An Inspector Calls Flashcards
As if we were all…
…mixed up together like bees in a hive (Mr B)
(Involuntarily) My…
…God! (Eric)
She’d had a lot to say - far…
…to much - so she had to go
But after all it’s better to…
…ask for all the Earth than to take it (Inspector)
Why the devil do you want to go…
…upsetting the child like that? (Mr B)
(Miserably) So I’m really…
…responsible? (Sheila)
And probably between…
…us we killed her (Sheila)
And naturally that was one of the things…
…that prejudiced me against her case. (Mrs B)
They’re not just cheap labour…
…they’re people! (Sheila)
What are the central themes of the play?
Social responsibility, age and class
What did Priestley wish to influence with his play?
How people voted in the 1945 election: to one away from the Conservatives that had got Britain through the war, and towards the Socialists and Attlee, who promised to rebuild Britain. This did indeed happen, and as a direct result of the Labour government that was put into place at that election, we have the NHS today
How does Priestley undermine Mr Birling and show his naïvety at the beginning of the play?
He makes him give a speech that states that a) the Titanic is unsinkable - just a few months later the tragedy of its sinking took place - and b) that the Germans do not want war and that it is all scaremongering - just 2 years later, it is likely that most of the men that were within the play would fighting on the front lines in WW1
Throughout the play, which characters accept their responsibility, even through to its cryptic end, and what does this represent?
Sheila and Eric - representing the young’s hope for the future and how the new generation an change all the faults of the old ones if they just open their minds to it and accept what needs to be done
