An Inspector Calls

Question 1

What sins does character represent (morality play)?

Answer 1

• Mr B = Greed/ Avarice
• Sheila = envy
• Gerald = Lust + Greed
• Eric = Gluttony (excessive consumption) leads lust
• Mrs B = Pride

most of his audience was Christian - teach moral values

Question 2

purpose

Why does Priestley make each character symbolise a sin?

Answer 2

To be a capitalist, you are behaving anti-Christian, Therefore, to be a good Christian, you must be a socialist

Question 3

“we are all members of one body”

Answer 3

• similar language to Bible

Question 4

Themes

Answer 4

• Capitalism
• Young gen vs Old gen
• Gender
• Class
• Socialism/ Community
• Responsibiliy
• Guilt
• Power

Question 5

Mr Birling main quotations + link with themes

Answer 5

Act 1:
“heavy-looking, rather portenous man” + “provincial in speech”
* “Unsinkable, absolutely unsinkable”
* “hard- headed business man”
* “lower costs and higher prices”
* “Mixed up lik together like bees in a hive, community and all that nonsense”
* “A man has to make his own way - has to look after himself - and his family too”
Act 2:

Act 3:

Question 6

Act 1: Mr B stage directions

“a heavy-looking, rather portentous man in his middle fifties with fairly easy manners but rather provincial in speech”

Answer 6

• lives a life of luxury - symbolises greed, overweight, overly grand, arrogant
• has low class origins -> insecure of social position therefore he brings up former roles like “Lord Mayor” + “knighthood” - compensates for his lower-class accent with material possessions - cares about reputation and appearance
• Class, power, capitalism
• Priestley wants to satirise capitalism, deliberately placed this at the start so that the audience dislike him and view capitalism as associated with 7 sins
• Alt: could suggest that he may still have “provincial” values and morals, perhaps he is pressured by society and Mrs B to keep up an immaculate reputation - shifts blame away from him
• audience in 1945 would view him as hedonistic as they had just emerged from a period of rationing, his description is synonymous with affluence

Question 7

“Unsinkable, absolutely unsinkable”

Answer 7

• Dramatic irony + foreshadowing + hubris the downfall of the Birling family and Gerald
• Titanic could be a metaphor for capitalism, his family, divided class system
• Priestley - wants to show their power/privelige will sink by socialism, wants audience to be the iceburg, makes capitalism look vulnerable
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