An Inspector Calls Quotes Flashcards
Description of Arthur Birling
“heavy-looking, rather portentous man in his middle fifties with fairly easy manners but rather provincial in his speech.”
Description of Sybil Birling
“his wife is about fifty, a rather cold woman and her husband’s social superior”
Description of Sheila
“a pretty girl in her early twenties, very pleased with life and rather excited”
Description of Gerald Croft
“an attractive chap about thirty, rather too manly to be a dandy but very much the easy well-bred young man-about-town”
Description of Eric
“in his early twenties, not quite at ease, half shy, half assertive”
Arthur is a selfish social climber and relies on Sheila’s engagement to Gerald, to rise up in the social ladder. He sees the marriage as a business deal and hopes it will bring “lower costs and higher prices”
“your engagement to Sheila means a tremendous lot to me…though Crofts Limited are both older and bigger than Birling and Company”
Arthur’s relationship with Sheila is not very strong, as she is still seen as a child who is irresponsible and unable to do business
“and after all I don’t often make speeches at you”
Gerald accepts no responsibility
“I don’t see how I come into this suicide business”
Gerald is trying to stop a potential scandal and maintain his reputation
“we can keep it from him”
Gerald wants to go back the way things were at the beginig of the evening, and doesn’t want to change.
“everything’s alright now… what about the ring?”
Coming early in the play, these lines also exemplify Priestley’s love of dramatic irony: the last thing the Birlings have been is well-behaved. These lines also suggest the alliance between Gerald and Birling, two men who share the same values, whose bond will become stronger after the Inspector’s exit.
GERALD [laughs]: You seem to be a nice well-behaved family -
BIRLING: We think we are -
Act One
Birling is taking an individualist, capitalist point of view about personal responsibility, and his lines here provide the general attitude of his speeches since the play began. According to him, experience proves that his point of view is correct, in contrast to the possibly more idealistic “youngsters.” Yet, the bell marks the moment at which the Inspector arrives, and it is no accident that the socialist-leaning Inspector arrives at precisely this moment
BIRLING
But take my word for it, you youngsters - and I’ve learnt in the good hard school of experience - that a man has to mind his own business and look after himself and his own - and -
We hear the sharp ring of a front door bell.
Act One
In this fascinating excerpt, the Inspector outlines the nature of the moral crime the Birlings and Gerald have committed against Eva. Each of them is responsible in part for her death, and together they are entirely responsible. This construction is itself a metaphor for Priestley’s insistence that we are all bound up together and responsible communally for everyone’s survival. Note, too, that the repetition in the Inspector’s lines reflect the “chain” he is talking about.
INSPECTOR
… what happened to her then may have determined what happened to her afterwards, and what happened to her afterwards may have driven her to suicide. A chain of events.
Act One
Sheila, shortly before the end of Act One, crucially understands the importance of the Inspector and the fact that he has more information than he is revealing. She is the first person in the play to really begin to understand the Inspector which, in turn, leads her to see her relationship with Gerald in a more realistic, more cynical way.
SHEILA
[laughs rather hysterically]
Why - you fool - he knows. Of course he knows. And I hate to think how much he knows that we don’t know yet. You’ll see. You’ll see. She looks at him almost in triumph.
Act One
Eva Smith, by the time she encounters Eric in the Palace bar, seems to be working as a prostitute, and indeed, the fact that the Palace bar is a location known for prostitutes looking for business is here partly mentioned but partly suppressed. Moreover, this information points out the streetwise character of Gerald Croft, and it might even lead to questions about precisely what he was doing in that bar, at night, other than just happening to “look in” after a “dull day” and having “a drink.”
GERALD
I went down into the bar for a drink. It’s a favorite haunt of women of the town -
MRS. BIRLING
Women of the town?
Act Two
This is an unusually personal moment from the Inspector, who gives us one of the first insights into Eva Smith’s feelings and personality. He claims, of course, that he has found a diary in Eva Smith’s room, though many interpretations have argued that the Inspector in fact has a more personal connection to Eva Smith: perhaps he even is her ghost, or a ghoulish embodiment of her dead child? Priestley never tells us, but there is certainly opportunity for the actor in this part to suggest a more personal connection. Note, too, the interest in time on Eva’s part, keeping a diary and making a point of remembering the past nostalgically.
INSPECTOR
She kept a rough sort of diary. And she said there that she had to go away and be quiet and remember “just to make it last longer.” She felt there’d never be anything as good again for her - so she had to make it last longer.
Act Two
Here the Inspector, who by this middle act of the play is gaining in power and control over the situation, “massively” silences Birling with a putdown. It is not the first or last time that Birling is cut off mid-thought. It is also important because Priestley points an extra finger of blame at Birling not just for his actions, but for his failure to see that his public position entails a duty of responsibility to other people. Interestingly, this attitude draws on the traditional notion of the upper classes taking responsibility for the welfare of the lower classes, but in the newer, more democratic life of Britain, the “public men” are not necessarily of higher social class even if they have more public privileges; at any rate, their position of power comes with responsibility.
BIRLING
You’ll apologize at once … I’m a public man -
INSPECTOR [massively]
Public men, Mr. Birling, have responsibilities as well as privileges.
Act Two
The Inspector’s final lines, from a longer speech he makes shortly before his exit, are a blistering delivery of Priestley’s socialist message. Moreover, his promise of “fire and blood and anguish” also looks forward to the First and Second World Wars, a resonance, which, to Priestley’s 1946 audience, must have been quite chilling.
INSPECTOR
We don’t live alone. We are members of one body. We are responsible for each other. And I tell you that the time will soon come when, if men will not learn that lesson, then they will be taught it in fire and blood and anguish. Good night.
Act Three
