Inspector Flashcards
(18 cards)
Plan
Opening - boundaried, professional, high levels of moral propensity
Middle - acts as a mirror to upper class for their actions
End - mouthpiece for socialism, collective responsibility
Opening quotes
‘No, thank you, Mr Birling. I’m on duty’
‘(surprised) Did you say ‘why’?’
‘It’s better to ask for the earth than take it’
Opening intentions
- through his refusal to conform to Mr Birling’s expectations, the Inspector is used as a vehicle to expose the corruption within the legal system
- serves as an aspirational literary figure representing what Priestly believes the police force could look like if they conducted themselves with a greater sense of professionalism
Middle quotes
‘She was here alone, friendless, almost penniless and desperate’
‘She lies with a burnt-out inside on a slab’
‘Public men, Mr Birling, have responsibility as well as privileges’
Middle intentions
- used to hold up a mirror to the exploitation of power committed by the upper class
- demonstrates how power should be used
End quotes
‘One Eva Smith has gone - but there are millions and millions and millions of Eva Smiths and John Smiths still left with us’
‘We are members of one body’
‘Then they will be taught it in fire and blood and anguish’
Removal of inspector/ cyclical structure
End intentions
- exhorting upper class to humanise the working class and view them as equals
- saying that accountability is unavoidable and responsibility must be taken otherwise will arise in the form of punishment
- implore’s audience to internalise Inspector’s teachings
- mouthpiece for socialism advocating for collective responsibility and dismantling social hierarchy
- indicting social inequalities that plagued society
‘No, thank you, Mr Birling. I’m on duty’
- refuses to have a drink, maintaining professional conduct and impartiality
- Mr B attempts to break down professional boundary between them as a means of exploiting positive relations through nepotism/bribery however through adverb ‘no’ he reinstates these boundaries
- knowledge that blurred boundaries between social & professional can cause manipulation
- remains respectful through ‘thank you’
- high levels of moral propensity
‘(surprised) Did you say ‘why’?’
- Mr B seems surprised as he is not used to being challenged by police workforce
- implies that he is used to preferential treatment hinting at corruption through repetition of this question
- sees Inspector as audacious, assertive however Inspector is unperturbed by status and wealth, seeks justice
- Inspector is keen on challenging this capitalist mindset
‘It’s better to ask for the earth than take it’
- syntax on ask prior to take highlights that lower class generally have higher levels of moral propensity
- demonstrates hypocrisy of the upper classes
- assertive and interrogatory as he challenges Birling’s devoid moral compass
- verb take connotes stealing, scorned in the Bible which is seen as a mortal sin
‘She was here alone, friendless, almost penniless and desperate’
- describes Eva’s state as a result of their actions in long list, which demonstrates the struggle she feels
- her state of ‘alone’ juxtaposes affiliations that the upper classes have, with constant access to support whilst Eva is isolated being vulnerable
- destitution of ‘almost penniless’ exhibits her poverty and an opportunity for Mrs B to help
- adjective ‘desperate’ hints that Eva was doing rash and reckless actions so it should’ve been obvious what would happen next
- juxtaposes comfortable life of upper classes
‘She lies with a burnt-out inside on a slab’
- dysphemistic, grotesque language to provoke an emotional response for Eva’s state
- attempt to show the consequences of her actions
- this would promote guilt, penitence allowing them to change
‘Public men, Mr Birling, have responsibility as well as privileges’
- demonstrates upper classes misuse/exploitation of power to abuse working class for material gain
- confrontationally addresses abandonment of morals which arose due to arrogance and class
- debunking belief that upper classes are inherently more virtuous because there is no correlation
- social class is totally arbitrary and has no bearing on virtue, if anything lower class more
‘One Eva Smith has gone - but there are millions and millions and millions of Eva Smiths and John Smiths still left with us’
- opportunity to ameliorate their guilt by helping the rest of the working class as Eva is a microcosm for the WC
- repetition of noun ‘millions’ in tricolon/polysyndeton emphasises scale of destitution, providing ample opportunity for UC to redeem themselves
- generalising the working class with regular names indicating that this problem transcends gender
- pronoun ‘us’ shows all are human
‘We are members of one body’
- conveying socialist views through Biblical allusion to 1 Corinthians 12:12 suggesting that everyone is united by the spirit of god
- emphatically uses pronoun ‘we’ highlighting importance of collective responsibility and that through a culmination of a series of injustices the suicide occurred
- furthermore includes himself with pronoun as he does not see anyone to be above this duty which transcends class and power
- directed at the Birling family, a microcosm of the audience
‘Then they will be taught it in fire and blood and anguish’
- posed an opportunity for Birling family to chance however if they fail to do so they will face punishment
- polysyndetic list paired with tricilon amplifies scale of sempiternal nature of punishment and suffering subject to them
- conviction of ‘will’ emphasises inevitability
- may be an allusion to Eternal Damnation through Divine Retribution as imagery of hell through ‘fire’
- contrastingly, connotations of war foreshadowing 2 WWs to come which would resonate with the post war audience causing an emotive response for audience
Removal of inspector/ cyclical structure
- play starts and ends with inspector (identical), cyclical structure
- AIC part of a series called Time Plays and each play look at a different theory of time
- AIC looks at time being circular where people are destined to live their lives again until they get it right (only 2 characters take responsibility so must happen again)
- furthermore the same start and end could represent two world wars (set pre WW1 and audience post WW1)
- the audience just experienced war and this structure indicates that history may repeat itself if society fails to learn again
Overview
Priestly uses the character of Inspector Goole as a vehicle to expose the corruption in the legal system, through his refusal to conform to Mr Birling’s expectations. Serving as an aspirational literary figure with high levels of integrity and moral propensity, the Inspector represents how Priestly believes the police force should conduct itself. Through his interrogation, the Inspector is used as a means to indict the exploitation of power by the upper class, unveiling this misuse committed by Gerald and the Birling family. The Inspector is Priestly’s mouthpiece for socialism, exhorting the audience to internalise his teachings and disassociate themselves from their bigoted, capitalist beliefs
