Inspector Calls

Question 1

Sheila Act 1

“But these girls aren’t cheap labour - they’re people.”

Page 19

Answer 1

• This quote highlights the theme of social responsibility and the importance of treating all people with dignity and respect.
• The Inspector is emphasizing that the working-class girls should not be seen as mere commodities, but as human beings deserving of fair treatment.
• Reiterates Mr Birling’s words but manipulates them against him. This is the first time we see Sheila beginning to mature as she is exposed to reality.
• Challenging her dad and is thinking beyond money, shows the effect of the Inspector.
• Noun - “girls” = they are seen as children and adults in society
• Declarative sentence shows Sheila is certain of what she is saying and standing up to her father.
• Noun - “people” = shows the changing socialist views in society.
• This would help the audience to understand better how capitalist views only cause pain to the lower class and why socialism is better.

Question 2

Mr Birling Act 1

“If we were all responsible for everything that happened to everybody we’d had anything to do with, it would be very awkward, wouldn’t it?”

Answer 2

• This quote highlights the theme of personal responsibility and the idea that individuals should take responsibility for their actions and their impact on others.
• Mr Birling is trying to avoid taking responsibility for his actions, by suggesting that it would be too difficult for everyone to be held accountable for everyone they have ever interacted with.

Question 3

Mrs Birling Act 2

“First, the girl herself, … Secondly, I blame the young man who was the father of the child… He should be made an example of.”

Answer 3

• This quote highlights the theme of personal responsibility and the idea that individuals should take responsibility for their actions and their impact on others.
• Mrs Birling is trying to deflect blame from herself and her family, by placing the responsibility on the girl and the father of the child.

Question 4

Eric Act 3

“I wasn’t in love with her or anything - but I liked her - she was pretty and a good sport.”

Answer 4

• This quote highlights the theme of the objectification of women.
  *Eric is describing the girl he had an affair with in a way that reduces her to her physical appearance and her ability to be entertaining.

Question 5

Mr Birling Act 1

“A man has to mind his own business and look after himself and his own.”

Answer 5

• This quote highlights the theme of individualism and self-interest.
• Mr Birling believes that each person should take care of themselves and not worry about the well-being of others.

Question 6

Inspector Act 3

“We are members of one body. We are responsible for each other.”

Answer 6

• This quote highlights the theme of social responsibility and the idea that society is interconnected and that each person has a responsibility to care for the well-being of others.
• The Inspector is using the metaphor of a body to emphasize that when one member of society is suffering, it affects the entire community.
• Inspector said this to display his views that everyone is and should be responsible for each other as every decision we make affects others.
• Repetition of inclusive pronoun “we”. We are responsible for each other’. This is something Priestly felt strongly about and he succeeded in representing his views through the character of the Inspector in the play itself. He wanted to communicate the message that our actions, no matter how small or seemingly insignificant, always affect others.

Question 7

Inspector Act 3

“One Eva Smith has gone… but there are millions and millions and millions… of Eva Smiths… all intertwined with our lives… if men will not learn that lesson, then they will be taught it in fire and blood and anguish.”

Answer 7

• This quote highlights the theme of social responsibility and the idea that society is interconnected and that each person has a responsibility to care for the well-being of others.
• The Inspector is emphasizing that if society does not learn the lesson of caring for one another, it will be punished severely.

Question 8

Mrs Birling Act 1

“When you’re married, you’ll realise that men with important work to do sometimes have to spend all their time and energy on their business.”

Answer 8

• This quote highlights the theme of gender roles and the idea that men have more important responsibilities than women.
• Mrs Birling is suggesting that once Sheila is married, she will understand that her husband’s business is more important than her own needs.

Question 9

Mr Birling Act 1

“Clothes mean something quite different to a woman.”

Answer 9

• This quote highlights the theme of gender roles and the idea that society has different expectations and perceptions of men and women.
• Mr Birling is suggesting that clothing is more significant to women than it is to men, possibly implying that women are judged more harshly based on their appearance.

Question 10

Sheila Act 3

“The point is, you don’t seem to have learnt anything.”

Answer 10

• This quote highlights the theme of personal responsibility and the idea that individuals should take responsibility for their actions and their impact on others.
• Sheila is frustrated that the other characters have not taken the Inspector’s lesson to heart and are still trying to avoid taking responsibility for their actions.

Question 11

Mr Birling Act 1

“as if we are all mixed up together like bees in a hive - community and all that nonsense.”

Answer 11

• Mr Birling is displaying his strong capitalist views in this quote as he believes that people should only be responsible for themselves and that is it.
• The simile “like bees in a hive” shows that the is comparing socialist views as basic and simple as if it has no complexity or true meaning to it, like everyone is just rushing round as equals which he doesn’t believe in.
• “Community and all that nonsense” shows Mr Birling is against the idea of community and looks down upon it from his middle class life.
• Priestley’s intentions are to make Mr Birling an unlikeable character in the play to make him and other middle class business men such as himself look bad and that they are they are ones who shouldn’t be in charge any longer.
• use of dash shows how Mr Birling is unsure about what he is talking about, instead he rambles which suggests that capitalism is wishy washy as Mr B is the epitome of capitalism.
• audience doesn’t trust him anymore as he sounds ridiculous, this is significant as this is at the start of the play
• The verb “mixed” has connotations of chaos suggesting there’s no divide, subverting capitalist values making him sound nonsensical.

Question 12

“The Titanic - she sails next week - … unsinkable, absolutely unsinkable.”

Answer 12

• Priestley’s love of dramatic irony is biting here, and his irony is never more satirical than in these comments of Birling’s, which, to his original audience in 1946, must have seemed more controversial than they do today because the sinking of the ship was within people’s memory.
• Symbolically, just as the Titanic is destined to sink, so too is Birling’s political ideology, under the Inspector’s interrogation. The ship was a titan of the seas, and its imminent failure “next week” suggests the dangers of capitalistic hubris, illustrating the risk of the entrepreneur.

Question 13

“(slowly, carefully now) You mustn’t try to build up a kind of wall between us and that girl. If you do, then the Inspector will just break it down. And it’ll be all the worse when he does.”

Answer 13

• The stage directions mention that Sheila speaks ‘slowly’, and ‘carefully’, showing the Inspector has taught her to watch what she says, thinks and does because everything has consequences. The use of ‘you mustn’t’ shows her language has changed from being one of accepting her father’s reprimands to telling her parents what to do.
  The effect on the reader is this profound concept that the Inspector is more that just a usual police inspector, he has the ability to break down the barriers between social classes and Sheila is the one that is attempting to prevent her family from building ‘a kind of wall’ as she begins to realise that inevitably the lower class are abundant and so the lower class can break the wall down again and again.
  The metaphor is very sophisticated and demonstrates how Sheila has matured as a character. Sheila begins to echo the Inspector’s dialogue and attempts to translate it into a language that her family will understand, however she is dismissed as hysterical. She begins to adopt the Inspector’s structure of speech. Initially, when questioning her he laid out what she did and then the consequences, now here, Sheila is demonstrating what the family and doing and then the possible amplified consequences of their actions.
• “Us”, shared pronoun, acknowledges the harsh reality that she has been blinded to; her parents have indoctrinated her to shut out the lower class from her life. She now sees there is an apparent wall between her class and the lower class.