Ending of Play CRILD Poster Flashcards
‘he made us confess’ (Sheila)
L/I= Sheila’s verb choice emphasizes the power the Inspector had over them; the reference to confession has connotations of committing a crime (although only Eric is guilty of this) but can also be interpreted in a religious sense: the Inspector acts as a father-confessor to whom they can confess their sins, receive forgiveness and redeem themselves by changing their behaviour. However, only Sheila and Eric are redeemed as only they acknowledge the sin they have committed in abusing their power over another human being.
‘He was our police inspector all right’ (Eric)
L/I= Eric’s use of the plural possessive pronoun emphasizes their collective responsibility for their treatment of the girl – their part in the ‘chain of events’. Eric implies the Inspector not only determined their relationships with the girl as a normal police inspector would have done, but also inspected them morally, and found them lacking a sense of social responsibility for others. The Inspector has shown Eric that this needs to change to create a better society.
‘Queer, very queer’ (Sheila) that Inspector arrived when Mr B dismissed socialists as cranks
L = Sheila’s repetition of the adjective emphasizes the strangeness of the Inspector’s appearance at the precise moment Mr B mocks socialists. She implies he has not behaved like a conventional police inspector but more like a figure sent to teach the family the error of their ways and that we all have a shared responsibility for the members of our society
‘You don’t seem to have learnt anything’ (Sheila)
R/D/C = The audience, like Sheila, understands that although the family has learnt a lot of truths about each other since the Inspector’s arrival, on a deeper level, her parents have failed to learn a moral lesson or accept responsibility for their abuse of power over a vulnerable member of society. This horrifies her. However, the fact that Sheila and Eric have learned a moral lesson illustrates Priestley’s hope that post 2WW social reform lies with the younger generation, not the older generation that caused two world wars
‘the famous younger generation who know it all’ (Mr B)
L/C/R= Mr B’s hubristic statement mocks the younger generation – represented by Sheila and Eric – yet the irony is that the audience knows Mr B, who thinks he knows it all, knows nothing (for example, the audience knows the Titanic was not ‘unsinkable’, as Mr B believed). Priestley’s message is that if capitalists are not challenged, the social equality he was fighting for as a member of the Fabian Society will never exist, and mankind is doomed to suffer as a result.
‘the whole story’s…moonshine…an elaborate sell!’ (Mr B)
L = metaphor ‘moonshine’ illustrates Mr B’ arrogant belief that their responsibility for a girl committing suicide is not rooted in reality; he fails to understand that he is still responsible for abusing his power over Eva Smith by sacking her. His use of a mercantile lexis ‘sell’ shows profit and business are still more important to him than his responsibility towards the less fortunate in society. His arrogance means he’s learnt nothing
A girl has just died…and a police inspector is on his way here’ (Mr B)
L/C /R= cyclical structure reflects Inspector’s earlier words that if men don’t learn the lesson that they are ‘members of one body’ they will learn it in ‘fire and blood and anguish’ – Mr and Mrs B and Gerald haven’t learned that lesson, so they are doomed to the anguish of repeating their mistakes until they do. Reflects Priestley’s fascination with J.W.Dunne’s theory that time was not linear & unsettles Aristotle’s unities and the complacency of the MC audience by refusing a neat denouement – the 2WW had happened as man hadn’t learned its lessons from WW1 – mankind must change.