An Inspector Calls (Characters) Flashcards
Mrs. Birling - A1
(To Sheila) ‘When you’re married you’ll realize that men with important work to do sometimes have to spend nearly all their time and energy on their business. You’ll have to get used to that, just as I had’
Birling - A1
(During speech) ‘We may look forward to the time when Crofts and Birlings are no longer competing but are working together –for lower costs and higher prices’
‘A man has to look after himself’
‘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?’
Sheila - A1
‘Oh –it’s wonderful! Look –mummy –isn’t it a beauty?’
‘But these girls aren’t cheap labour - they’re people’
Gerald - A1
‘You seem to be a nice well-behaved family’
Eric - A1
‘I left ‘em talking about clothes again […] Women are potty about ‘em.’
‘It isn’t if you can’t go and work somewhere else’
‘Why shouldn’t they try for higher wages?’
Inspector - A1
‘A chain of events’
‘Wouldn’t know where to draw the line’ between ‘respectable citizens’ and ‘criminals’
Inspector - A2
‘And you think young women ought to be protected against unpleasant and disturbing things?’
‘You see, we have to share something. If there’s nothing else, we’ll have to share our guilt’
‘Public men […] have responsibilities as well as privileges’
‘She needed not only money but advice, sympathy, friendliness […] and you slammed the door in her face’
Sheila - A2
(About Eric) ‘He’s been steadily drinking too much for the last two years’
‘You and I aren’t the same people who sat down to dinner here’
Mrs. Birling - A2
Describes Sheila as ‘over-excited’
‘We’ve done a great deal of useful work in helping deserving cases’
‘You’re behaving like an hysterical child tonight’
‘Go look for the father of the child. It’s his responsibility’
Gerald - A2
‘I hate those hard-eyed dough-faced women’
‘I didn’t ask for anything in return’
‘I suppose it was inevitable. She was young and pretty’
Birling - A2
‘The press might easily take it up’
Eric - A2
(Eric enters, looking extremely pale and distressed)
Eric - A3
‘Well, I was in that state when a chap easily turns nasty’
‘I hate these fat old tarts round the town –the ones I see some of your respectable friends with’
Birling - A3
‘I’ve got to cover this up as soon as I can’
‘(angrily to Eric) You’re the one I blame for this’
‘There’ll be a public scandal […] I was almost certain for a knighthood in the next Honours List’
‘the famous younger generation who know it all. And they can’t even take a joke’
Inspector - A3
(To Eric) ‘as if she was an animal, a thing, not a person’
‘but there are millions and millions and millions of Eva Smiths and John Smiths still left with us, with their lives, their hopes and fears, their suffering and chance of happiness, all intertwined with our lives’
‘We don’t live alone […] we are responsible for each other’
‘They will learn in fire and blood and anguish’
