Transcript Kelso High School

Kelso High School
English Department
‘An Inspector Calls’
Learning Intentions – Act Three
 Plot / Key incidents
 Characterisation – Arthur Birling / Sybil Birling / Sheila
Birling / Eric Birling / Gerald Croft / Eva Smith (Daisy
Renton) / Inspector Goole
 Dramatic Techniques: Tension
 Themes : Social Class / Social Responsibility
Plot / Key Incidents
 Eric returns. He knows that everyone thinks he is the
father of Eva / Daisy’s child.
 He confesses that he forced her to have sex, got her
pregnant and then stole money to support her.
 Eva / Daisy rejected the money and turned to Sybil’s
charity for help.
 The Inspector warns that unless everyone learns to look
after each other, that there will be more suffering.
 The Inspector leaves the Birling’s house.
Plot / Key Incidents – Final Twist
 Gerald returns and says he doesn’t think the
Inspector is who he is supposed to be.
 Birling calls the police and finds there is no
Inspector Goole.
 Gerald calls the hospital and finds no-one has
committed suicide.
 They all decide they have been tricked.
 The phone rings. A young woman has been
found dead and an Inspector is coming to
question the Birlings…
Characterisation: Arthur Birling
Characterisation: Arthur Birling
 Birling starts to take the situation seriously for the first time.
This is only because it is revealed Eric stole money from his
company to help support Eva / Daisy.
 He is shocked that Eric almost had a child with a woman
who was probably a prostitute which would have brought
shame on the family.
 Birling doesn’t want anything to change. He wants things
to go back to how they were – with him in charge.
 The Birling parents haven’t learnt anything. They care
more about keeping everything a secret. The only thing
they would feel really ashamed about is a scandal. Birling
blames the Inspector for making a ‘nasty mess’.
Characterisation: Sybil Birling
Characterisation: Sybil Birling
 Eric is angry when it is revealed that Sybil refused
to help Eva/Daisy – “You don’t understand
anything. You never did.”
 Sybil cares more about how people see her
family than having a good relationship with her
children.
 Like her husband, Sybil thinks if the Inspector isn’t
real, then what he said doesn’t matter.
Characterisation: Sybil Birling
 Throughout the play, she doesn’t change:
 She doesn’t learn anything from the Inspector.
 She keeps telling everyone “triumphantly” that
she knew the Inspector was a trick. It is more
important to her that she comes out on top, than
that she could have caused a suicide.
 Near the end of the play, she is ‘smiling’ and tells
everyone to feel ‘amused’. This suggests she has
already put everything behind her and learned
nothing.
Characterisation: Sheila
Birling
Characterisation: Sheila
Birling
 By the end of the play she wants to break away
from her parents as she and Eric are the only
characters who see that they all have to change.
 At the end she says “between us we killed her” –
the other characters never admit this.
 She knows the family must stop these “silly
pretences”. Priestley uses Sheila to show that there is
hope that people can change.
 She is the only character who shows real
compassion for working people – “these girls aren’t
cheap labour – they’re people”.
Characterisation: Sheila
Birling
 She is like the Inspector as she wants to know the
truth and wants to help with his investigation.
 She realises that the Inspector’s questions are
meant to break down the “wall” they have put
between themselves and Eva/Daisy – Sheila
wants to do the same.
 By the end of the play she is sensitive, moral and
seems to have changed for good.
 She thinks everyone should face up to their role in
the tragedy.
Characterisation: Eric Birling
Characterisation: Eric Birling
 His drunkeness and bad behaviour represent the
dark side of family life. Fact he is a heavy drinker
is obvious by the way he pours his whiskey in Act
Three – (His whole manner of handling the
decanter and then the drink shows his familiarity
with quick heavy drinking).
 Eric’s behaviour is normal for a middle class man
– Gerald / Birling’s ‘respectable friends’ /
Alderman Meggarty – but he is much more
reckless. He doesn’t hide his drinking and the
baby would have ruined the Birling family’s
reputation.
Characterisation: Eric Birling
 He is a victim and a villain:
1. He feels he doesn’t fit in and that nobody
supports him. He has had to find comfort in women
and drink.
2. When he shouts at Sybil, “You don’t understand
anything”, it is the angriest moment in the play.
3. He is portrayed as a villain, yet he accepts
responsibility for what he does – ‘I did what I did’.
He criticises his parents for pretending that nothing
has happened.
Characterisation: Gerald Croft
Characterisation: Gerald Croft
 When he finds out the Inspector wasn’t real and
there was no suicide, he sides with Mr Birling. He
wants to protect their reputation.
 Like Mr Birling, he is more interested in finding out
whether the Inspector and the girl were real, rather
than in learning from what they’ve done.
 Like Mr and Mrs Birling, he learns nothing from the
visit: He is the first character to use the word
“hoax”. He is keen to prove the Inspector was a
fake and clear everyone’s names.
 At end, he says, “Everything’s all right now, Sheila”.
He doesn’t seem to have leant anything.
Characterisation: Gerald Croft
 Just before second phone call, Mr and Mrs Birling
and Gerald relax and start joking about what has
just happened. The atmosphere starts to seem
like it did at the beginning of the play.
 Gerald suggests he and Sheila should get
engaged again. Sheila says it is “too soon” –
unlike Gerald, she can’t forget what she has
learnt.
Characterisation: Eva Smith /
Daisy Renton
Characterisation: Eva Smith
 Real identity of Eva / Daisy is never revealed. She
could be the same person or different people. The
Birlings see and treat all working-class girls in the
same way, so it doesn’t matter who she really is.
 Eva / Daisy lost all her jobs because she was abused
by more powerful people. They felt more important
than Eva because of their social class.
 She is a silent character who represents powerless
members of society.
 She doesn’t try to get revenge – the Inspector does
it for her. He speaks on her behalf and uses her to
teach the Birlings about Social Responsibility.
Characterisation: Eva Smith
 Eva / Daisy represents all vulnerable working-class
people who need the support of a more caring
society.
 She is KEY to play’s message – Inspector says
there are “millions of Eva Smiths and John Smiths”
and that everyone’s happiness is connected. This
is the KEY point. He is telling the Birlings and the
audience to behave responsibly towards others.
 Focus of play is life and death of an unknown
woman. Even if they are all different women, it
doesn’t matter. Eva / Daisy is a mix of all the
people they’ve ever treated badly.
Characterisation: Inspector Goole
Characterisation: Inspector Goole
• The Inspector sums up how each character had
a hand in Eva / Daisy’s suicide:
•
Arthur – started it all by sacking Eva Smith
•
Sheila – got her fired from her second job
•
Gerald - kept her as his mistress, but made
her homeless when he called it off

Eric - “used her” because he was drunk

Sybil - wouldn’t let her charity help her
Characterisation: Inspector Goole
 His speech makes clear that there are millions of
people like Eva / Daisy. He thinks everyone
should be responsible for everyone else as
everyone is affected by each other’s actions.
“One Eva Smith has gone – but there are
millions and millions and millions of Eva Smiths and
John Smiths still left with us…. We don’t live alone.
We are members of one body. We are responsible
for each other”
 He warns that if people don’t learn to look after
each other, they’ll be taught with “fire and blood
and anguish”.
Characterisation: Inspector Goole
• At end of play, the audience isn’t sure who or
what the Inspector is.
• He seems to know everything, but nothing is
properly explained.
• Some people think he represents 1) the voice of
God 2) the audience’s conscience
• His lesson is more important than who he is – Eric
and Sheila realise that whether something is
morally right or wrong is just as important as
whether something is legal or not.
Characterisation: Inspector Goole
• The Inspector says what Priestley thinks:
1. He is Priestley’s voice in the play. Most clear in
final scene. Inspector is talking to the Birlings,
but it could be Priestley speaking to audience.
2. He is an outside who takes Eva / Daisy’s side.
He isn’t afraid to tell the Birlings what he thinks
of them.
3. Priestley wanted play to have a strong
message about looking after one another and
it is the Inspector’s job to deliver it.
Dramatic Techniques - Tension
 In Act One, the family are seated, but by the end
the characters are standing, shouting, drinking
and crying.
 The tension has increased to the point that the
Birlings are falling apart.
Theme: Social Class
 Priestley suggests that the richest members of
society didn’t want to change the class system
because they didn’t want to share their money
or their power.
 Play isn’t about one family’s scandal – it was how
Priestley saw society. Birlings’ arrogance and
selfish represent the worst qualities of the upper
and middle classes.
Theme: Social Class
 Priestley shows how unfair class system is for
people like Eva / Daisy. She could have been
anyone.
 Birlings think class is all that matters. Priestley
believes opposite. He wants people to be judged
by what they do, not by which class they belong
to.
 At end of play, Eric and Sheila realise they have
a responsibility to the working class. Priestley
shows that people can choose to act differently
from the rest of their class.
Theme: Social Responsibility
 Play’s purpose is to show how important social
responsibility is. Social Responsibility is the idea that
everyone should be responsible for each other because
our actions affect everybody else.
 Inspector shows how each of characters are responsible
for Eva / Daisy’s death. Sheila and Eric learn from the visit,
but Mr and Mrs Birling refuse to change.
 Inspector’s final speech is clear and to the point – it is a
summary of what he’s tried to teach the Birlings about
responsibility – “We don’t live alone. We are members of
one body. We are responsible for each other”.
 He isn’t trying to make the family feel guilty, he wants to
make them aware of problems faced by working class.
Theme: Social Responsibility
 All the events in the play are connected. Priestley
seems to think that it doesn’t take great people
to change the world – we can all change it by
changing the way we treat others.
 Priestley supported Socialism – idea that money
and power should be shared equally. Birling is
wrong about lots of things (war, Titanic etc) so
when he says Socialism is “nonsense”, the
audience are supposed to think he is wrong
about that too.
Success Criteria
 Plot / Key incidents
 Characterisation – Arthur Birling / Sybil Birling /
/ Sheila Birling / Eric Birling / Gerald Croft / Eva
Smith (Daisy Renton) / Inspector Goole
 Dramatic Techniques: Tension
 Themes : Social Class / Social Responsibility
Well done!!