Each member of the Birling family and how they respond, who the Inspector really is, and the themes of social responsibility, class, gender and generation.
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1.How is Arthur Birling presented?
As a self made businessman obsessed with status and profit, dismissive of responsibility to others.
2.What is Mr Birlings central belief?
That a man should look after himself and his own, and that community talk is nonsense.
3.Why does Priestley make Mr Birling so often wrong?
To discredit his politics. If he is wrong about the Titanic and the war, the audience distrusts his view of society too.
4.Does Mr Birling change?
No. His main concern at the end is avoiding a public scandal and protecting his knighthood.
5.How is Sybil Birling presented?
As cold and snobbish, socially superior to her husband, and utterly unable to see the working class as fully human.
6.What is Mrs Birlings worst moment?
Refusing Eva help from her charity, then insisting the father of the child should be made an example of, not knowing it is Eric.
7.How is Sheila presented at the start?
As pleased with her engagement and rather childish, playful and used to getting her way.
8.How does Sheila change?
She accepts responsibility fully, becomes perceptive about the Inspectors methods, and challenges her parents.
9.Why is Sheila important to the message of the play?
She shows that the younger generation can change, which is where Priestley locates hope.
10.How is Eric presented?
As awkward and drinking too heavily, and later as genuinely ashamed once his part is revealed.
11.What did Eric do?
He forced his way into Evas lodgings when drunk, made her pregnant, and stole money from his fathers office to support her.
12.How is Gerald Croft presented?
As charming and socially superior, honest about the affair, but ultimately siding with the older generation.
13.Why is Geralds ending significant?
He tries to prove the Inspector was a hoax and offers Sheila the ring back, showing he has learned nothing lasting.
14.Who is the Inspector?
Deliberately ambiguous. He may be a ghost, a collective conscience, or a device rather than a real person.
15.What is the significance of the name Goole?
It sounds like ghoul, hinting at something supernatural and unsettling about him.
16.How does the Inspector control the interrogation?
He takes one line of enquiry at a time, shows the photograph to one person at a time, and refuses to be hurried.
17.Why does he show the photograph to only one character at a time?
It stops them comparing stories, and it keeps the audience uncertain whether it is even the same girl.
18.What is the Inspectors function in the play?
He acts as Priestleys mouthpiece, delivering the central argument about responsibility directly to the audience.
19.What is the theme of social responsibility?
That we are all members of one body and responsible for each other, which is the plays central argument.
20.How does the play present class?
The Birlings treat Eva as disposable precisely because she is poor, and their power over her comes entirely from their wealth.
21.How does the play present gender?
Eva is vulnerable as a working class woman with no protection, while Sheila is patronised even by those who claim to love her.
22.What is the generational divide?
The younger characters accept responsibility and change. The older ones do not, which is where Priestley places the future.
23.How is the theme of guilt handled?
Guilt is shown as useful only when it produces change. Those who feel it and act are treated sympathetically.
24.Why does it not matter whether the Inspector was real?
The point is that each character genuinely did what was described. The moral responsibility is unchanged either way.
25.What is the audience meant to take away?
That responsibility is collective, that ignoring the vulnerable causes real harm, and that there is still time to choose differently.
26.Why does the play still resonate today?
The questions about inequality, privilege and responsibility for others have not been settled.
27.How should you use the 1912 and 1945 contexts in an essay?
Show how Priestley uses the 1912 setting to warn a 1945 audience, rather than describing the history for its own sake.
28.What is the most common mistake in Inspector Calls essays?
Retelling the plot instead of analysing how Priestley uses characters and structure to make an argument.
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