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’.

Question 6

describe the effect of Inspector Goole’s unknown identity:

Answer 6

• claims he found a ‘rough sort of diary’ kept by Eva, but this may be a bluff for him to avoid questions, as we’re unsure if Eva ever existed.
• his knowledge and power isn’t explained. he could be a ghost. or he could represent the spirit of a religious or moral figure.

Question 7

describe how Inspector Goole is more than just a police inspector:

Answer 7

• represents the police and the courts - he’s tracking down the truth.
• Mr and Mrs Birling don’t think he has the authority to tell them off as he’s not a real police officer.
• Eric and Sheila realise that his moral judgement is just as important as his legal power.
• Goole has the attitude of a philosopher and social commentator, and the knowledge of a ghost delivering its prophecy.

Question 8

describe how Goole’s authority strengthens his moral tone:

Answer 8

• his unsettling presence may be just down to confidence. he knows how to create an air of uncertainty and reel everyone in.
• he makes sure everyone recognises he’s in charge. he takes control and leads. he’s never confused.
• he ‘massively’ and ‘with authority’ interrupts - e.g. he tells Birling that Eric can ‘wait his turn’.
• his authority makes everyone take him more seriously and what he has to say sounds more important.

Question 9

what is the significance of Goole being a police inspector, instead of a supernatural figure?

Answer 9

• unsettles the Birlings as he claims to occupy a position of authority within the Birlings’ world.
• this gives him power has he is a potential threat to their social status.

Question 10

describe how the Inspector is from a different world to the Birlings:

Answer 10

• doesn’t play golf, isn’t impressed by Birling’s public profiles such as former Alderman and Lord Mayor.
• talks about taboo subjects (e.g. sex, politics).
• interrupts ‘very sharply’, repeats questions and pauses in ways that were out of the norm in middle-class pre-war England. doesn’t follow etiquette.

Question 11

describe the idea of the Inspector being ‘classless’:

Answer 11

• seems to come from outside the class system that the Birlings live in.
• doesn’t recognise any of the Birlings’ ideas about class. he treats everyone the same.
• ‘we are members of one body’, so classes shouldn’t ignore each other’s needs.

Question 12

what is the significance of the play being set in the dining room?

Answer 12

in 1912, only well-off households would have had a dining room - symbol of a middle class lifestyle. this contrasts with the Inspector’s classless-ness.

Question 13

describe how Priestley uses the Inspector as a mouthpiece:

Answer 13

• stands outside of the class system. is an outsider.
• doesn’t take a neutral position, though. is on Eva’s side, tells the Birlings what he thinks of them. tells Sybil she ‘did something terribly wrong’.
• Priestley’s own views are reflected in the opinions of the Inspector. during the final speech, the Inspector is speaking to the Birling family, but it could also be Priestley’s speech to the play’s audience.
• the play (and Priestley) has a strong message about looking after one another, and it’s the Inspector’s job to deliver it.

Question 14

describe Arthur Birling:

Answer 14

• very confident. head of the house, boss of his own business.
• likes to be in control, keeps reminding everyone that he’s in charge. he doesn’t like being told what to do by the Inspector.
• over the course of the play, his authority is undermined. the Inspector exposes Birling as an ambitious, anxious man who’ll ignore the needs of others to keep up profits and a good reputation.

AMBITIOUS: ‘there’s a very good chance of a knighthood’
BUSINESS-MINDED: ‘a hard-headed, practical man of business’
SELFISH: ‘a man has to make his own way’
ANXIOUS: ‘there’ll be a public scandal - unless we’re lucky’

Question 15

describe how Birling is a successful and ambitious businessman:

Answer 15

• Birling hints that his company could merge with the larger company owned by Gerald’s father. he sees his daughter’s marriage like a business deal - ‘lower costs and higher prices’.
• thinks he’s successful, thinks he’s a ‘hard-headed, practical man of business’.
• optimistic about the future. thinks strikes won’t be a problem for his company, and dismisses any fear of war as ‘silly little war scares’. Priestley uses dramatic irony to make Birling’s optimism seem foolish and short-sighted, undermining his authority.

Question 16

describe Birling being unable to accept responsibility for Eva Smith’s death:

Answer 16

• finds it difficult to consider other people. doesn’t believe in ‘community and all that nonsense’. sees other people as simply ‘cheap labour’.
• dismisses the idea of social responsibility. thinks socialists are ‘cranks’.
• Birling didn’t just refuse higher wages for his workers, he actively made things worse for them by firing the ringleaders.
• he’s selfish and self-centred. would rather pass off the Inspector’s visit as a joke, than face up to what he’s done.

Question 17

describe Birling’s desire for respect and control:

Answer 17

• public figure in Brumley, obsessed with his status. when his good name is threatened, he’s terrified and would ‘give thousands’ to avoid scandal.
• isn’t used to being challenged.
• his family is falling apart, and he can do nothing about it.

Question 18

describe Mr Birling as an anxious man:

Answer 18

• desperately tries to win the Crofts’ approval by talking about a knighthood and by getting Gerald’s father’s favourite port. tries to act as if he’s in charge, but is still socially inferior to his wife and the Crofts. he doesn’t always know how to behave - he makes Gerald embarrassed by tactlessly suggesting Lady Croft may not approve of Sheila.
• tries to make himself seem important by drawing attention to his connections with influential people (e.g. he plays golf with the Chief Inspector).
• Inspector threatens Birling’s middle class values (his company’s reputation, his important connections), rattling Birling, who’d spent his entire life believing that these things matter.
• he’s a wealthy businessman, but it’s more prestigious to come from an ‘old country family’ like the Crofts, who had land, inherited wealth, and titles.

Question 19

describe Birling’s use of authoritative language:

Answer 19

• Birling is ‘provincial in his speech’ (regional accent). accent and social class were closely linked, so it would be clear that he’s a middle-class businessman, and not upper-class.
• most continuous speech in the play - likes to talk and doesn’t like being interrupted. ‘just let me finish, Eric’.
• repeatedly shouts ‘rubbish!’ to dismiss what other people have said. finishes his own sentences with ‘of course’ to make his own claims seem obvious and matter-of-fact.

Question 20

describe Sybil Birling and her social status:

Answer 20

• traditional values. strictly follows rules of etiquette as a good reputation and politeness improves the family status. these rules are more important to her than moral rules.
• prejudiced - strong set of beliefs about people’s social status. believes the lower class have lower standards, refers to them as ‘that sort’.
• prepared to be cruel to preserve her own status.

CRUEL: ‘I used my influence to have it refused.’
PREJUDICED: ‘As if a girl of that sort would ever refuse money!’

Question 21

describe Sybil as Birling’s social superior:

Answer 21

• her family is of a higher status than Arthur’s, so she’s his social superior, despite him being the head of the family.

> tells her husband off for saying the food was good and thanking the servants, as it wasn’t polite to mention lower class servants in the upper class.
always reminding her family to have better manners (e.g. when Sheila uses slang).
won’t let anyone boss her around. ‘You have no power to make me change my mind.’

Question 22

describe Sybil’s role in the Brumley Women’s Charity:

Answer 22

• involved in the Brumley Women’s Charity, but only supports ‘deserving cases’.
• uses her ‘influence’ to convince the other board members to reject Eva’s appeal as she’s offended by her using the Birling name.
• the word ‘deserving’ was usually used to distinguish between the poor who physically can’t help themselves and the ‘undeserving’, who some people felt shouldn’t be helped.

Question 23

describe Sybil’s lack of change:

Answer 23

• self-centred. doesn’t notice her own son’s alcoholism and dismisses her daughter’s worries that Gerald lost interest last summer.
• won’t accept responsibility for her actions: ‘I accept no blame for it at all’.
• doesn’t learn from the Inspector’s message. likes being in control.

Question 24

describe the stage directions describing Sybil:

Answer 24

• her language is polite, but her tone is severe and superior.
• she answers ‘haughtily’, ‘very sharply’ and ‘bitterly’.
• at the end, she repeatedly told everyone she knew it was a hoax. ‘triumphantly’ told everyone she knew it all along. more important to her that she comes out on top, than thinking about her actions morally.
• at the end, she’s ‘smiling’ and tells everyone to feel as ‘amused’ as she is by the night’s events. she’d already put it behind her.

Question 25

describe how Sheila seems different from the rest of her family:

Answer 25

• quick-witted, strong-minded. hands Gerald’s ring back when she suspects infidelity, is wise to suspect Eric is the father.
• more selfish the year before, during the Milward’s situation. abused her influence.
• now seen to be sensitive and moral - by the end, she’s changed for good.

MORAL: ‘but these girls aren’t cheap labour - they’re people’.
SHARP: ‘he’s giving us the rope - so that we’ll hang ourselves’.

Question 26

describe Sheila’s childish language at first:

Answer 26

• ‘very pleased with life and rather excited’.
• uses slang expressions like ‘squiffy’, reminding the audience that she’s part of the younger generation.
• ‘Look-mummy-isn’t it a beauty’ - very excited when she gets the ring, looks to her mother for approval.
• jokes with Gerald: ‘half serious, half playful’. her childishness may be a way to hide serious concerns about Gerald.
• she is made to seem young and childish at first. it makes her involvement in Eva’s downfall seem like the result of immaturity, making her much easier to be forgiven.

Question 27

describe Sheila’s hidden maturity:

Answer 27

• what she learns over the evening makes her feel as though she has to be herself and break away from her parents.
• wise instincts - sees what the Inspector is doing, knew Gerald’s absence was suspicious.
• not naïve. knows about ‘dirty old men’ mistreating prostitutes.
• ‘I’m not a child’.

Question 28

describe Sheila as having moral standards:

Answer 28

• acknowledges she used her ‘power’ to ‘punish’ Eva, but regrets her actions and wants to learn from the consequences.
• at the end of the play she admits that ‘probably between us we killed her’. the others don’t get as far as admitting that.
• tells her family they must stop with these ‘silly pretences’. Sheila is used to show there’s hope for change in the new generation.

Question 29

describe how the Inspector’s revelations change Sheila for good:

Answer 29

• before Gerald leaves, she hands back the ring. ‘You and I aren’t the same people who sat down to dinner here’.
• after the Inspector leaves, her parents want to return to normal, but her and Eric realise they must change their ways.

Question 30

describe Sheila’s final line:

Answer 30

• it adds ambiguity to how the audience view her character.
• when Gerald offers her the ring back, she says ‘It’s too soon. I must think’.
• her hesitation shows she’s been affected by the Inspector’s message, and she mut rethink the kind of life she wants to lead.
• but she leaves open the possibility of taking Gerald back and returning to normal, hinting that she might eventually forget the Inspector’s lesson.

Question 31

describe how Sheila becomes a bit like the Inspector herself:

Answer 31

• takes the Inspector’s side a lot, seems to help his investigations. they’re both after the truth.
• asks Gerald as many questions as the Inspector.
• bluntly reveals Eric’s drinking problem to their mother.
• contradicts and undermines her parents. when giving the ring back, tells her father: ‘Don’t interfere’.
• shocks Eric by telling him that his mother refused to help Eva - adopting the technique of moving the discussion on quickly by startling the listeners.
• they attack the others’ confidence by asking questions, in order to break down the ‘wall’ they’ve put up between themselves and Eva.

Question 32

describe Eric as a troublesome son:

Answer 32

• isolated from his family. believes none of them understand him, feels he can’t talk to any of them.
• forced himself on Eva and got her pregnant when drunk. he deeply regrets his actions - he says he’ll never forget what he’s learnt.

IRRESPONSIBLE: ‘I didn’t even remember - that’s the hellish thing.’
UNLOVED: ‘You don’t understand anything. You never did.’

Question 33

how does Priestley drop hints that Eric isn’t alright?

Answer 33

• ‘not quite at ease’, ‘half shy’ and ‘half assertive’.
• interrupts when he ‘suddenly guffaws’. finds the things his family says funny, even when there’s no joke. very awkward personality, doesn’t follow rules of etiquette.
• Gerald and Birling make a joke about Eric, saying Birling will get the knighthood, ‘unless Eric’s been up to something’. Eric responds saying ‘I don’t think it’s very funny’, he says, ‘still uneasy’ and also ‘defiantly’. he acts suspiciously.
• Eric’s odd behaviour is used to hint that his secrets will later disrupt and threaten the Birlings’ whole way of life.

Question 34

describe how Eric’s been hiding some dirty secrets:

Answer 34

• his drunkenness and bad behaviour represent the dark side of the upper class:
  > is a heavy drinker
  > got a prostitute pregnant, forced himself on her
  > stolen money from his father’s business

if these secrets got out and became public gossip, Birling’s knighthood, Sheila’s marriage and the family’s reputation could be destroyed.

Question 35

describe how Eric’s behaviour could be suggested as normal for a middle class man:

Answer 35

• he met her at the stalls bar, which is where Gerald met her, too.
• Birling’s ‘respectable friends’ go to the stalls bar to find women.
• the Alderman, Meggarty, even assaults young women in the town hall - but no one says anything about this bad behaviour.

Question 36

describe how Eric is the only one to have serious consequences for his actions, however:

Answer 36

• not unusual behaviour - lots of men do it, but in secret. Eric lacks self-control so his secrets get out.
• his parents don’t want a scandal. care more about what other people think of them than about their own son.
• Eric laughing, interrupting polite conversation is the same as when his behaviour disrupts the polite middle-class illusion of respectability. they’re all keeping up appearances, but Eric is making the murkiness underneath obvious.
• Gerald treats Eva as his ‘mistress’ and ends the affair, so his reputation isn’t damaged. Eric drunkenly gets Eva pregnant, steals money for her, and brings scandal on his family.

Question 37

describe how Eric is both a villain and a victim:

Answer 37

• feels isolated and unsupported - unable to find comfort elsewhere.
• yells at his mother: ‘You don’t understand anything. You never did. You never even tried’.
• the obvious villain, but he accepts responsibility for what he did - ‘the fact remains that I did what I did’. criticises his parents for pretending nothing’s happened. maybe he’s learned from his actions?

Question 38

describe Gerald’s development in three main points:

Answer 38

• at the start, seems like a good catch. gets on well with Birling, impresses Sybil.
• confesses he’s been lying about a fling he had with Daisy Renton last summer. his engagement ring is handed back.
• leads the Birlings to realise there’s no Inspector Goole, and that there was no suicide. sides with Birling, focusing on how to protect their reputation.

RESPECTABLE: ‘the easy well-bred young man-about-town’.

Question 39

describe Gerald’s fortunate future:

Answer 39

• handsome, wealthy, about thirty - a respectable ‘man-about-town’.
• from an old country family, making him superior to the Birlings.
• works for his father’s big firm, ‘Crofts Limited’ and will probably take it over one day. the company is older and bigger than ‘Birling and Company’.
• relaxed and comfortable (unlike Eric), shares jokes with Birling.

Question 40

describe how Gerald is like a younger version of Birling:

Answer 40

• used to and comfortable with being in control.
• agrees with Birling on politics and women.
• supports Birling’s sacking of Eva: ‘You couldn’t have done anything else’.
• business-minded, committed to his work in the same way as Birling.

If it wasn’t for Gerald, it’d be easy to say that the Birling parents are selfish and unchanging as they’re part of the older generation. But Gerald shows that younger people can be just as selfish and old-fashioned, and symbolises our future if we don’t bring about change.

Question 41

describe Gerald’s unapologetic language:

Answer 41

• first character to say it was a ‘hoax’ - keen to prove the Inspector is fake and to clear everyone’s names.
• at the end, he says, ‘Everything’s all right now, Sheila’. hasn’t learnt his lesson.

Question 42

describe how Gerald doesn’t think he’s done anything wrong:

Answer 42

• he protests that Eva ‘didn’t blame me at all’, therefore allowing him to excuse himself.
• Inspector isn’t too harsh on him as he ‘had some affection for her and made her happy for a time’, however, he still treated her badly because of her social status. he kept her as his mistress for pleasure and discarded her when it suited him, effectively making her homeless.

Question 43

describe how Gerald isn’t simply bad or good:

Answer 43

• is confident but also stubborn. he doesn’t learn much over the course of the play.
• he’s asked whether he thinks ‘young women ought to be protected against unpleasant and disturbing things’, and he says yes, thinking of Sheila.
• but it’s people like him who are doing the unpleasant and disturbing things to women like Eva.
• has the ability to separate his public respectable image from his secret, private acts.

Question 44

describe Priestley’s portrayal of Gerald:

Answer 44

• uses dramatic irony to make the Birling parents seem foolish and overconfident.
• he’s portrayed as more perceptive (e.g. warns Mrs Birling against intimidating the Inspector as he knows it’ll only make things worse).
• this could make the audience judge him and members of the younger generation like him more harshly, as they have the intelligence to understand the Inspector’s point but choose to ignore it

Question 45

who was Eva Smith?

Answer 45

her real identity is never revealed - she could be the same person, or different people who are treated the same by the Birling family. they see one working class girl as being the same as another.

ATTRACTIVE: ‘young and fresh and charming’
HONOURABLE: ‘she didn’t want to take an more money from him’
WORKING CKASS: ‘girls of that class’ ‘girls of that sort’

Question 46

describe why the Birlings took away all of Eva’s sources of income:

Answer 46

other people used their power to get rid of her or to have sex with her. they all felt superior to Eva, and felt they could do anything they wanted to her (hardly saw her as human), because of their social class.

Question 47

describe Eva’s lack of revenge:

Answer 47

• made a silent, offstage character, so in the play she represents the silent, invisible and powerless members of society.
• maybe she didn’t feel she had the power to make life difficult for people like Birling who ‘made her pay a heavy price’ for challenging his authority. trapped by her situation.
• Goole speaks for Eva, and uses her as a symbol of the powerless working class to teach the Birlings about social responsibility and to make them realise their mistakes.

Question 48

describe why the phone call at the end is confusing:

Answer 48

• has Eva/Daisy just taken her own life? was the Inspector a ghost come to tell the future?
• or is this a phone call about a different girl? the Inspector warned that everyone’s lives are ‘intertwined’, so the Birling don’t know how many lives they’ve affected.
• the phone call breaks up the girl’s identity again.
• could be because the Birlings haven’t all learnt their lesson, so they’ll keep facing the consequences until they learn.

Question 49

describe how Eva Smith’s name makes her a sort of everyman:

Answer 49

• ‘Eva’ is a bit like Eve, the first woman, and so symbolic of all women.
• her second name, ‘Smith’ is a very common name, and is the word for a tradesman.
• she represents ‘millions and millions and millions’ of ordinary, working class women.

Question 50

describe how Eva Smith is central to the play’s message:

Answer 50

• ‘millions of Eva Smiths and John Smiths still left’ and that their chances of happiness are ‘intertwined with our lives’.
• the Inspector’s key point is that we must behave responsibly to others.
• although the focus of the drama is the group of 5 people around the dining table, and focus of the play is the life and death of unidentified, unseen women. Eva/Daisy is a mix of all the people they’ve ever treated badly.