Modern texts, Year 11: responsibility, class and the generations (An Inspector Calls option)

The ring of the doorbell: the Inspector has arrived

HintA sound from the front of the house.

The whyThe timing is the playwright's comment. The speech that denies any duty to others is interrupted by the person who will spend the evening proving it wrong.

5

HintEveryone who sat down to eat.

The whyMr Birling, Sheila, Gerald, Mrs Birling and Eric. No single act killed her; the play's point is that the acts add up and that each person is answerable for a share.

Moral responsibility, also called social responsibility: what people owe one another

HintMr Birling keeps pointing out that he broke no law.

The whyThe older Birlings think the matter ends if nothing illegal can be pinned on them. The Inspector, and by the end their children, hold them to a different standard.

Socialism

HintIts opposite in the play is the creed of the factory owner.

The whyMr Birling stands for the other view: that business exists to make profit and each family looks after itself.

The refusal of the older characters to accept any responsibility

HintThink about who was laughing just before the telephone rang.

The whyOn this reading the first visit was a chance to learn. Those who would not take it must go through it again, in public.

Never

HintThe audience only hears about her.

The whyShe is known only through what others say, a photograph and a diary. The play's working-class victim has no voice of her own, which is part of the point.

She stands for ordinary working people in general, not just one woman

HintThe Inspector speaks of countless others in her position.

The whyThe audience is meant to think of all the people whose lives depend on the decisions of families like the Birlings.

Her family's wealth and position: the shop would not risk offending her

HintThe assistant had no such weight on her side.

The whyA moment's bad temper from someone with money cost someone without it her living. The play shows class as power used casually.

She could not accept that a working-class girl would have such scruples

HintThink about what she assumes about poor people.

The whyHer prejudice stops her seeing the facts in front of her. The girl's honesty is exactly what she takes for a lie.

Almost none: there was no welfare state, only charity

HintThink about why she ends up in front of a committee.

The whyThis is why Mrs Birling's refusal matters so much: the charity was the last door open to her. An audience in 1945 was being asked what kind of safety net the country should build.

Sheila and Eric

HintLook at who is still upset in the last minutes.

The whyThey accept what they did and are still troubled when the others have stopped caring. Gerald, though young, does not join them.

The older one: Mr and Mrs Birling

HintLook at who is laughing in the last minutes.

The whyTheir views were formed long ago and their position depends on keeping them. The play suggests that people with the most to lose find it hardest to change.

That a younger generation could learn from the past and build a fairer society

HintThink about who would be rebuilding the country.

The whyThe play flatters and challenges its audience at once: it invites them to side with the young and not to repeat the mistakes of 1912.

She begins by deferring to them like a child and ends by openly challenging them

HintListen to what she calls her mother and father at the start.

The whyAt dinner she uses pet names for them and apologises readily. By Act 3 she is telling them plainly that they are fooling themselves.

The parents' side

HintHe is the one who sets out to prove the evening was a trick.

The whyThe divide in the play is not simply one of age. Gerald has the most to gain from things staying as they are, and he chooses to believe that the evening can be forgotten.