Inspector calls quotes for characters

Question 1

BIRLING: a man has to mind his own business and look after himself
Act One

Answer 1

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.

Question 2

BIRLING: … we’ve been had … it makes all the difference.
GERALD: Of course!
SHEILA [bitterly]: I suppose we’re all nice people now.
Act Three

Answer 2

These lines illustrate the mood of this last part of the play, as well as the split between the Birlings and their children. Sheila and Eric realize the importance of the Inspector’s lesson, notably that they need to become more socially responsible whether or not the particular scenario was a valid example. In contrast, their parents absolutely fail to learn such a lesson, arguing that the failure of the example invalidates the Inspector’s argument. Why still feel guilty and responsible? It also is significant that Gerald Croft takes Birling’s side (uncritically) rather than Sheila’s.

Question 3

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

Answer 3

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.

Question 4

BIRLING: unsinkable, absolutely unsinkable.
(Referring to the Titanic)
Act One

Answer 4

Priestley’s love of dramatic irony is biting here, and his irony is never more satirical than in these comments of Birling’s, which, to his original audience in 1946, must have seemed more controversial than they do today because the sinking of the ship was within people’s memory. Symbolically, just as the Titanic is destined to sink, so too is Birling’s political ideology, under the Inspector’s interrogation. The ship was a titan of the seas, and its imminent failure “next week” suggests the dangers of capitalistic hubris, illustrating the risk of the entrepreneur.

Question 5

SHEILA: [laughs rather hysterically] 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

Answer 5

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.

Question 6

SHEILA: “But these girls aren’t cheap labour - they’re people.”
Act One

Answer 6

I think this quotation clearly shows the change in her attitude. She now becomes concerned about this girl who is in a lower class. Also Sheila becomes very affectionate towards Eva and is sorry for what happened to her. She refuses to listen to her own fiancé.

Question 7

MRS B: “She was claiming fine feelings […] that were simply absurd for a girl in her position”
Act Two

Answer 7

A social divide is important to her. She claims that lower class women don’t have feelings, and if they do they don’t deserve to express them.

Question 8

SHEILA: “Its queer-very queer- It doesn’t much matter now, of course-but was he really a police
inspector?”
Act Three

Answer 8

This quotations can show us that Sheila is aware that the Inspector wasn’t a real one. However I think there is a quotation at the beginning of the play which suggests she is rather suspicious of his identity.
“You see, we have to share something. If there’s nothing else, well have to share our guilt.”
To this Sheila has quite a strange answer:
“(staring at him) Yes. That’s true. You know. (She goes close to him,
wonderingly.) I don’t understand about you.”

Question 9

THE INSPECTOR “has a disconcerting habit of looking hard at the person he addresses”
Act One

Answer 9

His sense of mystery is quite ominous and means the audience and the characters are scared of him. This shows that he is intimidating and that he shows that he is powerful before speaking. The stare suggests that he is able to read a person by looking at them and that he can almost see what they are thinking.

Question 10

GERALD: “Everything’s all right now, Sheila. What about this ring?”
Act Three

Answer 10

In the end Gerald shows clearly that he believes nothing has changed. He expects that Sheila will have gotten over it so soon and he believes that now that the situation is over everything can go back to normal, this shows quite a naive side of Gerald and shows that he has had no understanding of the lesson the Inspector was trying to teach and that he has little respect for Sheila.

Question 11

MRS B: “When your married you’ll realize that men with important work to do sometimes have to spend nearly all their time and energy on their business. You’ll have to get used to that just as I have.”
Act One

Answer 11

She understands and respects her place as a woman in the marriage, whereas Sheila is not willing to accept this and dares to challenge the system. This is where I feel that she acquires her bitter and hard personality.

Question 12

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

Answer 12

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.

Question 13

ERIC: ‘not quite at ease, half shy, half assertive’.
Act One

Answer 13

We realise that there is something not quite right with Eric when he is first introduced in the opening stage directions. He is clearly uncomfortable in some way.

Question 14

GERALD: “Absolutely first-class”
“I insist upon being one of the family now.”
Act One

Answer 14

At the beginning of the play Gerald appears to be very polite and well mannered. He seems to be enthusiastic and wants to fit in with the family.

Question 15

GERALD: “You couldn’t have done anything else.” (After Birling reveals that he fired Eva Smith.)

Answer 15

In the first act Gerald shows that he has similar views to Mr Birling.

Question 16

GERALD: “I want you to understand that I didn’t install her there so that I could make love to her.”
Act Two

Answer 16

This shows that he is kind and willing to help. It also shows that status and class don’t seem to matter to him as much, maybe because he is of higher status than the Birling’s so more secure in his position.

Question 17

SHEILA: “You don’t seem to have learnt anything.”
Act Three

Answer 17

This is a very realistic statement, and the audience know that Birling hasn’t learnt anything. Contrasting this, Sheila has changed and matured a lot from before the Inspectors visit. She has developed notably throughout the play, from acting like a young child, being cared and looking up to her parents to now, telling her father exactly what she thinks of him.

Question 18

GERALD [laughs]: You seem to be a nice well-behaved family -
BIRLING: We think we are -
Act One

Answer 18

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.

Question 19

SHEILA: “It frightens me the way you talk”
Act Three

Answer 19

She finds it difficult to understand how they can’t have learnt from the evening in the same way that she and Eric have. I think she starts to see her parents in a new, unfavourable light. Even more than she did before the truth about the Inspector was discovered. She wants everyone to face up to their fears and their guilt and not try to dodge and forget about what they have done.

Question 20

GERALD: “Why should you, its bound to be unpleasant and disturbing.”
Act Two

Answer 20

He seems to adhere to traditional views concerning men and women, he tries to protect Sheila from hearing about his affair, not only because he wants to hide it from he but he fears she will be too weak willed and find it very upsetting.

Question 21

GERALD: “She was young and pretty and warm hearted - and intensely grateful” - “and”
Act Two

Answer 21

His words spill out; he has so much to say about Eva because he was intimate with her. He knows her in a positive light, unlike Sheila, Mr & Mrs Birling. He knows her feelings and emotions. “intensely grateful” proves he also looks down on the lower class. He only knows how to give and help in terms of finance.

Question 22

INSPECTOR: “Don’t stammer and yammer at me again, man. I’m losing all patience with you people.”

Answer 22

He shows that he is focused and determined to stay on track and get to the bottom of the situation. This outbreak shows that he is fed up with society being how it is and he wants things to change.

Question 23

SHEILA: (rather distressed) Sorry! It’s just that I can’t help thinking about this girl destroying herself so horribly - and I’ve been so happy tonight. Oh I wish you hadn’t of told me. What was she like? Quite young?”
Act One

Answer 23

I think the part which says that she has been “so happy tonight” shows she is unhappy and distressed that she has become involved with the story of Eva Smith’s death; she says how happy she was tonight, as though her fun had been spoilt by the horrible news, she wishes that no one had told her. Her morals are displayed as unjustly, she is very selfish and doesn’t seem to think of others.

Question 24

INSPECTOR: “Then they will be taught it in fire and blood and anguish.”
Act Three

Answer 24

The Inspector is used by Priestley in the play as his mouth piece and to voice his dislike for the way society is. He also uses the Inspector to foretell the world wars. The audience would have known how this relates to the wars and as they will have lived through it they would have understood how terrifying and deadly the wars were.

Question 25

MRS B: “A rather cold woman” and “her husbands social superior”
Act One

Answer 25

Mrs Birling is not a friendly person and rarely shows any affection. Contradicts her own traditionalist views: where women should respect their husbands and be benevolent, she makes the social divide clear and seems heartless. The contradiction shows the stupidity in traditionalism.

Question 26

MRS B: “as if a girl of that sort would never refuse money” - “that sort”
Act Two

Answer 26

She is stereotypical and unsympathetic; sees Eva Smith as a liar and a criminal (traits she assumes all lower class citizens have). Sarcasm and prejudice are present.