Terms

Question 1

Play terms

Answer 1

The author (Priestly) constructs the character to put forward a point of view.
- It is a morality play: characters embody morals to teach a moral lesson
It is a didactic play: it teaches a lesson

Question 2

“I’m talking as a hard headed, practical man of business”.

Answer 2

• Priestly deliberately uses the language of the Labour Party manifesto 1945.
• Allusion of the language of Sir Stanley Baldwin: he accused them of profiteering of WW1

Question 3

Gerald

Answer 3

Inspector says Gerald not as bad as othes: even good men are still cruel if they are capitalist which inherently exploits people

Question 4

Mrs. Birling

Answer 4

• She is a construct to attack social hierarchy and show the need for a welfare state

Question 5

Eric

Answer 5

• During description of rape, he repeatably deceives himself of the seriousness of the action by distancing himself.
• Proof is that Eva would rather kill herself than go back to him

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Question 6

Shelia

Answer 6

• She is a proxy for the Inspector: she takes his place
• She represents hope
• “And it was my fault really”: she’s blaming herself rather than Gerald; shows how women behave in a patriarchal society
• because she is in a patriarchal society, she can’t refuse Gerald at the end.

Question 7

Inspector

Answer 7

• “We are members of one body”: Christian language used to tell audience that Christianity is like socialism
• “fire and blood and anguish”:war is a natural consequence of capitalism: both exploit people. The capitalist instinct to just look after yourself and pursue profit is the same instinct that leads to war
  -“if men will not learn that lesson”: men (referring to one gender) not man (all men and all women): war and capitalism are the fault of men, that is what is wrong with society
• The reason that the Inspector disappears is because Priestly gives the other characters free will to decide whether to take responsibility

Question 8

Capitalism

Answer 8

• Titanic is a metaphor for the class system
• “there’s a lot of wild talk about possible labour trouble: ironic = 1912 and 1926 huge strikes
• “And we’re in for a time of steadily increasing prosperity”: Great Depression & mass poverty in 1930s

Question 9

War

Answer 9

-“Everything to lose and nothing to gain by war”: Birling is wrong as there is huge profit in war: “lose” and “gain” is language of profit and loss. Priestly is saying that capitalist need periodic wars to maintain profit
- the reason that there are two deaths is because first death (Eva) is WW1, second death is WW2 happening because they didn’t learn the lesson from the first

Question 10

Birling

Answer 10

-“We were paying the usual rates”: factory owners like Birling are a cartel: the workers can never earn more