AN INSPECTOR CALLS 23 Flashcards
Birling represents the avarice and short-sightedness that, Priestley believes, defines Capitalism.
MR B
Birling: A man has to look after himself – and his family too, of course…
Birling: I was almost certain for a knighthood…
Birling: lower costs and higher prices.
Birling: … as if we’re all mixed together like bees in a hive – community and all that nonesense.
In terms of their incapacity to listen and learn, the elder Birlings epitomise the arrogance of their generation and class.
MR B & SYBIL
GENERATION GAP
CLASS DIVIDE
Sheila: We can all go on behaving just as we did.
Mrs Birling: Well? Why shouldn’t we?
Eric: You’re beginning to pretend now that nothing’s really happened at all. And I can’t see it like that.
Birling: I’m talking as a hard headed, practical man of business.
Birling: I was almost certain for a knighthood…
Birling’s and the Inspector’s very different ideas of ‘duty’ lay bare the chasm between ideals of Capitalism and Socialism.
MR B & INSPECTOR
Inspector: It’s my duty to as questions.
Birling: Well it’s my duty to keep labour costs down.
Inspector: We don’t live alone: we are members of one body.
Birling (on living in 1940):you’ll be living in a world that’ll have forgotten all these capital versus labour agitations and all these silly little war scares
Birling: lower costs and higher prices.
Sheila is a character who grows and matures as her awareness of her responsibilities within society expand.
SHEILA
Sheila: But these girls aren’t cheap labour. They’re people.
Sheila: No, because I remember what he said, how he looked, and what he made me feel.
Sheila: Between us, we drove that girl to commit suicide.
Gerald: Did we? Who says so?
Sheila: Everything we said had happened really had happened.
In his parallel portrayal of Sheila and Eva Smith, Priestley explores how society allows privilege to trump moral values.
SHEILA
EVA SMITH
Sheila: (taking out the ring) Oh – it’s wonderful! Look – mummy – isn’t it a beauty?
Inspector: She was here alone, friendless, almost penniless, desperate.
Inspector: with no work, no money coming in, and living in lodgings, with no relatives to help her, few friends, lonely, half-starved, she was feeling desperate.
Sheila and Eric’s capacity to change represents Priestley’s belief that the next generation can build a fairer society.
SHEILA
ERIC
Eric: Why shouldn’t they try for higher wages? We try for the highest possible prices.
Sheila: But these girls aren’t cheap labour. They’re people.
Eric: The money’s not the important thing. It’s what happened to the girl and what we all did to her that matters.
Sheila: Everything we said had happened really had happened.
Gerald’s ‘rescuing’ of Eva Smith from Alderman Meggarty merely show us different ways young working class women are exploited.
GERALD
Gerald: She was young and pretty and warm hearted – and intensely grateful.
Gerald: I didn’t install her there so that I could make love to her.
Gerald: Everything’s all right now, Sheila. (Holds up the ring.) What about this ring?
Sheila: You were the wonderful fairy prince. You must have adored it, Gerald.
Gerald’s assumption of control near the close of the play, Priestley exemplifies the self-protective nature of the ruling classes.
GERALD
Gerald croft is a attractive chap about thirty, rather too manly to be a dandy but very much the well-bred young man-about-town.
Mrs Birling (smiling): And I must say, Gerald, you’ve argued this very cleverly.
Gerald: Either there’s a dead girl there or there isn’t.
Gerald: Everything’s all right now, Sheila. (Holds up the ring.) What about this ring?
Whilst Gerald reflects Birling’s self-interested aspirations, Eric is the result of his disinterest and neglect.
GERALD
Birling (to Eric) :That’s something this public-school-and-varsity life you’ve had doesn’t seem to teach you.
Birling (to Gerald): You’re just the kind of son-law I always wanted
Eric: Because you’re not the kind of father a chap could go to when he’s in trouble.
Birling (to Eric): Some fathers I know would have kicked you out of the house anyhow by this time. So hold your tongue if you want to stay here.
Mrs Birling’s ‘useful’ charity work is, in reality, the antithesis of duty: it’s a means of control over the ‘deserving classes’.
SYBIL
Inspector: you admit being prejudiced against her case?
Mrs Birling: Yes.
Inspector (to Mrs Birling) : You refused her even the pitiable little bit of organised charity you had in your power to grant her.
Mrs Birling: She was claiming elaborate fine feelings and scruples that were simply absurd in a girl in her position.
Mrs Birling: As if a girl of that sort would ever refuse money!
In recognising the differences between individual and collective responsibility, Sheila and Eric are an improvement on Mr and Mrs Birling.
SHEILA
ERIC
MR B
SYBIL
Birling: … as if we’re all mixed together like bees in a hive – community and all that nonsense.
Sheila: Everything we said had happened really had happened.
Inspector: Public men, Mr Birling, have responsibility as well as privileges.
Inspector: We don’t live alone: we are members of one body.
Whilst Eric regrets his misogynistic behaviour, a modern audience is likely to be even less forgiving of his remorse.
ERIC
Eric: The money’s not the important thing. It’s what happened to the girl and what we all did to her that matters.
Eric: I hate these fat old tarts around the town
Eric: I was in that state when a chap easily turns nasty
Inspector: And you made love again?
Eric: Yes. I wasn’t in love with her or anything – but I liked her – she was pretty and a good sport
Although intrinsically good, Eva Smith personifies the relentless exploitation of working class women in a patriarchal society.
EVA SMITH
Sheila: But these girls aren’t cheap labour. They’re people.
Eric: Why shouldn’t they try for higher wages? We try for the highest possible prices.
Inspector: but there are millions and millions and millions of Eva Smiths and John Smiths still left with us
Sheila: Between us, we drove that girl to commit suicide.
It doesn’t matter if the Eva in each story is a different person: what matters is that characters bear a collective responsibility.
EVA SMITH
Inspector: Public men, Mr Birling, have responsibility as well as privileges
Sheila: Between us, we drove that girl to commit suicide.
Birling: No Police enquiry. No one girl this all happened to. No scandal.
Inspector: We don’t live alone: we are members of one body.
Eva Smith is let down by a selfish and blind capitalist society. Through her, Priestley reveals the need for radical social reform.
EVA SMITH
Inspector: but there are millions and millions and millions of Eva Smiths and John Smiths still left with us
Birling: He was prejudiced from the start. Probably a socialist or some sort of crank – he talked like one.
Eric: Why shouldn’t they try for higher wages? We try for the highest possible prices.
