AIC characters

Question 1

describe how the Inspector takes charge:

Answer 1

• arrives unexpectedly to ask questions.
• an outsider. doesn’t have much in common with the Birlings.
• leaves after making a social responsibility speech. aura.
• described as authoritative and imposing. not a big man, but his presence fills the room.

MORAL: ‘we don’t live alone. we are members of one body.’

Question 2

describe how the Inspector is the driving force to the play:

Answer 2

• starts off with a summary of the afternoon’s events.
• he forces more info out of people by bluntly stating what they try to skirt around saying. he says to Gerald, ‘and then you decided to keep her - as your mistress?’. It’s a question posed to force Gerald to admit the truth.
• reveals new info that heightens the drama.

Question 3

describe the Inspector’s emotive and personal language:

Answer 3

• stirs things up.
• describes Eva as ‘pretty’ and ‘lively’. these attractive words make the audience more sympathetic towards her.
• sympathy strengthened by hard tone when describing her death. lying ‘with a burnt-out inside on a slab’.
• Sheila is ‘rather distressed’ by the Inspector’s language.

Question 4

describe how the Inspector uses shock tactics:

Answer 4

• answers his own questions if he’s not happy with someone’s answer.
• follows up questions with more questions until he’s pieced together a confession. e.g. when Sybil refuses to admit she convinced the committee to reject Eva. ‘Was it or was it not your influence?’.
• he’s blunt, is prepared to ask personal questions.

His language is forceful and to the point - he forces the other characters to answer him.

Question 5

describe the Inspector’s timing:

Answer 5

• Inspector rings the bell just as Arthur says ‘a man has to mind his own business’. Birling’s announcement summons the Inspector to prove the exact opposite.
• Inspector uses exits as a clever tactic. leaving Sheila and Gerald alone lets Sheila interrogate Gerald and allows the time for suspicion to break them apart. this makes it easier to get Gerald to confess.
• his language gets more dramatic, building the tension and emotion of the final act. ‘fire blood and anguish’.
• after his exit, there’s a sudden silence. the characters are left ‘staring, subdued and wondering’.