An Inspector Calls

• Gerald [Desire and Lust] - "I hate those hard-eyed dough-faced women"

  • Suggests familiarity through his vivid description - it is one that can only come through experience
  • The emphatic phrase suggests as to his hatred;
  • again, he judges them by their appearance. "dough faced women" the women have full pasty faces suggesting that they lead uninteresting lives. "hard eyed" - they are jaded and cynical, they are aware of the world.
• Gerald [class] - "It wasn't disgusting"

  • Refuses Mrs Birling's remark of his relationship being disgusting.
  • Perhaps does separate him from the older generation
• Gerald [Class] - "knew it couldn't last"

  • it wasn't Gerald's lack of funding but rather the end of a caring and intimate relationship which pushed Eva over the edge and onto suicide
  • Dropping of Eva like a possession due to her lower-class origins
• Mr Birling [Insecurity] - "Provincial in his speech"

  • adjective provincial is used to show the low-class origins of Mr Birling
  • He has to compensate for this with material possessions
• Mr Birling [Insecurity] - "You ought to like this port , Gerald Its exactly the same port your father gets"

  • verb "ought" reveals his insecurity regarding pleasing Gerald, who is of a higher class
  • He does not command Gerald like he would Eric
  • Perhaps he has deliberately bought the same port as Gerald's father in order to make himself look good
• Mr Birling [Insecurity] - "There's a fair chance that i may find myself into the next honours list"

  • Insecurity revealed through his feeling of inadequacy due to lower social status compared to the crofts
  • feels he must compensate with boasts of a potential knighthood#
• Birling [Capitalism vs socialism] - "for lower costs and higher prices"-

  • use of juxtaposition of the comparative adjectives higher and lower helps emphasise the capitalist ideology.
  • Reveals the true motive behind Sheila's marriage, which is profit - rather than love - in contrast to his feelings about Eva
• Birling [Capitalism vs socialism] - "as if we were all mixed up together like bees in a hive - community and all that nonsense"

  • simile "like bees in a hive" is an attempt by Birling to trivialise the concept of socialism
• Birling [Capitalism vs socialism] - "A man has to mind his own business and look after himself and his own"

  • Speaks in third person to add a philosophical element to his speech.
  • Business is ambiguous - it could mean work or it could mean actions
  • Order of importance: Business, youself and then your family /others
• Birling [Capitalism vs socialism] - "Its my duty to keep labour costs down"

  • noun "duty" to emphasise his dedication towards capitalism and profit. He dedicated himself to ruining the lives of the working class
• Birling [Capitalism vs socialism] - "if you don't come down sharply on some of these people, they'd soon be asking for the earth"

  • the hyperbole "asking for the earth" is an attempt to explain his rejection of a pay rise.
  • The absurdity of people "asking for the earth" reflects the absurdity of Mr Birling's refusal to pay a decent wage
  • The inspector's reply "better to ask for the earth than to take it"
• The Inspector - [Omniscience] - "He knows"

  • Sheila understands the Inspector's omniscience and thus reveals all to the Inspector, while encouraging Gerald to do the same, as "he knows" anyway.
• The Inspector - [Omniscience] - "I don't need to know any more. Neither do you."

  • At this point, the Inspector has revealed the culpability of the characters in Eva's death. As this is not a real Inspector, there is no need to know any more details, once he has made a sense of guilt and responsibility
• The Inspector - [Physical] - "Need not be a big man"

  • The Inspector "need not be a big man" as the strength of his position and ideology outweigh the need for an imposing physical appearance
• The Inspector - [Physical] - "Impression of massiveness, solidarity and purposefulness "

  • Vague and unimportant impression so that his message of social responsibility being more important than his physical appearance
  • Polysyllabic adjectives perhaps suggests the complexity of his character's impression, in contrast to his appearance
• The Inspector - [Omniscience] - "a plain darkish suit"

  • Appearance is irrelevant to him, it is moral and social responsibility that is more important
• The Inspector - [warning] - "Burnt her inside out, of course"

  • Uses shocking imagery in an attempt to persuade the characters to change as he frequently refers to Eva's death
• The Inspector - [Warning] - "If men will not learn that lesson, then they will be taught it in fire and blood and anguish"

  • polysyndeton of war and conflict imagery.
  • Religious connotation of fire is hell and therefore encourages men to follow religious teaching - notably one being "love thy neighbour"
• Gerald - [Responsibility] - "There's still no proof it was really the same girl"

  • attempts to convince himself that it was never the same girl in order to gain innocents and avoid responsibility