Inspector Calls Coursework
Summary of the Play:
The play is set in the 1900’s and is based around a rich upper class family. The Birlings and Gerald Croft are celebrating the engagement between Sheila Birling and Gerald. They are all very smug and pleased with themselves showing they are pleases with their lives. Mr. Birling owns a fairly successful company and hopes this marriage will link Gerald’s, fathers, rival company with his own. He also makes some speeches on the lower classes and what he believes on how a man should live to his son Eric and Gerald. These speeches are key parts in the play and affect much of the morals that this play tries to teach. Almost straight after he gives this speech, the inspector rings the doorbell. This also has significance to the play as the inspector represents much of what Mr. Birling talks about badly in his speeches. The inspector brings news of a terrible suicide of a young, ‘lower-class’ girl who is apparently one of Mr. Birling’s ex-employee. The inspector interrogates the family one-by-one and each has a tale which ties them in with the girl’s suicide. Although Sheila and Eric who represent the youth of this time, seem to have learnt the errors of what they had done to this girl. Their parents appear unchanged and unaffected by the girl’s death. The book tries to convey that we should not live in a class society but try to help each other and that we are all equal.
