Edexcel IGCSE LiteratureThemes

An Inspector Calls: Themes

Analytical routes through Priestley’s play - social responsibility, class, gender, age versus youth, morality and dramatic form.

Key quotations only - read the full text

Short extracts are included under fair dealing for study and criticism.

Social responsibility

Priestley’s central theme, embodied by the Inspector’s "one body" speech. The play is structured to test whether each character will accept responsibility when confronted with their role in Eva’s story. Priestley’s 1945 audience, emerging from a war fought partly in the name of collective purpose, was being asked whether post-war Britain would regress into the 1912 world or build something new.

Key moments: Birling’s "a man has to make his own way" speech; the Inspector’s Act Three speech; Sheila’s "we all helped to kill her".

”We are members of one body. We are responsible for each other.”

Class and capitalism

The Birlings’ dining room is a microcosm of Edwardian capital. Arthur’s factory, Gerald’s aristocratic family, Milwards, the Palace Bar, the charity board - each is a node in the system that passes Eva along until she dies. Priestley uses dramatic irony (the Titanic, Germany) to make the audience see through the Birlings’ certainty.

Key moments: Birling’s Act One speech; the wage strike; the charity refusal.

”Come down sharply on some of these people, ... asking for the earth.”

Gender and power

The play stages several versions of female experience: Sybil’s complicit propriety, Sheila’s dawning self-awareness, Eva’s silenced absence. The Birling men each exploit women in different registers - Birling’s factory discipline, Gerald’s protective affair, Eric’s violent drunken encounter - and Priestley insists we name each of them.

Key moments: Sheila at Milwards; Gerald at the Palace Bar; Eric’s confession; Mrs Birling’s charity decision.

”Girls of that class -“ - Mrs Birling

Age versus youth

Priestley splits the Birling family along generational lines. The young Birlings - Sheila and Eric - can change; the older ones cannot. Gerald’s regression into denial, despite his relative youth, tracks him with the parents. The play’s hope rests on the assumption that generational turnover can do what argument alone cannot.

Key moments: Sheila’s "it frightens me the way you talk"; Eric’s confrontation with his mother; the Act Three reversal.

“You’re just the kind of son-in-law I always wanted.” - Arthur Birling (to Gerald)

Morality, guilt and denial

The Inspector’s interrogation is structured like a confessional. Each Birling receives the same moral test, and the play treats their responses as choices rather than character traits. Priestley’s use of dramatic irony and the phone-call twist punishes denial and rewards (at least potentially) acceptance.

Key moments: Each confession in Acts One-Three; the family’s attempt to "laugh it off"; the final phone call.

“Probably a socialist or some sort of crank.” - Arthur Birling on the Inspector

Dramatic form and the "well-made play"

Priestley exploits and subverts the conventions of the drawing-room drama. The three-act structure, classical unity of place and time, and photograph-as-evidence motif all belong to the genre; the Inspector’s quasi-supernatural knowledge and the phone-call twist pull against it. The play’s form itself argues that bourgeois realism cannot contain the moral pressures Priestley wants to release.

Key moments: The set description (Act One); the passing of the photograph; the Inspector’s exit; the ringing telephone.

”pink and intimate until the Inspector arrives, and then… brighter and harder.”

An Inspector Calls © The Estate of J.B. Priestley. Short quotations reproduced under the fair dealing provision of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 for the purpose of criticism and review.

Short quotations reproduced under the fair dealing provision of the CDPA 1988 for criticism and review. Full text available from your school or local library.

Back to An Inspector Calls

Edexcel IGCSE LiteratureThemes

An Inspector Calls: Themes

Analytical routes through Priestley’s play - social responsibility, class, gender, age versus youth, morality and dramatic form.

Key quotations only - read the full text

Short extracts are included under fair dealing for study and criticism.

Social responsibility

Key moments: Birling’s "a man has to make his own way" speech; the Inspector’s Act Three speech; Sheila’s "we all helped to kill her".

”We are members of one body. We are responsible for each other.”

Class and capitalism

Key moments: Birling’s Act One speech; the wage strike; the charity refusal.

”Come down sharply on some of these people, ... asking for the earth.”

Gender and power

Key moments: Sheila at Milwards; Gerald at the Palace Bar; Eric’s confession; Mrs Birling’s charity decision.

”Girls of that class -“ - Mrs Birling

Age versus youth

Key moments: Sheila’s "it frightens me the way you talk"; Eric’s confrontation with his mother; the Act Three reversal.

“You’re just the kind of son-in-law I always wanted.” - Arthur Birling (to Gerald)

Morality, guilt and denial

Key moments: Each confession in Acts One-Three; the family’s attempt to "laugh it off"; the final phone call.

“Probably a socialist or some sort of crank.” - Arthur Birling on the Inspector

Dramatic form and the "well-made play"

Key moments: The set description (Act One); the passing of the photograph; the Inspector’s exit; the ringing telephone.

”pink and intimate until the Inspector arrives, and then… brighter and harder.”

Short quotations reproduced under the fair dealing provision of the CDPA 1988 for criticism and review. Full text available from your school or local library.

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An Inspector Calls: Themes

Key quotations only - read the full text

Social responsibility

Class and capitalism

Gender and power

Age versus youth

Morality, guilt and denial

Dramatic form and the "well-made play"

An Inspector Calls: Themes

Key quotations only - read the full text

Social responsibility

Class and capitalism

Gender and power

Age versus youth

Morality, guilt and denial

Dramatic form and the "well-made play"