Who’s Who

ARTHUR BIRLING
‘A heavy-looking, rather portentous man in his middle fifties with fairly
easy manners but rather provincial in his speech.’
Arthur (henceforth referred to as Birling) reckons himself a self-
made man, suggesting he comes from a humble background
at odds with the luxury lifestyle evident in the play. Despite
having been Lord Mayor of Brumley and trying to intimidate the
Inspector with his high connections, he still feels second-rate
against Sir George and Lady Croft. Nevertheless, Birling is
a wealthy man who demands respect but rarely gives it in
return. He likes the sound of his own voice but his wayward
proclamations on war and the Titanic are dripping in
dramatic irony. The audience can see his pomposity and
wrong-headedness but such self-awareness eludes the
man himself.

Key words: pompous, obstinate, capitalist

SYBIL BIRLING, his wife

‘About fifty, a rather cold woman and her husband’s social superior.’
Sybil is a prominent member of the Brumley Women’s Charity Organization
yet seemingly without a charitable bone in her body. Nor is she much of a
defender of women’s rights! Propriety is more important than listening
to the thoughts and feelings of her children. She is not a caring and
compassionate mother but she does at least seek to shield Sheila
and Eric from interrogation, though whether this is out of maternal
love or the desire to keep up appearances is open to debate,
especially after she inadvertently condemns her son for his role in the
death of Eva/Daisy. Similarly, though there is no hint of romantic
love, she is supportive of Arthur and his business dealings; she
might be her husband’s social superior – meaning she was born
into a higher class than him – but as a respectable upper-class
lady she knows a woman’s place (at least according to the
pre-suffrage etiquette of the early twentieth century, which
dictated that a wife was subservient to her husband).

Key words: cold-hearted, condescending, dutiful

An Inspector Calls 1
Who’s Who
 Who’s Who

SHEILA BIRLING, his daughter

‘A pretty girl in her early twenties, very pleased with life
and rather excited.’
Sheila is the heart and soul of the play. At the beginning
she appears quite childish and frivolous but, as the character
most receptive to what the Inspector says, she quickly grows
into the most perceptive and sympathetic member of the
family. By the end of Act Two she has developed an
assertive streak and is confident enough to oppose her
parents and voice her own opinions. She also displays
an unexpected degree of maturity and understanding
towards her erstwhile fiancé, Gerald.

Key words: remorseful, perceptive, defiant

ERIC BIRLING, his son

‘In his early twenties, not quite at ease, half shy, half assertive.’
Eric is a disturbed young man, floundering in the shadow of his
father. When he does try to assert himself, he is talked down.
Alcohol has become his crutch: a dependency that Sheila is
more attuned to than his parents but which she, in an unsisterly
way, uses as a stick to beat him with. It is only after the
Inspector’s intervention that the young siblings begin
to form a united front. Eric’s juvenile drunkenness, his
crass treatment of Eva/Daisy (it is implied that he
forces himself upon her) and the theft from Birling &
Co. to cover his tracks ought to make Eric a deeply
unsympathetic character. However, his troubled
character can be seen as the consequence of
neglectful parenting and Eric ultimately redeems
himself with a willingness to accept responsibility for
his actions.

Key words: corruptible, reckless, defiant

An Inspector Calls 2
Who’s Who
 Who’s Who

GERALD CROFT
‘An attractive chap about thirty, rather too manly to be a dandy but very
much the easy well-bred young man-about-town.’
Heir of Crofts Ltd, Gerald is as much a catch for Arthur as
for Sheila! Industrialists in those days were brothers-in-
arms, working together for, in Birling’s words, ‘lower costs
and higher prices.’ Gerald is confident and comfortable in
his surroundings, which probably can’t be said for many
young men around their prospective father-in-law. His
treatment of Daisy Renton also makes him perhaps
the play’s most complex character. He is the only
one who appears to have actually cared for the girl
and to have bettered her circumstances, although
the difference in class makes it inconceivable that
their affair could have blossomed into anything
more. However, he is also evasive, a trait that
continues into the final act as he endeavours to
get himself and the Birlings out of trouble. He even
thinks that Sheila might countenance a renewed
engagement. Unlike Sheila and Eric, he has not
learned from his mistakes and is therefore more
closely aligned with the older generation.

Key words: confident, elusive, entitled

EDNA, the maid

A minor character with four meagre lines, Edna is nevertheless representative

of the working class and stereotypical women’s labour. She is one of the
‘millions and millions and millions of Eva Smiths and John Smiths’ so it is
deliciously apt that her dramatic function is to let the Inspector in to the
Birling estate.

An Inspector Calls 3
Who’s Who
 Who’s Who
INSPECTOR GOOLE
‘The INSPECTOR need not be a big man but he creates at once an
impression of massiveness, solidity and purposefulness. He is a man in his
fifties, dressed in a plain darkish suit of the period. He speaks carefully,
weightily, and has a disconcerting habit of looking hard at the person he
addresses before actually speaking.’
The Inspector calls at the height of Birling’s self-congratulation and imparting
of life lessons. This timing is not coincidental; he embodies Priestley’s socialist
beliefs and his arrival symbolises a correction to Birling’s capitalist view. The
role of police inspector is also metaphorical: he scrutinizes
character and carries the judicial authority that means all
under his watch face a day of reckoning, be it in the court
of law or a higher court of morality. But there isn’t an
Inspector Goole or anybody like him in the Brumley police
force, so who is he really? The play’s cliff-hanger ending is
deliberately ambiguous but the name – a homophone
for ‘ghoul’ – suggests paranormal origins, as does
his presentiment; the Inspector drives the dramatic
action but he actually says and does little of note, his
sheer presence is enough to draw the story out of all
the other protagonists, reinforcing the idea that he
is the personification of a social conscience.

Key words: enigmatic, authoritative, sober

EVA SMITH / DAISY RENTON

Can we count someone we never see as a character in a play? In the case
of An Inspector Calls, everyone is judged by their interactions with Eva so it
would be remiss not to consider her. In some ways she is even more spectral
than the Inspector, her spirit rising from the grave to avenge what the Birlings
did to her in life. And Eva is certainly spirited, especially if we take Eva and
Daisy as the same person, though the Inspector’s teaching is that it doesn’t
much matter since there are millions like her and we’re each and every one
of us connected. She demonstrates a number of stereotypical working-class
qualities, such as boldness and resourcefulness. But she also has the good
grace and principles that ironically lead to Mrs Birling damning her. Priestley’s
moralising makes her a blameless character who is no more rounded than Mr
and Mrs Birling but, unlike them, she attracts the audience’s sympathies.

Key words: inscrutable, resourceful, principled

An Inspector Calls 4
Who’s Who
 Summary
Act One
Taking port after dinner, the Birlings are a picture of bourgeois
contentment. They are toasting Sheila and Gerald’s engagement and
are in a celebratory mood, though some of the jesting
papers over cracks, such as Sheila wondering
what happened to Gerald last summer and
Eric being ‘squiffy’.

Birling makes a speech that salutes his son-

in-law-to-be, focusing more on what Gerald
will bring to his business than the happiness
he’ll bring his daughter. Sheila is satisfied,
however, by her fiancé unveiling an exquisite
engagement ring. Before the women retire to the
drawing-room, Birling makes a second speech. Dismissing talk of
strikes and war, he asserts that a time of increasing prosperity lies
ahead, citing as an example the luxurious and unsinkable new liner,
the Titanic!

Left alone, Birling broaches with Gerald the idea that Lady Croft feels
her son might be marrying below his social status and reassures
him that ‘there’s a very good chance of a knighthood – so long as we
behave ourselves, don’t get into the police court or start a scandal
– eh?’ Eric returns and Birling proceeds to lecture both young men
about the importance of hard work, making your own way and
looking out for yourself. He speaks as a hard-headed businessman,
not one of those ‘cranks’ who thinks ‘everybody has to look after
everybody else, as if we were all mixed up together like bees in a
hive – community and all that nonsense’. And
then we hear the sharp ring of a front
What is the effect of the adjective
door bell…
‘sharp’? Why might Priestley have used
An inspector’s called. Birling suspects
this word in his stage directions?
it’s related to his official business as a
magistrate, though Gerald’s ribbing that
maybe Eric’s been up to something gets a nervous retort.

An Inspector Calls 5
Summary: Act One
 Inspector Goole is welcomed with the offer of a port or whisky which
is respectfully but firmly declined. Birling recognises the Inspector
as a new recruit and then seeks to impress him with his knowledge
of the Brumley police force and an inventory of senior positions
he’s held. But the Inspector’s not interested in all that. He wants
information of a different sort.

The Inspector discloses the news that, two hours ago, a young
woman died in the Infirmary after swallowing disinfectant. Eric is
shocked but Birling wants to know
what that has to do with them. The
Inspector tells of a letter and a diary
found at the girl’s lodgings; though
she’d used more than one name,
her real name was Eva Smith. This
brings a hint of recognition from
Birling but he requires the Inspector
to fill in the fact that she used to
work in his factory. Birling insists
that he can’t be expected to keep
track of his ever-changing workforce. The Inspector shows him a
photograph of the girl but shields it from Gerald and Eric; ‘one line of
inquiry at a time,’ he states.

Birling concedes that he remembers the girl and that he discharged

her in the autumn of 1910, nearly two years ago. Given the time
lapse he can’t see how it had anything to do with her suicide but the
Inspector explains it as ‘a chain of events’. Eva is recalled as a fine
machinist, ready for promotion to lead operator until post-holiday
agitation over pay. Birling refused the workers’ request for higher
rates with the message that it’s his duty to keep costs down and
they’re free to find work elsewhere if they don’t like it. When Eric
challenges this, he is told by his father to keep out of it. Eric now
works for Birling & Co. but didn’t back then. Gerald argues that a
workers’ strike wouldn’t last long coming after
the holidays: ‘They’d all be broke – if I know
What does Gerald’s comment imply
them.’
about the working class? And what
does it tell us about Gerald himself? Indeed, the strike doesn’t last long and
the workers return at the old rates except
for the ring-leaders, Eva among them, who ‘had

An Inspector Calls 6
Summary: Act One
 a lot to say – far too much – so she had to go’. Gerald approves of
Birling’s actions; Eric thinks it harsh, to which Birling responds that
they’d have soon been asking the earth if he’d succumbed. When the
Inspector interjects that ‘it’s better to ask for the earth than to take
it’, Birling turns on him. But Inspector Goole will not be intimidated by
his respondent’s golfing connections to the Chief Constable. When
Eric again defends the workers’ rights, Birling attacks the naivety of
his son’s public-school-and-Varsity life.

Sheila enters, ignorant of the Inspector’s presence. Birling thinks

the inquisition is at an end but is contradicted by Inspector Goole,
who tells her about the girl’s demise. Sheila’s shocked response is
similar to her brother’s. Gerald questions the Inspector’s methods on
the basis that it’s what happened to the girl after leaving Birling’s
employment that’s important, and
none of them can help with that.
The Inspector says, ‘Are you sure?’
and gives all three of the younger
generation a probing look that
makes them uneasy.

None of them are familiar with an Eva

Smith but the Inspector reiterates
that she changed her name, perhaps
having had enough of being Eva.
Sheila sympathises and asks the Inspector to tell what happened
next… The girl was fortunate enough to get a job at Milwards, an
upmarket shop, where she was making a fresh start until a customer
complaint led her to dismissal. This information agitates Sheila.
She asks what the girl looked like and the Inspector shows her a
photograph which produces a half-stifled sob and a hasty exit.

Birling is angry at the Inspector for upsetting his daughter and

making a mess of their celebration. The Inspector replies calmly
that it’s comparable to the mess made of Eva. Gerald and Eric round
on him with the reminder that they’re ‘respectable citizens and
not criminals’ but the Inspector argues there’s not always as much
difference as you might think.

A visibly upset Sheila returns and the Inspector takes a rather more
gentle approach. He knew of Sheila’s involvement from something
the girl wrote. Sheila is keen to accept responsibility and recounts

An Inspector Calls 7
Summary: Act One
 how she got the girl sacked: she’d
been in a bad temper, made worse
after trying on an ill-fitting dress that
she liked the idea of but everyone
else was against. When the pretty
shopgirl held it up, it suited her.
Catching the girl smiling at the
assistant enflames Sheila who, as
an important customer, insists she
is sacked for impertinence. The
Inspector accuses Sheila of jealousy, a charge she admits to. Her
actions haunt her – the staff at Milwards give her ‘a sort of look’ – and
she wishes she could take them back. It’s too late for that says the
Inspector, who looks at the story so far from the girl’s perspective.
He doesn’t know what name she used at the store but after this she
changed her name to Daisy Renton–

The mention of this name elicits a startled response from Gerald. He

tries to evade questioning but Sheila pushes back, forcing Gerald to
admit (in the Inspector’s absence) that he spent the previous summer
with Daisy. He says he is sorry but it is all over and he hasn’t set
eyes on the girl in six months so there’s no need for the Inspector to
know. Sheila brands him a fool – the Inspector already knows! – a
proposition corroborated by their inquisitor’s timely return and an
arch ‘Well?’
Chain of Events: Act One
The Birlings are celebrating Sheila’s engagement
to Gerald Croft.

Birling is boasting about a knighthood and dismissing talk of

war and socialist ideals when an Inspector calls with
news of a girl’s suicide.

Inspector Goole establishes that Birling sacked Eva Smith,

though Birling fails to see the relevance of this.

The girl then got a shop job but was sacked after Sheila
complained about her. Sheila feels dreadful about this.

The girl changes her name to Daisy Renton –

this information incriminates Gerald.

An Inspector Calls 8
Summary: Act One
 Act Two
Gerald wants Sheila to leave on the chivalrous pretext of sparing
her more trauma. When she refuses, he unchivalrously accuses her
of wanting to see ‘somebody else put through it’ having already
professed her own guilt. The Inspector mediates the lovers’ spat by
perceiving that Sheila needs to hear more in order to know that the
guilt is not all hers to bear.

Mrs Birling enters and addresses the Inspector with a self-assurance

that Sheila warns her is hopelessly misplaced. Mrs Birling fails to
understand the ‘great impression’ that the Inspector has made on the
younger generation, nor what their responsibility could possibly be
for ‘girls of that class’, nor the ‘rather peculiar and offensive manner’
in which he is conducting his investigation. As her husband did
before her, she references Birling’s influential post of Lord Mayor but
Gerald advises her this information is meaningless to the Inspector.
Mr Birling is at this moment off-stage talking to an over-excitable
Eric. Sybil rejects the notion that her son drinks too much but Sheila
and Gerald rectify this misconception and are chastised for airing
the family’s dirty laundry in front of the Inspector.

Birling enters hot and bothered because Eric won’t go to bed; the
Inspector has told him to stay up. Mr and Mrs Birling can’t fathom
why the Inspector needs to speak to anyone else but he ominously
tells them to wait and see… He picks up the story of
Daisy Renton and Gerald’s role in proceedings. Is there any significance to the

Gerald again tries to deny knowing the girl small detail of Daisy coming

and to remove Sheila from the situation but from outside Brumley ?

it’s of no use. He was at the Palace Theatre bar

when he noticed a girl who looked out of place and was being
harrassed by old Joe Meggarty.
Sybil is taken aback to learn that
Alderman Meggarty is a notorious
womanizer and drunkard! Gerald
intervened and took the willing
girl to a quieter place where they
could talk. Although she doesn’t tell
Gerald much about her personal life,
we do learn that she was originally
from somewhere outside Brumley

An Inspector Calls 9
Summary: Act Two
 and is facing destitution. Gerald has a friend with empty rooms so
he installed her in one but points out that he didn’t ask anything
in return. Still, Daisy naturally showed her gratitude by becoming
his mistress and the relationship bolstered Gerald’s ego, though his
strength of feeling didn’t quite match hers. Unlike Sheila, who wants
to know whether Gerald was in love with Daisy, Sybil doesn’t want
‘futher details of this disgusting affair’. Gerald’s affection for Daisy
is partly evident in his comeback, ‘You know, it wasn’t disgusting’.

Nevertheless, Gerald broke off the relationship before

Why was it inevitable that going away on business – both knew it couldn’t last
the relationship would end? and Daisy took the separation better than expected.
She vacated the room and Gerald gifted her enough
money to see her through a few months. She refused to
say what she intended to do next but the Inspector reveals, from her
diary, that she went to the coast for two months to reflect on a time
that had been better than any she’d previously known, ‘just to make
it last longer’.

Gerald excuses himself on the basis that he’s more

upset than he probably appears. Before he goes, What do you make of

Sheila hands him back the engagement ring, the different characters’

despite Birling’s protestations, telling him that she reactions here?

doesn’t dislike him as she did half an hour ago – ‘in

some odd way, I rather respect you more than I’ve ever
done before’ – but they’re not the same people as they were at the
start of the evening.

When Sheila remarks that the Inspector never showed Gerald the
photograph of the girl, he takes the opportunity to instead present it
to Sybil. And when she claims not to recognize the girl, the Inspector
accuses her of lying, inciting anger from herself and Birling. Sheila
identifies from Sybil’s reaction that she is indeed lying and cautions
both parents.

The Inspector establishes that Mrs Birling is a prominent member

of the Brumley Women’s Charity Organisation and that Eva Smith
appealed for their help only two weeks previously. Sybil grants
that this is true but the girl in front of her did not go by the name
of Eva Smith or Daisy Renton, she had the impertinence to call Why did ‘Eva’

herself Mrs Birling, which prejudiced Sybil against her case. fabricate a story?

The girl had to admit that she had no claim to the name and

An Inspector Calls 10
Summary: Act Two
 that the original story she gave – about a husband who’d deserted
her – was false. Mrs Birling subsequently used her influence to have
the girl’s plea denied and feels that she did her duty and shoulders
no blame. When she tries to rebuff the Inspector, he rather
chillingly proclaims, ‘I think you did something terribly
What does the
wrong – and that you’re going to spend the rest of your
Inspector mean by this?
life regretting it’.

The Inspector then discloses that the girl was going to have
a child. Sheila is horrified. Birling jumps to the conclusion that the
child was Gerald’s but stands corrected by the Inspector. Sybil tells
them what she told the girl: ‘Go and look for the father of the child.
It’s his responsibility’.

The family begin to turn on one another, Birling’s primary concern

being that this won’t reflect well on them at an inquest. His wife
fervently reminds him that his actions set all this in motion. She
lost patience with the girl’s ‘claiming elaborate fine feelings and
scruples that were simply absurd in a girl in her position’. There was
apparently no question of marrying the father – ‘silly and wild and
drinking too much’ – and she didn’t want to take more money from
him as she suspected it was stolen. Sybil
claims that she had no more reason
to believe this story than the girl’s first
and the blame lies elsewhere… With the
Inspector identifying the father, to Sybil’s
agreement, as ‘the chief culprit’, Sheila
puts the pieces together and begs her
mother to stop. As Mr and Mrs Birling
also begin to grasp what has happened,
a pale and distressed Eric enters.

Chain of Events: Act Two

Gerald confesses to an affair with Eva/Daisy. He was able to
better her circumstances for a short time.

The girl’s plea for help is rejected by Mrs Birling’s charitable

organisation. It is revealed that she was pregnant when she
committed suicide. Mrs Birling blames the prospective father.

The curtain falls as everyone works out that it is Eric who is

responsible for impregnating her.

An Inspector Calls 11
Summary: Act Two
 Act Three
Eric miserably asks for a drink. Birling explosively refuses but the
Inspector overrules him: Eric ‘needs a drink now just to see him
through’.

Eric met the girl when he was at the

Palace bar, drunk. He bought her
some drinks. She was uncomfortable.
There is a suggestion that starvation
had forced her into prostitution (‘There
was some woman who wanted her
to go there. I never quite understood
about that.’) Having been heavily
inebriated, Eric is hazy on details. He
thinks he insisted on being let into her
lodgings and threatened to turn nasty; he doesn’t recall the actual
intercourse. Sybil is horror-struck and Birling convinces Sheila to
withdraw her mother. The women depart.

Eric continues his story. Two weeks later they met again at the bar;
this time the atmosphere appears more good-natured. They talked,
Eric took a liking to her and consequently took her to bed again. The
next time he saw her, she told him she was having their baby. There
was no love between them so marriage was out of the question as
far as she was concerned. She was penniless and had little prospect
of finding work so Eric insisted on giving her enough to keep her
going, about fifty pounds in total.

‘Where did you get fifty pounds from?’ ask both Birling and the
Inspector. Eric “borrowed” the money from company accounts.
Birling will need to cover this up. Why didn’t his son go to him for
help? ‘Because you’re not the kind of father a chap could go to
when he’s in trouble.’ Birling proves the point by getting angry
and calling Eric ‘spoilt’. The Inspector cuts in, telling them – What is the effect
not for the first or last time – to sort out family matters and of the word ‘spoilt’?
divide responsibility once he’s gone.

Sybil and Sheila have by now re-entered and the narrative of Eva
Smith returns to her being refused help by Mrs Birling’s committee.
Eric points the finger back at his mother, accusing her of killing
the girl and the child – ‘your own grandchild’! Eric appears on the
verge of striking her until the Inspector breaks the hysteria with

An Inspector Calls 12
Summary: Act Three
 a summary addressing each family member and their role in the
girl’s death. Even Birling expresses remorse, vowing that he’d give
thousands to repair the situation. It’s the ‘wrong time’ for generosity,
declares the Inspector. He parts with the message
What do you think is the that there are other Smiths still with us, their lives
most shocking moment of the ‘intertwined with our lives’ and if we don’t learn
play and why? to take responsibility for each other then we ‘will
be taught it in fire and blood and anguish’.

Left to themselves, Birling casts the blame at Eric, bemoaning the

public scandal and the ruined chances of a knighthood. Family
grievances descend into generational conflict as Mr and Mrs Birling
defend their own actions and their children press them to accept
responsibility, as the Inspector instructed. It then occurs to them
that he arrived as Birling was talking about life being ‘every man
for himself’. He has now left without bringing any formal charges:
was he really an inspector? This idea excites Mr and Mrs Birling
but doesn’t much matter to Sheila or Eric: ‘He was our police
inspector all right’. What does Eric mean
by this?
The bickering continues until Gerald returns with new
intelligence: there is no Inspector Goole. He described the
fellow to a police sergeant, without of course divulging the reasons
for his enquiry. Birling rings the Chief Constable who confirms that
the man was no member of his constabulary. Birling declares the
whole thing a hoax, someone trying to bring him down. He and Mrs
Birling criticise Sheila and Eric for being so forthcoming with their
confessions. They begin to discuss how to exonerate themselves
but Sheila and Eric can’t leave the matter be: ‘Whoever that chap
was, the fact remains that I did what I did. And mother did what she
did… And it doesn’t alter the fact that we all helped to kill her’.

Gerald intervenes again: is it a fact? How do

they know that anyone’s died? The “inspector”
worked from snippets of information and
bluffed the rest. Who saw the photograph?
There’s ‘no proof it was the same photograph
and therefore no proof it was the same girl’.
Gerald calls the Infirmary… Nobody’s been
admitted for attempted suicide or for drinking
disinfectant!

An Inspector Calls 13
Summary: Act Three
 Gerald and Birling have a celebratory drink; Sybil offers her
congratulations to Gerald on his detective work. But Sheila still looks
troubled: ‘Everything we said had happened really had happened.
If it didn’t end tragically, then that’s lucky for us’. Eric agrees. Mr
and Mrs Birling are exasperated that their children can’t see sense:
‘They’re over-tired. In the morning they’ll be as amused as we are’.
Gerald offers Sheila her engagement ring back but it’s too soon
for her to consider that. Then the telephone rings sharply. Birling
answers it…

‘That was the police. A girl has just died – on her way to the Infirmary
– after swallowing some disinfectant. And a police inspector is on
his way here – to ask some – questions–’

As they stare guiltily and dumbfounded, the curtain falls.

Chain of Events: Act Three

Eric admits to his own sordid activities, including getting the girl
pregnant and stealing from his father’s business.

Eric finds out about his mother rejecting the girl’s plea for help
and blames Mrs Birling for killing her own grandchild.

The Inspector leaves them with a blood-curdling warning about

taking responsibility for each other.

Mr and Mrs Birling fail to heed this warning and are quick to
move on when Gerald raises the prospect of the Inspector being
a fraud. Only Sheila and Eric are truly sorry.

As Mr and Mrs Birling congratulate Gerald on proving it was

an elaborate hoax, the phone rings: an inspector is coming to
speak to them about a girl’s suicide.

An Inspector Calls 14
Summary: Act Three
 Themes
Social Class
Class can be a complex subject. How exactly do you define one’s social
class? Is it determined by status of birth, accumulation of wealth or a
mixture of the two?

Birling was born to a lower class than his wife but provides the entire
family with an affluent lifestyle and is in line for a knighthood that would
raise him into the realm of nobility. Nevertheless, the stigmas attached
to the British class system mean that he suffers a sense of inferiority
against the higher-born Crofts. Elements of Birling’s speech betray his
lower origins, although his precise status of birth is unclear: it is difficult
to imagine Sybil deigning to marry somebody too far beneath her and he
doesn’t display any empathy with the working class in either his business
practices or his scornful proclamations about community.

Birling is proof that at least some degree of social mobility is possible

yet it is not something he supports; he is wholly in favour of sustaining
inequalities and protecting his own wealth. At the time of the play’s
action, Birling and his offspring are firmly upper middle class. They stand
in contrast to the working class likes of Eva Smith who suffer at their
hands. With this binary opposition, Priestley basically eliminates the
complexities of defining class.

Indeed, Priestley’s depiction of class war has been

Challenge: find something
criticised as one-dimensional: upper class = heartless
likeable about Arthur and
and unsympathetic; working class = blameless
unlikeable about Eva.
victims. On the other hand, An Inspector Calls would
be ineffective as a morality play if its morals became too
clouded by complex, multi-layered characters. Characters are ciphers,
intended to represent particular types and elements of society, and the
play’s fundamental meaning – that all in society are connected and it
is the responsibility of the “haves” to look after the “have-nots” – could
become lost in a swirl of dense psychological realism.

An Inspector Calls 15
Themes: Social Class
 It also suits Priestley’s socialist message that the Inspector is unequivocal
in his delivery of it. The character might be inscrutable and enigmatic
but his morals and ethics are not: he is there to teach the Birlings and
Gerald that they have a duty of care to the less privileged. As well as
imbuing him with authority, it has been argued by some sociologists that
the profession of law enforcement stands outside of the class structure
so the role of Inspector could also be seen as an objective, impartial
commentator on society.

In Brief:
Eva Smith represents the faceless mass of the working class. She is
punished for trying to combat the capitalist ruling class, as represented
by Birling and his family, who are complacently well-off. The Inspector
arrives to teach them that, just because they are in a separate social
class to the likes of Eva Smith, they cannot live their lives in separation.
Instead, we are ‘bees in a hive’ and have a responsibility to work together
for the good of society as a whole.

An Inspector Calls 16
Themes: Social Class
 Context
Making sense of the conflict between capitalism and socialism requires a
history lesson in the European socio-political system spanning centuries.
For mid-level grades it is probably sufficient to know that capitalism is
the standard Western system of governance in which trade and industry
is controlled by private owners for profit, whereas socialism advocates
production and distribution being controlled by the state with the
intention of benefiting wider society, and some such as Priestley felt that
World War II would (or should) be the death knell of capitalism and class
division since everybody had been “in it together”. If you’re aiming for
higher grades then read on.

An Inspector Calls 17
Themes: Social Class - Context
 The British class system is deeply entrenched, dating back to the medieval
system of feudalism. This was a hierarchical pyramid which gave wealth
and power to the few at the top, while the many at the bottom toiled to
survive and were denied rights.

owned
King all land
and made
all laws

Nobles court granted

favours in return for
swearing oath of loyalty

Knights property would in turn be given to

warriors for their loyalty and protection

Peasants would work the land and pay rent to

those above in exchange for shelter
and a means of living

Though social divisions are not as crude now as they were then, ‘For
the Many, Not the Few’ was the slogan to the 2017 Labour Manifesto,
demonstrating that inequality remains rife in the twenty-first century.
Variations on this phrase have appeared throughout history, including in
the Percy Bysshe Shelley poem The Mask of Anarchy
(1819) and in the Poll Tax protests of the early
1990s. Such repetition aligns with Priestley’s use
of time, implying that humanity is destined to
repeat the mistakes of the past: just as Birling,
Sybil and Gerald fail to heed the Inspector’s
warnings and are therefore threatened with a
repeat of their ordeal in the play’s final dramatic
twist, the Inspector’s prophecy of a violent day of
reckoning would have resonated with contemporary
audiences for whom both the First World War (1914-18) and the Second
World War (1939-45), the tail-end of which coincided with the play’s
production, were within living memory.

An Inspector Calls 18
Themes: Social Class - Context
 The Industrial Revolution of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries first
allowed men from more humble origins to rise up the social
ladder. Those who invested in the coal, iron, steel,
pottery and textiles industries, such as Birling, made
considerable fortunes. This new economy swallowed
up the wealth of aristocratic land-owning families
who were otherwise bankrupt, leading to marriages
of convenience between old money and new, giving
birth to the upper middle class and fortifying the
social standing of both sets.

The Industrial Revolution also gave rise to more perilous

working conditions in hazardous mines and factories. The Labour Party,
founded in 1893, evolved out of the trade union movement to meet the
needs and demands of the expanded urban working class who had been
enfranchised by the Representation of the People Act 1884.

And it was the Labour Party that met the needs of a post-war United
Kingdom. The notion of a welfare state – in which the government protects
the economic and social well-being of its citizens – began with liberal
thinking in the Victorian age. Indeed, some industrialists
genuinely looked after the welfare of their employees,
a notable example being the Cadbury family who
built the model village of Bournville to house
workers from the nearby chocolate factory.
However, the governing philosophy until the
Second World War was laissez-faire, a French
phrase translating as “let do” and which valued
individual freedoms above state intervention. In
1945, a war-ravaged populace demanded a welfare
state and it is this socialist ideal that Priestley was Bournville Cottages,
promoting when he wrote An Inspector Calls. Birmingham

The circumstances of war also provided an interesting location for the

premiere of the play. With the Blitz taking its toll on London’s West End
theatres, Priestley sent his finished script to Russia, where it enjoyed
simultaneous runs in Moscow and Leningrad. Russia was a fitting place
for a first performance having become the world leader in socialism
following the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution.

An Inspector Calls 19
Themes: Social Class - Context
 Themes: Social Class

Key Quotes
‘You’re just the kind of son-in-law I
Birling heartily approves of Sheila’s match
always wanted.’
with Gerald because of what is does for his
BIRLING, Act One own status. The Crofts are an aristocratic
family, higher up the social ladder than
nouveau riche families like the Birlings.

‘But these girls aren’t cheap labour –

they’re people.’ Birling justifies his treatment of Eva with
the economic logic that she led the workers’
SHEILA, Act One appeal for higher rates. Sheila, on the other
hand, has the humanity to see beyond
business practice and class labels.

In this quote the Inspector alludes to class

‘You see, we have to share something. division and the perceived selfishness
If there’s nothing else, we’ll have to of the upper class: the shared guilt is
punishment for their not sharing anything
share our guilt.’
else at an earlier opportunity. The pronoun
INSPECTOR, Act Two ‘we’ is indicative of his belief in collective
responsibility.

The courteous ‘please’ is actually a

signal of authority, Mrs Birling speaking
‘Please don’t contradict me like that. to the Inspector as if he were one of her
And in any case I don’t suppose for a children. As a member of the upper class,
moment that we can understand why she is accustomed to being deferred to
the girl committed suicide. Girls of that and looks down on those who work for
a living. She habitually ‘supposes’ but
class–‘
fails to ‘understand’ and believes that
MRS B., Act Two the unspeakable ‘girls of that class’ are
unknowable, even though she is about to
stereotype them.
‘We don’t live alone. We are members
of one body.’
Like Gerald before him, Eric judges the girl
INSPECTOR, Act Three primarily by looks. Being ‘a good sport’
suggests she was willing, probably through
no other choice, to be part of Eric’s fun and
games that would ultimately lead to her
death.

An Inspector Calls 20
Themes: Social Class - Key Quotes
 Themes: Social Class

Mini Exams
Question 1

To what extent do you sympathise with Birling?

Question 2

How is Eva Smith representative of the working class?

Question 3

Who is the classiest character in the play?

Explain your answer.

An Inspector Calls 21
Themes: Social Class - Mini Exams