'An Inspector Calls'

GCSE English

‘An Inspector Calls’

In ‘An Inspector Calls’ J.B. Priestly captures and maintains the interest of the audience by using shock value and twists in the story.

The Play starts at a normal dinner party, with the Birlings sat around a table and Gerald Croft is also there. They are celebrating Sheila’s engagement to Gerald. So every thing is normal and just people talking around a table until Mrs. Birling and Sheila go to the drawing room and Mr. Birling gives a speech to Gerald and Eric. In his lecture he says,

“…That a man has to mind his own business and look after

Himself and his own…”

I thought that Mr. Birling didn’t know what he was on about now, especially when he said,

“All these silly little war scares. There’ll be peace and prosperity and rapid progress everywhere.”

From this you could tell that Mr. Birling didn’t know much about how things where going on.

In the middle of Mr. Birling’s speech there is a knock at the door and Edna, one of their maids, comes in telling Mr. Birling that it’s an inspector. So in the audience we would be thinking that something’s going on, and then enters the inspector, Mr. Birling expects its just another warrant, him being a magistrate, the inspector inform him its not about a warrant but that a young woman named ‘Eva Smith’ had killed herself! He says it like this,

“…A young woman died in the infirmary she’d been taken there this afternoon because she’d swallowed a lot of strong disinfectant. Burnt her insides out of course”

This graphic description of this girl’s death is shocking. So we in the audience are shock and are wondering why the inspector is at the Birling’s house telling them this. And so is Mr. Birling, he asks why he is being told this and the inspector says she kept a ‘sort of dairy’ that led him to them.

The inspector says he has a photo and leans in to show Mr. Birling, the ...

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“…A young woman died in the infirmary she’d been taken there this afternoon because she’d swallowed a lot of strong disinfectant. Burnt her insides out of course”

The inspector says he has a photo and leans in to show Mr. Birling, the photo and stops Eric seeing it at the same time and then puts it back in his pocket. He then says,

“It’s the way I like to work. One person and one line of inquiry at a time. Other wise there’s a muddle.”

We, the audience, think why? Why does the inspector purposely stop Eric and the others from seeing the photo at the same time?

We soon find that Eva Smith was an old employee at Mr. Birling’s works and she was fired for leading a strike for slightly higher wages just after the summer.

So now we are thinking that it was because of Mr. Birling sacking Eva that she killed herself maybe?

We think this until Mr. Birling says to Ms. Birling that they are nearly finished in there and the inspector says,

“I’m afraid not.”

And when Gerald enters he says to the inspector,

“And we can’t help you there because we don’t know.”

The inspector replies,

“Are you sure you don’t know”

And he looks at the rest of the family and says that some of them also might know something about the girl.

This makes things more interesting for us, that the others could also be connected to this girl’s death. This is quickly seen as true because we find that Sheila got Eva sacked from the only job she’d had for two months at Milwards, the clothes shop the Birlings use. Sheila was in a mood and forced them to sack the innocent Eva. Sheila admits that she did this and she regretted it. We are surprised and disappointed.

It soon becomes clear that Gerald is also involved; he admits having an affair with Eva when he found her in the palace bar, only she called herself ‘Daisy Renton’. He had an affair with her for six months and then told her to go.

We are surprised he had this affair; we thought he was a good and respectful man. After telling us this Gerald goes for a walk to cool off.

The Inspector now shows the photo to Ms. Birling and she says she doesn’t know who it is when the front door slams – Eric had left and the Birlings say he’s not needed anyway but the inspector says he had better return or he’ll go looking for him. This makes us think that Eric too could be involved in Eva Smith’s death.

We then find that Mrs. Birling had seen and spoke to Eva Smith only two weeks ago! But not as Eva Smith, nor Daisy Renton, as Mrs. Birling! When appealing at Mrs. Birling’s organization for help she used the name Mrs. Birling, and Mrs. Birling wasn’t happy so she used her power in the chair to say no to help her. Then the inspector tells us that Eva was pregnant when she died! And yet she still took her own life. This shocks us and our interest is kept and we won’t to find out more.

The Inspector asks Mrs. Birling,

“Who is to blame then?”

and Mrs. Birling says that the stupid man who got her pregnant should be the one to blame for all this mess. When Shelia figures something out, like we all do, Eric must be the father! And they try to stop Mrs. Birling ranting on about how the father should be the one to blame. We remember that Eric had gone walkabout before, but he returns, and everyone is looking at him.

Eric explains how he too found her in the palace bar and when he saw her, he was and he’s not nice when he’s drunk, he forced her to have sex with him.

The inspector finally leaves, after he tells them that they all helped to kill Eva Smith, and he says,

“One Eva Smith has gone – but there are millions and millions and millions of Eva Smiths and John Smiths still left with us, with their lives, their hopes and fears, their suffering and chance of happiness, all intertwined with our lives…taught it in fire and blood and aguish. Good night.”

By this he means that if they were to continue to treat people like they are, it will have a great affect on their lives, and make them unhappy… or worse. This is the Inspectors final words then he leaves.

The Birlings are all stunned, and then Gerald returns and says has just asked police officers about the Inspector and the police man told him he didn’t know about there being a new Inspector on the force. So they ring the police and ask if there is and there isn’t. This adds a new twist to the storyline. This keeps us interested in the story when we thought it was going to end. They all laugh off the night’s events, saying it was all a hoax but Sheila and Eric don’t see the funny side – the all still did those terrible things to people.

Suddenly the phone rings, and it’s the infirmary, saying a girl has just been brought in and an Inspector will be calling round to ask them some questions. This is a dramatic end. The audience is shocked and the twist of the ‘Fake Inspector’ makes it a good play to keep and maintain your interest.