An Inspector Calls - Quotes (Eric)

Question 1

“You’ll have to get used to that just as I had” - Mrs Birling

Answer 1

1. Telling Sheila that Mr Birling was away for work for a long time and she had to get used to it
2. Saying that Mr Birling used to have affairs and you’d have to put up with it if you want to marry him
3. Patriarchal society

Question 2

“That was clever of you Gerald” - Mrs Birling

Answer 2

1. She knows he’s having affairs and he knows that she knows and that Sheila knows but she can’t prove it
2. Ring still guarantees the status and power even if Gerald is unfaithful

Question 3

“You couldn’t have done anything else” - Gerald

Answer 3

1. Lie that Birling couldn’t have done anything which Sheila, Eric and the inspector want to expose
2. For Gerald, profit comes first - capitalist men exploit women as they aren’t treated as real people

Question 4

“For God’s sake - don’t say anything to the Inspector” - Gerald

Answer 4

1. His reputation in society is far more important than his relationship with his fiancé
2. Women lie well below the interest of their husbands
3. Even though Sheila and Mrs Birling are living in privileged classes, they are still oppressed and exploited

Question 5

“Now you want to see somebody else put through it” - Gerald

Answer 5

1. He has no real love for Sheila and can’t understand her feelings
2. He only imagines that she will react in the same way that he would

Question 6

“She was very pretty”
“Those hard-eyed dough-faced women” - Gerald

Answer 6

1. He’s attracted to her looks and wants to exploit her because of her prettiness and poverty
2. Contrasts with the prostitutes he normally sees at the palace bar who are forced to earn a living this way
3. Gerald is at the palace bar for sex
4. He buys her drinks and seduces her

Question 7

“It happened that…nice little set of rooms” - Gerald

Answer 7

1. His friends had went away and had given his apartment to have sex where people won’t know about it - to “install” a mistress

Question 8

“Money - though it wasn’t so very much” - Gerald

Answer 8

1. He’s bored exploiting her and now he’s getting rid of her

Question 9

“I’m rather more - upset - by this business than I appear to be” - Gerald

Answer 9

1. He’s not sure what to say as he couldn’t care less
2. He pretends he’s upset so he can get out of the house

Question 10

“I met a police sergeant I know down the road” - Gerald

Answer 10

1. Police sergeants didn’t typically roam the streets
2. He knows a police sergeant because he is always doing things that are scandalous and beyond the law
3. Gerald returns to expose the inspector as a fraud

Question 11

Inspector’s last words: “One body”, “millions”, “responsible for each other”

Answer 11

1. Gerald is only allowed to return after the inspector has left
2. Gerald doesn’t return for the teaching of the inspector and doesn’t learn that lesson
3. Priestley is using him to show how the men who had power in the interwar periods did not learn the lesson of the first world war

Question 12

“Same girl” - Gerald

Answer 12

1. He proves that the Inspector may have shown each family member a different photo
2. He proves that no one has died in the infirmary
3. He tries to prove that they can simply dismiss their actions - no scandal or consequences

Question 13

“Everything’s all right now Sheila. What about this ring?”

Answer 13

1. Now that there is no scandal, there is no reason not to marry him
2. He was ignoring what has caused her to split

Question 14

Thesis statement

Answer 14

Stevenson focuses on Man’s dual nature in order to explore the themes of good and evil. He focuses on Victorian hypocrisy, fears of crime and vice and threat science poses to Christian belief.