Modern texts, Year 11: Gerald Croft and Inspector Goole (An Inspector Calls option)

Higher

HintLook at how keen Mr Birling is to impress Gerald's parents.

The whyHe is the son of Sir George and Lady Croft, who own a rival firm. Mr Birling is eager for the match and a little anxious that the Crofts think his daughter is not good enough.

Daisy Renton

HintA flower, then a surname beginning with R.

The whyShe had changed her name after losing her second job. Gerald gives himself away by his reaction the moment the Inspector says it.

In the Palace Bar, at the town's variety theatre

HintA place in Brumley where women went to find men with money.

The whyHe saw that she was out of place there, hungry and in difficulty, and took her away. He then lent her a friend's empty flat and she became his mistress.

He ended it himself, after a few months

HintThink about who had the power to decide.

The whyFor some months she was better off than she had been, and Sheila gives him credit for being honest about it. But he kept her while it suited him. Whether he is the least guilty of the five is a question an essay can argue either way.

Gerald

HintHe had gone out for a walk after his confession.

The whyHe met a police sergeant who had never heard of an Inspector Goole. He then leads the effort to prove the evening was a hoax, which puts him on the parents' side.

Ghoul

HintIt rhymes with pool.

The whyThe name is one of several hints that he is not an ordinary policeman. The play never says what he is.

To make each person admit their part and face their responsibility

HintHe is not collecting facts.

The whyHe lets each of them tell the story and supplies a detail only when they try to slide past it. This is why some readers see him as a conscience more than a detective.

Separately: he deals with each of them in turn

HintHe will not be hurried or sidetracked.

The whyIt lets him keep control of people who are used to giving the orders. It also means the story of the girl's last two years comes out in stages.

The two world wars

HintThey had just lived through the second of them.

The whyThe characters in 1912 cannot know what is coming. The first audience could, which gives the warning the force of something already proved.

The play never settles it: the local force has no officer of that name

HintThink of what the telephone calls establish and what they leave open.

The whyHe may be a hoaxer, a ghost, a voice of conscience or a warning from the future. Each reading can be argued; what matters is that the family is judged by how it reacts.

Priestley's own, which were socialist

HintHe says what the play as a whole argues.

The whyThe Inspector argues that people in a society are answerable for one another. Priestley was a well-known BBC broadcaster during the war and argued for a fairer society afterwards.