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

Higher

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

为什么He 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

提示A flower, then a surname beginning with R.

为什么She 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

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

为什么He 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

提示Think about who had the power to decide.

为什么For 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

提示He had gone out for a walk after his confession.

为什么He 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

提示It rhymes with pool.

为什么The 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

提示He is not collecting facts.

为什么He 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

提示He will not be hurried or sidetracked.

为什么It 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

提示They had just lived through the second of them.

为什么The 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

提示Think of what the telephone calls establish and what they leave open.

为什么He 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

提示He says what the play as a whole argues.

为什么The 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.