for
personal gain could neither be clearer and more relevant to an
age experiencing the biggest financial collapse in decades. An
age where, according to Charles Ferguson in the Oscar
winning documentary ‘Inside Job’ about the financial crisis,
fifty million people have been pushed under the poverty line
against a background of corporate greed and rampant
profiteering by an elite that remain unpunished for the grand
and elaborate frauds they engineered.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/theatre/theatre-
reviews/6239688/An-Inspector-Calls-at-the-Novello-Theatre-
review.html

90
 Chapter 7
How to Write a Good Essay

There are THREE parts to essay construction:

♦ The  Introduction  
♦ The  Body  of  the  Essay  
♦ The  Conclusion  

You must consider each carefully.

To develop your points logically, use evidence from the text,

show understanding of character and theme, as well as refer
to the social and historical context.

At first all of this sounds daunting. However, a good

technique and clarity of structure will ensure you write well
and improve your grade.

The Introduction.

Here you should refer specifically to the question. DO NOT

start to tell the story again. Your essay will look rehearsed, a
regurgitation of memorized ‘fit all’ information. As an
examiner I would say this is always a clear sign that the
candidate was not able to adapt what she or he had learnt to
the question. Don’t run away from the question, run towards
it!

Ways to do this: First of all underline the key words in the

question itself. Make sure you react to them in your answer. If
the question asks you to ‘discuss’ then take the question from
different angles, using a variety of evidence. If it includes a
statement with which you do not agree then say so very early

91
in your essay. Make you position clear. For example, let’s say
you got the question ‘Mrs Birling is most to blame for Eva
Smith’s death’. You might disagree with this and start by
saying:

Eva Smith’s suicide, though certainly influenced by Mrs

Birling, is by no means a result of her actions alone. Other
members of the family not only affected Eva Smith in
different ways but in ways which, in themselves, were as
equally damaging.
OR

Mrs Birling can not be held individually responsible for the

suicide of Eva Smith. Her death is in fact a result not of one
person’s action, but the actions of all of the family members
who in a process that the Inspector calls ‘a chain of events’
affected her decision to commit suicide in different but
nonetheless equally damaging ways.

Another key technique to use is synonyms for key words in

the question. For example, instead of using the word blame,
use the word responsible. Do this often in your essay. This
flexibility will show you are thinking carefully about the heart
of the question.

The Body of the Essay

Using the technique below will ensure your essay is well

structured and cohesive. I have taught this technique to many
students and it always improves structure and quality.

I call it the PEAL technique. It is one of the most powerful

tools to build an excellent essay. Make sure that each section
has these four aspects in them:

♦ P   –   Make   an   overall   POINT.     Refer   to   one   aspect   of  

the  question.  This  will  show  a  clear  direction.  

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 ♦ E  –  Show  EVIDENCE  from  the  play  –  either  a  direct  
quotation   or   a   paraphrase   of   a   key   moment.  
Remember  to  keep  your  quotations  short.  ‘Weave’  
them  into  your  sentence  so  they  appear  natural  to  
your   overall   point.   REMEMBER:   too   many  
quotations   can   spoil   an   essay   just   as   easily   as   too  
few.  

♦ A   –   ANALYZE   the   evidence   carefully.   Think   about  

thematic   issues,   what   your   evidence   tells   you  
about   the   character,   the   social   and   historical  
context,   and   –   importantly   –   if   there   are   any   key  
techniques   such   as   symbolism   (Names:   Goole   /  
Eva   Smith),   metaphors   (‘a   chain   of   events’),   or  
irony   (‘silly   war   scares’).     This   area   is   where  
candidates  typically  do  not  go  far  enough.  By  using  
this   technique   you   will   definitely   add   depth   to  
your  essay  and  improve  your  grade.  

♦ L   –   Be   sure   to   show   the   LINK   between   your  

evidence   and   the   question.   How,   for   example,   does  
it  reveal  another  aspect  of  the  question?  

A common weakness with many pupil essays is that the

paragraphs are either fragmented or rambling. Single or two
sentence paragraphs, or paragraphs that are pages long, spoil
the flow of the essay. Use the PEAL technique to break down
your essay into manageable parts.

The Conclusion

Too many essays fizzle out. Great points die a lonely death.
They get close to home, the logical outcome of what the pupil
has discussed, but are abandoned before they arrive.
Don’t let this happen. Take hold of them. And if they won’t
come willingly, drag them there!

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How to ensure a great conclusion.

A technique that always bears fruit is the PODS technique:

Position: Outline; Developments; Synthesise.

Let’s take these in turn. We will move away from An Inspector

Calls briefly and look at how some students wrote about other
texts.

POSITION: Rule ONE - Make your position clear.

Example 1: The question of whether Rhys’s characters only

ever ‘inwardly digest’ involves various issues.

Example 2: Passivity in the novel Wide Sargasso Sea or, as

Neville puts it ‘inwardly digesting’, is evident in some
characters but does not represent fully any character totally.

In both examples the student makes clear what the original

question is and his/her overall response to it. This is great
technique. Do this in the first sentence of your conclusion -
ALWAYS!

OUTLINE OF FURTHER ISSUES AND DIFFERENT

INTERPRETATIONS issues that are complicated/ that the
question itself raises: (this is excellent for history essays, law,
sociological discussions, philosophy (all discursive work):

Example: Although Rochester in Jean Rhys’s ‘Wide

Sargasso Sea’ represents patriarchal values he is, in fact, just
as much a victim of social values as anyone else. This is an
issue the novel implies, but does not always make clear. Soon
after he has claimed his dowry, land and property, he sinks
into doubt and insecurity as the richly symbolic and pivotal
forest scene illustrates.

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DEVLOPMENT: Character development: Is there change?
Moral growth? Degeneration? Why?

Example 1: In An Inspector Calls it is clear that where both

Eric and Sheila develop in terms of how they see the tragedy
and how they empathize with the victim, the others do not.
This moral growth illustrates differences between generations
as well as different moral and ideological views of the world.
Only through the younger generation of Birlings is the real
impact of the tragedy seen, as though their readiness to
understand and learn offers some hope for the future.

Example 2 (on Shakespeare): The changes in both Romeo

and Juliet spring from various sources. Romeo at the
beginning of the play is lovelorn and fulfils the role of the
archetypal jilted lover: self-obsessed and unable to see beyond
the confines that powerful emotions have placed on him,
expressed by Shakespeare brilliantly in a series of oxymorons
that illustrate paralysis of will: ‘feather of lead’ and ‘burning
hate’.

SYNTHESISE: Try to give a summarising comment that

brings together the different parts of your essay. DO NOT
simply tell the examiner what you have just written about, as
many students do.

Example Here is the ending of an essay taken from a

student essay that follows on page 98: ‘An Inspector
Calls’ was written during a Socialist period, but was set in a
Capitalist time. We see this tension between both parties
greatly in the play, and would consider it as the main
conflict. The moral of the story, which Inspector Goole
represents, is: ‘We don’t live alone’.

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 Chapter 8
Two Examples of Student Responses
With Examiner’s Comments

Student Example 1, by Alison Burns

Question: The central conflict in the play is the conflict between
capitalism and socialism. Do you agree with this view?

John Boynton Priestley (1894-1984) was very concerned about

the social inequality in Britain. In 1942, he was involved in the
founding of a new political party, the Common Wealth party,
whose ideology was socialism. It argued for public ownership
of land, greater democracy and a new ‘morality’ in politics.

We see his political interests in ‘An Inspector Calls’ (written in

1945, but set in 1912), where we can observe both sides:
socialism and capitalism. Socialism is the belief that as a
society, we look after one another. More importantly,
socialists believe that the rich should look after the poor, by
paying higher taxes. Socialists want to see a revision of the
class system, so everyone, no matter what their background is,
can achieve and live a good life. Capitalism is an economic
system based on the private ownership of industry and which
often leads to the rich exploiting the poor. Capitalism is
frequently embodied by Conservatism, a party that believes in
individuals taking greater responsibility for themselves.

Mr Arthur Birling represents the capitalist society: he is the

owner of a factory business, Birling and Company, a
magistrate and was Lord Mayor of Brumley. He is overly
concerned with wealth and status, and is very much an
arrogant, selfish character. ‘…a man has to make his own way –
has to look after himself – and his family too, of course, when he has
one – and so long as he does that he won’t come to much harm’. Mrs
Sybil Birling and Gerald Croft can be linked to ideas of capita-
lism since both directly and indirectly adhere to Birling’s ideo-

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logical position. In contrast, Inspector Goole, clearly
symbolises socialist ideals: he criticises Mr Birling and his
capitalist ideas, and tells the family that through their
arrogance and ‘superiority’, they have killed a woman of a
lower class. His closing speech where he says, ‘We are members
of one body. We are responsible for each other’ indicates his central
theme of collective social responsibility.

The writer Priestley and the Inspector are allied and we can
say that the Inspector, in essence, is the mouthpiece of
Priestley whose views about a fairer society he embodies. It is
interesting to note how both Sheila and Eric Birling become
“more socialist” by the end of the play, showing sympathy
towards the dead woman, through the teachings of the
Inspector.

In 1912, England was capitalist, at the peak of industrial

developments, and in control of a vast empire. There was a
strong distinction between classes: rich men being the ruling
class and poor women used as cheap labour, this conflict had
set off Eva Smith’s life fuse. Because of this great division
between classes, there was widespread poverty. The poor
would then ask for more money from their employers, who
might refuse, as Mr Birling did, ‘We were paying the usual rates
and if they didn’t like those rates, they could go and work somewhere
else. It’s a free country, I told them.’ He fired Eva Smith, who was
then repeatedly rejected and exploited by the upper class until
she committed suicide.

Her story indicates in ways how capitalism at that time

created a rough environment to those who struggled through
it and Eva Smith was no exception. If Mr Birling had ignored
his own views of profits and opened his mind to the welfare
of his workers, Eva Smith would have still lived. If there had
not been class difference, the family members, that followed
Mr Birling, would have treated her more fairly and would not
have used her. If Eva Smith had lived in a more socialist

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society, she would have had a chance of a better life.

As the Inspector leaves, he tells the family and the audience

that this conflict between classes is dangerous. ‘…if men will
not learn that lesson, then they will be taught it in fire and blood and
anguish’ After the two World Wars, the distinction between
classes started to reduce, since so many were affected by
poverty and destruction and social mobility started to change.
In 1945, a Socialist government came into power, the year the
play was first performed, and maybe suggesting the chance of
change. Even though England today is capitalist, there is not
the great distinction between classes as there was then, and
especially not in terms of the rights of workers. ‘An Inspector
Calls’ was written during a Socialist period, but was set in a
Capitalist time. We see this tension between both parties
greatly in the play, and would consider it as the main conflict.
The moral of the story, which Inspector Goole represents, is:
‘We don’t live alone’

Examiner’s Comment. Grade A with A* potential

The essay keeps in sight the key historical contexts that are
required for a good essay. This awareness is informed by a
clear understanding of key differences between socialism and
capitalism as Priestley saw them. The close linking of the play
to contexts (1912, 1945) and a clear attempt to make it relevant
to contemporary issues) is very good. This is a must for a play
like An Inspector Calls that deals predominantly with social
and cultural issues and any student of the play should do this
in writing about the text.

The essay makes good use of key quotations both from the
two central characters who embody capitalism and socialism:
Mr Birling and the Inspector. There could be more here. For
example, some of the key comments made by Mr Birling at the
beginning of the play in his opening speeches (‘lower costs
and higher prices’ / ‘community and all that nonsense’ / ‘bees

98
in a hive’); as well as comments made by the Inspector (‘chain
of events’). One key issue is to talk about the writer’s
techniques and methods and using quotations like ‘bees in a
hive’ and ‘chain of events’ would allow you to talk about images
and metaphors. This will add marks to the response.

Other techniques in the play are satire (of Mr Birling) and

irony. For example, it is ironic that the presumptions of Mr
Birling about capital are questioned if not rejected by the very
people he assumes agree with his ideology, his own children,
as when Sheila retorts, But these girls aren’t cheap labour, they’re
people.’ Also, students must remember that the text is a play.
Using words such as audience / dramatic tension / stage
settings will show the examiner you are aware of this.

These revisions would help this essay to achieve an A*

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Student Example 2, by Dariusz O’Leary
Question: Discuss the identity of the Inspector.

One evening in spring 1912, while the Birling family is

celebrating the engagement of Sheila Birling and Gerald Croft,
an unexpected guest arrives. An Inspector called Mr Goole, a
man in his fifties, arrives at the Birling’s front door. He tells
the family that a girl called Eva Smith has committed suicide
by drinking a bottle of disinfectant and that he has some
questions to ask.

The question of ‘who is the Inspector’ persists throughout the

entire play. From the start there is evidence showing that he is
not who he pretends to be. One example is at the start when
Mr Goole asks ’Why’ Mr Birling fired the ringleaders of the
strike at his mill. This seems to be inappropriate for an
Inspector to ask, it seems to be more of a moral question
rather than a legal question.

During the whole play, Mr Goole behaves rather strangely

and definitely fails to act in a way his job would require of
him. Another piece of evidence regarding the Inspector’s
mysterious identity is the way he always looks at his watch
before a key moment in the play. I would see this as if Mr
Goole was some sort of supernatural being, who has a time
plan to keep. The Inspector also keeps a strict order of whom
he questions, which underlines the point of the time plan and
the chain of events of the order of how Eva Smith was affected
by different people.

More proof that Mr Goole is not a real inspector is that he only

shows a photograph to one person at a time, maybe he does
not even show the same photograph. He seems to be very
careful when handling the photo(s), and makes sure only one
person sees it. For example, after showing the photograph to
Sheila, Gerald says, ‘I’d like to have a look at that photograph now,
Inspector’ whereupon Mr Goole answers, ’All in good time’.

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What or who is Mr Goole, then, if not an inspector? He could
be a time traveller, if you refer to the fact that he always looks
at his watch and if you think about the end of the play where
the infirmary rings up saying that a woman has committed
suicide, just after Mr Goole leaves. He also says,’…if men will
not learn that lesson, then they will be taught it in fire and blood and
anguish’ This seems as if Mr Goole already knows about WWI
and WWII. If you look on the play of words from Goole to
ghoul then maybe the Inspector is a spirit.

I personally think that Mr Goole is meant to be a messenger

from the future and people’s conscience. The fact that he
always looks at his watch as if he had another appointment to
go to is one reason I believe this. One more reason is that he
acts as if he is someone’s conscience, which is most clearly
shown in the Inspector’s final speech. ’We don’t live alone.
We are members of one body. We are responsible for each other.’
This is one small part of his speech that highlights the point
of conscience. The Inspector also has an aura of knowing, for
example about the future, or before someone says something.
The ending of the play is left totally open for the reader to
decide what he thinks by using the evidence given in the play
and I think that this is why this play is so interesting.

Examiner’s Comment. Grade A with A* potential

Although the opening is narrative and somewhat predictable,

the overall response is original and well written with some
very interesting points and turns of phrases. The idea of a
‘time traveller’ and the inspector as an embodiment of
conscience are very well presented and deserve much credit.
There are some references to the social context such as the
wars but these should have been developed. The Inspector as
a critic of the social divisions of the age was a good idea.

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The quotation in the final paragraph (‘We don’t live alone…..’)
is well placed but should be analysed in more detail. It
embodies one of the central messages of the play: collective
social responsibility. The reference to the play on words –
Goole versus ghoul shows a clear ability to analyse techniques.
More on this would help to get a higher grade. For example,
the student could comment on the use of vivid imagery (‘fire
and blood’) and the symbolism in the chain of events reference.
These revisions would help to consolidate an ‘A’ grade and to
move it closer to an ‘A’.

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 Typical Exam / Coursework Questions

Sample Essay Questions on the Play as a Whole

1. ‘Birling’s worldview is wholly materialistic and temporal,

while the Inspector’s is ethical and timeless.
With careful reference to the text discuss the differences
that emerge between Mr Birling and the Inspector,
commenting on how you react to the statement above.

2. How do events in the decades leading up to and

including the one in which the play is set help
understand An Inspector Calls? Use Chapters 3 and 4 of
this study guide to help you.

3. Look again at the engagement party at the beginning of

the play, up to the point where the Inspector arrives.
What are your impressions of Mr Birling?

4. Write about how Priestley creates different moments of

tension in the play.

5. Who, if anyone, is most to blame for the suicide?

6. How does the playwright reveal the plight of the poor

in the play?

7. Discuss how Priestley uses the Inspector to present

ideas about social responsibility and moral failure.

8. What kind of world do the characters inhabit? Include

in your answer what you learn about Eva Smith’s
experiences. Refer to aspects of historical context, of
when the play was set, in your answer.

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 9. ‘He inspected us all right’. Discuss what Sheila means by
this comment.

10. How does Priestley reveal the historic conflict of

capitalism versus socialism?

11. Is the play still relevant to contemporary society?

12. The director Stephen Dawdry argues that the play

reveals much about the fate of a single mother in a
prejudiced world. Discuss what kind of world Eva
Smith inhabits concentrating on the problems she faces
as a lone woman and then, once she is pregnant, as a
potentially single mother.

13. Compare and contrast two of the characters that

Inspector Goole interrogates in the play. Take into
account what they have done before the play begins as
well as their actions, words and attitudes during the
course of the play. How do the characters change or
develop?

14. The Inspector: “...what happened to her then may have

determined what happened to her afterwards, and what
happened to her afterwards may have driven her to suicide. A
chain of events.”
The Inspector talks about a ‘chain of events’, how each
person must accept his or her responsibility. How is
this idea shown in the play?

15. ‘There is no such thing as society. There are individual men

and women, and there are families.’ Margaret Thatcher.
How are these ideas developed in the play?

16. ‘Ultimately there is no justice for Eva Smith.’ Do you

agree with this view?

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17. In what ways is An Inspector Calls a play about hopes
and dreams?

18. How does the playwright develop the theme of truth

and lies?

19. The play reveals much about how children relate to

parents. Where is this shown in the play and how does
Priestley reveal the conflicts that emerge between these
two sets of people?

20. ‘The absence of Eva Smith only serves to make her presence
stronger’. Examine what we learn about Eva Smith and
whether you think the statement above is valid.

21. In what respects is An Inspector Calls a play about social

protest? In your answer refer to sources of social
protest in the play.

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 Chapter 9 Themes
Social Responsibility
The Inspector essentially embodies this theme. His role is not
to establish a crime in terms of criminal law, but a failure to
act with compassion and understanding to others. To impress
upon the family and the audience the moral urgency of the
case. It is linked to the theme of the chain of events, the idea
that individual actions against others have a cumulative effect
over time and which, as with Eva Smith, can be devastating.
Eva suffers summary sacking (by Mr Birling), unfair treatment
because of jealousy (by Sheila), sexual exploitation (by Gerald
and Eric), and rejection resulting from self-righteous
indignation (by Mrs Birling). This series of rejections stands in
complete opposition to the central argument of the play – a
fairer society.

Key points made by the Inspector include his comments to Mr

Birling where he says sacking Eva Smith could well have
started a chain of events: ‘What happened to her then may have
affected what happened to her afterwards...may have driven her to
suicide.’ He goes on to say ‘It would do us all a bit of good if
sometimes we tried to put ourselves in the place of these young
women’ where the appeal to empathy, putting ourselves in the
place of others, is also a key part of the idea of social
responsibility: through empathy we will achieve a fairer
society. By identifying with the family through the use of the
first person ‘we’ the Inspector’s position is also one of
understanding, especially shown in his treatment of Sheila, an
appeal for a society where each person acts in a socially
responsible way, and not one of blame and condemnation.

The theme of social responsibility was expressed brilliantly in

the poem No Man Is An Island by John Donne (1572-1631)
where the poet argues that all human lives are connected by

106
intricate webs of influence. The link between the play and the
poem is symbolic and thematic. The bell tolling in Donne’s
poem can be seen as the unheard funeral bell of Eva Smith,
and the thematic link the collective responsibility of the
family.

Like his wife, Mr Birling utterly rejects the idea of social

responsibility. His position is that society develops through
individual efforts, his belief is in the meritocracy, the
rewarding of personal efforts, not providing for others. A key
image where he shows this is when he argues that people are
not ‘bees in a hive’ and then dismissing ‘community and all that
nonsense’. His ideas of individualism and success based on
reward resulting from this stand in complete contrast to the
Inspector who argues ‘we are members of one body’ and ‘we are
responsible for one another’. At the heart of the question of social
responsibility is the clash of ideologies represented by the
Inspector and Mr Birling.

107
 The Plight of the Poor
This theme is embodied in the story of Eva Smith. It is
important to recognize her symbolic surname: being a very
common English surname, Smith indicates that her experience
is representative of many women, and men. This point is
made clear by the Inspector who argues at the end of the play
‘there are millions and millions and millions of Eva Smiths and John
Smiths still left with us.’

Stephen Dawdry, a director of a highly successful modern

production of the play, argues that a central theme is the
plight of a poor single mother whose situation is made all the
more dire because of her poverty and the way in which people
exploit and marginalize such a person.

The tragedy of Eva Smith is allied to the various ways the

Birlings and Gerald failed her. In each case, however, the
problems that the poor faced are illustrated graphically. In
the first case Mr Birling’s treatment of the young worker
illustrates a lack of worker rights, the power factory owners
had in suspending or sacking their workers (a case illustrated
by the 1891 London Women’s Matchmakers Strike), the sub-
standard housing, and the problem of making ends meet on a
very low income. These issues are the beginning of what the
Inspector calls a chain of events that we can understand as the
poverty spiral: the inescapability of social problems through
lack of money.

108
 Capitalism Versus Socialism
‘There is no such thing as society. There are individual men
and women, and there are families.’ Margaret Thatcher.

This theme is presented through the central roles of The

Inspector and Mr Birling. Gerald is also included since his
father’s business, Croft and Co, is linked to the business
interests of Birling as when Gerald openly agrees with the
capitalist ideology of Mr Birling.

Key to understanding this theme is a close study of Mr

Birling’s opening speeches, made before the arrival of the
Inspector. His central argument springs from the idea that
society is a meritocracy whereby individuals are rewarded
according to their abilities, talents, and efforts. In such a
society success is a result of entrepreneurial endeavours, of
creating one’s own chances. The assumption is that everyone
has access to opportunities and therefore success is the
responsibility of individuals, not of the state or any
organization. This idea manifests itself as assertive
individualism where Mr Birling flatly rejects socialist notions
of shared, communal efforts, ‘as if we were mixed up like bees in a
hive, community and all that nonsense.’

For Birling society is driven by hard work and capital gain,

‘Birling’s and Crofts are no longer competing’ but ‘working together
for lower costs and higher prices.’ He asserts the rights of factory
owners to exert great control on wage negotiations and to
protect the interests of capitalists and commodities and talks
about himself as a ‘hard-headed business man’, as though
business has no place for sympathies with the poor and
downcast. When confronted with the Inspector’s suggestion
that he might have contributed to Eva Smith’s tragedy he
argues ‘It’s my duty to keep labour costs down.’ In saying this we
see that both his economic ideals and moral outlook are one of

109
the same thing.

One of Birling’s most obvious characteristics is his blind faith

in industrial progress. His comment that there will be ‘rapid
progress everywhere’ reveals the author’s satire on the boastful
Birling and the naïve assumptions of industrialists who
espoused ideas of unlimited growth, based on the idea that
nature could be dominated by humans for their benefits alone.

This is developed when he comments that industry has

advanced so much that within a year planes will be ‘able to go
anywhere’ and that the Titanic is ‘unsinkable, absolutely
unsinkable.’ Such assertions reveal clearly the presumptions of
man dominating nature, exploiting its resources and, through
industry and engineering, overcoming the limitations of the
material world.

At the centre of his world is the power of industry that is

driven by individuals like him. He is very much the
embodiment of Victorian ideas and ideals about individuals
and capital, the assumptions of Samuel Smiles’s ideas
satirized in Charles Dickens’s novel Hard Times where
Bounderby, like Birling, embodies the traits of the
presumptions and arrogance of Priestley’s self made man.

In stark contrast is the Inspector, the embodiment of socialism,

the voice of universal conscience, and the ideals of the writer
himself. His central argument is the argument for an equitable
world, a fairer share of the inordinate wealth created at the
expense of millions of workers in capitalist societies. He
contradicts Mr Birling in every way. He is the antithesis of the
claims Birling makes that seem, to him, fantastic and fallacious
and contradict core human values of respect and
understanding.

Whereas Mr Birling argues a case for individuals, the

Inspector uses the central metaphor of the chain of events to

110
argue that an intricate web links each person in society
of connections and influences. This is revealed very early in
the play where, shortly after arriving, he argues that Eva
Smith’s decision to kill herself might well have had its roots in
what Mr Birling did, ‘What happened to her then may have
affected what happened to her afterwards...may have driven her to
suicide.’

This idea of collective responsibility, contradicting Mr

Birling’s notions of the self-made man, of a society driven by
dynamic individuals, carries on throughout the play. It is the
key message of the Inspector whose technique of revealing
how each family member affected Eva Smith presents a
radically different society. In this portrayal capital does not
spring from entrepreneurs, but the legitimisation of mass
exploitation, and tragedies like suicide from repeated patterns
of negative treatment.

Both Eric and Sheila, the two family members whose ideas are
clearly influenced by the Inspector, reflect some of these
sympathies. Whereas Eric argues that workers are ‘real people’,
Sheila comments that it is pointless trying to ‘build up a wall’ in
order to protect themselves from the ugly truths of suicide
and how it happened.

Before he leaves the Inspector comments that the experience

of Eva Smith is by no means unique. There are ‘millions of Eva
Smith’s and John Smiths’, adding to the idea that a fair society
has to address the problem of widespread social divisions.
Where Mr Birling dismisses the idea of ‘bees in a hive’, an ironic
symbol of productive communal work, the Inspector points
directly to the central social message of the play just before he
leaves, ‘We are responsible for one another’, ‘we are members of one
body.’

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 List of Other Key Themes

The list below provides reference of other important themes in

the play. They are discussed in the notes on characters and
throughout the act analyses along with key quotations.

Social class
Truth and lies
The role and the rights of women in society
Marriage and love
Parents and children/youth and age
Hopes and dreams
Moral blindness versus moral growth
Selfishness
Justice
Wealth, money, ambition
The ‘chain of events’

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 Chapter 10

Useful Literary Terms

Below is a list of key literary terms for An Inspector Calls. Use

them in your essays. They will add to your control of
vocabulary and help you to analyse the text more deeply and
so improve your responses.

Students who want to deepen their knowledge of literary

terms should buy (or get their school library to do so)
Professor Abrams’s, A Glossary of Literary Terms, Heinle &
Heinle. It is detailed and comprehensive and, quite simply, the
best book ever published on this area. Follow the weblink
below for a great article about Abrams.

Euphemism A polite way of expressing something considered

to be socially taboo. Examples in the play are ‘women of the
town’ meaning prostitutes and ‘squiffy’ to describe Eric’s
drunken state. Priestley uses these to indicate the class of
people presented where the common terms are considered too
vulgar.

Genre The style or type of a work of art. For example, hip

hop, R&B, Science Fiction, Cubism are all examples of genres.
An Inspector Calls reveals aspects of the Whodunit genre (see
below).

Image CS Lewis (of The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe fame)
succinctly described an image as putting into words a sound,
smell, taste, something one touches, or one sees. In this broad
sense an image is therefore created by any of the range of
figures of speech: similes, onomatopoeia, metaphor,
alliteration, assonance, personification. All of these create an
image in the reader’s mind such as the clip clop of horses,

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(onomatopoeia). Image is a most useful phrase since it can be
used interchangeably with any of these. Instead of repeating
the word metaphor, for example, when talking about the
chain of events, students can use the word image. For example,
‘Priestley uses the image of the chain of events to suggest that each
family member is involved’. This will add variety to your essays.

Irony Events, situations or ideas can typically be called ironic.

Irony refers to when, in each of these, the outcome is opposite
to expectations. A key example in the play is Mrs Birling’s
comment that the father of the unborn child of Eva Smith
should be held responsible for what happened, not realising
that it is her own son she is judging.

Metaphor A figure of speech where two unalike things are

compared. Key examples in the play are the chain of events and
bees in a hive used by the Inspector and Mr Birling.

Chain of events: When the Inspector says that events leading to

Eva Smith’s death are a chain of events he means that each
person’s actions affected her, creating a cumulation of
devastating effects overtime. It is the central metaphor of the
whole play used to illustrate the idea of collective social
responsibility.

Bees in a hive: When Mr Birling dismisses the idea of bees in a

hive Priestley uses a traditional metaphor for the productivity
of collective action. This, in turn, becomes a metaphor for
socialism in the play, a political doctrine that Mr Birling
completely opposes.

Pun A play on words that creates various meanings. The KEY

example in the play is the name of the Inspector where the
playwright plays on the idea of an ordinary name and the idea
of a ghost (Goole/ghoul) to suggest a mysterious,
supernatural presence.

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(See pages 32 - Characters / The Inspector section - for a comment
on his name as a pun).

Verisimilitude The idea that aspects or the whole of a story

bears similarities to reality. Priestley uses references to the
cultural context, the idea of Mrs Birling, for example, as an
upper-class woman who looks down on others to add realism
to the portrayal of her. All of the characters must be believable
or possible socially and verisimilitude is used to achieve this.

Whodunit A play or a novel where the main plot is concerned

with the instigator of a murder. An Inspector Calls reveals
various aspects of the traditional whodunit genre (see Chapter
2 page 17 for a further discussion).

http://www.tabletmag.com/jewish-arts-and-
culture/books/105843/the-last-critic-turns-100/2

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Bibliography:

Published Textual Sources

Abrams, A Glossary of Literary Terms, Heinle & Heinle, 2011
J. Hannam, Isabella Ford, Oxford, Blackwell, 1989
Oxford Dictionary of National Biography
An English Journey, Great Northern Books 2012
An Inspector Calls, Heinemann 1993 (ISBN 978-0-435232-82-5)
JB Priestley Archive, University of Bradford Special Collections
Reception and Renewal in Modern Spanish Theatre: 1939-1963,
John London
Raw, Louise Striking a Light: Continuum March 2012
Stills from the 1954 Alistair Sim film version of An Inspector
Calls and copyright use granted for this publication by:
United Agents, 12-26 Lexington Street. London. W1F 0LE UK
References to the Evacuation of Dunkirk granted by LTM
Publishing Ltd, Mole End, Eastgate Street, North Elmham,
Dereham. Norfolk NR20 5HE. UK
Web Sources
• http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/theatre/theatre-
reviews/6239688/An-Inspector-Calls-at-the-Novello-
Theatre-review.html
• http://www.aninspectorcalls.com
• http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2003/jul/10/past.freedom
ofinformation?INTCMP=SRCH
• http://www.victorianlondon.org/population/population.h
tm
• http://www.uncp.edu/home/rwb/london_19c.html
• http://www.londononline.co.uk/factfile/historical/
• http://www.socialistparty.org.uk/articles/11928 - The
Manningham Strike
• http://www.bbc.co.uk/archive/dunkir
• http://www.measuringworth.com/index.php

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