The Inspector Flashcards
“If men will not learn that lesson, then they will be taught it in fire and blood and anguish”
Therefore, the threat of “fire blood and anguish” could be the Inspector warning both the characters and the audience of the religious consequences for neglecting their duty of social responsibility. The religious connotation of
“fire” is hell and therefore the punishment for not following the message of both Christianity and socialism to ‘love thy neighbour’.
“Yes, but you can’t. It’s too late.
She’s dead.”
Here, Priestley uses short sentences and a terse triplet of expressions to convey an impactful message and express the need for radical change.
“need not be a big man, but he creates at once an impression of massiveness, solidity and purposefulness”
Priestley leaves the Inspector’s physical appearance as vague and, to some extent, unimportant due to his message of social responsibility being more important than his appearance. He dictates in the stage directions that the Inspector
Priestley presents his character as a spiritual avenging angel.
• Socialist values and ideology are channelled through the Inspector.
• Priestley utilises the Inspector as a vehicle to catalyse change in perceptions of responsibility. He encourages the younger generation to break away from the older, more traditional and individualistic generation.
“give thousands
“you’re offering the money at the wrong time”.
Priestley utilises a cyclical structure, as the play also ends with the Inspector rejecting Mr Birling’s attempt of bribery. Mr Birling makes it clear he would “give thousands”, which the Inspector responds with “you’re offering the money at the wrong time”. This cyclical structure is used to demonstrate the consistency of the Inspector’s morals, while simultaneously presenting Mr Birling as immoral throughout. The audience realises this and draws upon their political differences as the cause - capitalism causes immorality and socialism causes morality.
“girl “
“promising little life “
The Inspector sees Eva as an individual and refuses to refer to her as a “girl’ in the same superficial fashion as the Birlings do. Instead, he persists in referring to her by her name, Eva Smith.
• The Birlings perceive Eva as insignificant - just a “girl, due to her lower social status as a working-class citizen.
• To the Inspector, Eva is an individual, who has significance. This is evidenced by the Inspector’s acknowledgement of Eva’s “promising little life “
“if men will not learn that lesson, then they will be taught it in fire and blood and anguish.”
“socialist or some sort of crank”
Priestley suggests that WWII occurred due to humanity not heeding the need for greater social responsibility for their actions, and that the world wars were a direct result of “if men will not learn that lesson, then they will be taught it in fire and blood and anguish.”
Therefore, Priestley’s underlying message is revealed; to stop society failing again, the audience needs to take action and reconstruct society to be more responsible than it was in 1912. The world wars were, as suggested by Priestley, caused by the greed and capitalist attitudes of society. However, the Birlings chose to dismiss the Inspector as “socialist or some sort of crank”. Therefore, Eva’s
‘second’ death is caused by Birlings’ refusal to admit responsibility after the Inspectors exit. This repeating of events (Eva’s death) is a reflection of the repeated World Wars.
Antithesis to Mr Birling
Priestley presents Mr Birling as intolerable. This perception of Mr Birling extends to the ideology which he represents: capitalism. This allows Priestley to portray the Inspector as a favourable alternative, which also extends to socialism being a favourable alternative to capitalism. It is important to consider why Priestley contrasts the Inspector to Mr Birling as his foil (opposite).
• The purpose of Mr Birling is to allow the Inspector to be presented in a favourable light.
“ there’s no chance of war”,
“portentous”
presented in a favourable light.
• Mr Birling’s reliability is destroyed by Priestley’s use of dramatic irony. Therefore, his opinions and values bear no value or weight.
• This is demonstrated through Mr Birling’s confident claim that “there’s no chance of war”, which is perceived as contemptible by an audience, which has been affected by both WWI and WWII.
• Mr Birling is only concerned with his appearance and other character’s perception of himself, as Priestley describes him in the stage directions as “portentous”
• Priestley portrays Mr Birling as only concerned with his own appearance, rather than moralitv.
Conversion of Sheila
The Inspector has the greatest impression on Sheila, out of all the characters, as she becomes symbolic of Priestley’s intended audience response. She therefore becomes symbolic of the Inspector’s ability to change the mindset of people.
• This conversion is symbolised by whether Sheila accepts or rejects Gerald. This is due to Gerald being emblematic of capitalism and the upper-class.
• Sheila’s attitude to Gerald becomes symbolic of whether the younger generation will accept the ways of the past. Therefore, it is significant that the inspector interrupts their engagement.
Need for change
Priestley, through the character of the Inspector, expresses the need for change, yet, he also describes how to change. The role of Inspector allows Priestley to portray An Inspector Calls, as a didactic (educational message) morality play, which is disguised as a murder mystery. This is a reversal of a murder mystery as the number of suspected characters actually expands, rather than being narrowed down by the Inspector.
The suspects are responsible for contributing to, both, Eva’s suicide and the suffering of society.
• Priestley, through the Inspector, portrays Eva as symbolic of the reason behind the need for society to adopt socialism. In doing this, Priestley creates a compelling argument for the need for reform through the guilt of the characters in their role of Eva’s suicide
• Therefore, Priestley, through the Inspector, conveys the message that it is the whole of the upper class that is responsible for the suffering of the working-class. In doing this, it is clear to the audience that the disparity in the class system is responsible for this suffering of the lower classes.
- declines a drink saying “no
- thank you l’m on duty”
- retains power in the household and shows his consistent morality to highlight his didactic purpose
omniscient
“fire and blood and anguish”
may be a reference to the story of judgement day in the Bible, a religious reference that could
• resonate with the heavily • religious audience at the time
- would scare audience into changing their action
