News

Year 10 English work on An Inspector Calls

Year 10 English work on An Inspector Calls:

Melissa Amfo An Inspector Calls:

How does Priestley explore responsibility in the play?

Priestly uses the inspector as his raisonneur to demonstrate his ideas about socialism and collective responsibility. This is displayed through the character construct of Inspector Goole and his almost antagonistic character. The inspector can be seen as assertive and sometimes even blunt which is necessary to get through to the ignorant and selfish Birling family. The inspector holds up a mirror to the Birlings to force them to understand how each of them has been a catalyst for Eva Smith’s death as they collectively killed her. For example, when Sheila begins to show remorse and takes some responsibility for her part in the death, instead of offering words of support and comfort, the inspector tells Sheila ‘You started it’ showing his blunt and forceful nature through the pronoun ‘you’, thus forcing her to take accountability for her part.

Opeoluwa Adewole An Inspector Calls:

How and why does Sheila change in the play?

After and during Inspector Goole’s interrogation, Sheila Birling shows character development, as she stands up against the capitalist ideals of her parents and begins to adopt a more socialist standpoint. After the inspector’s departure, Sheila becomes his proxy and goes as far as repeating the ending of his socialist speech: ‘they will be taught in fire, blood and anguish’. The semantic field of hellish imagery here implies that if society continues in capitalist ideology they will end up in a society that is a metaphorical hell for most, and possibly a literal hell for themselves in the afterlife. The repetition of the connective ‘and’ creates a list of the pain and suggesting the business and factory owners will experience, mimicking the experience of the working class in their daily lives.