an inspector calls

• Morality play


  The first kind of play written in the English language, written to explain the morals of the Bible
• Morality play

  • Performed in church for people who hadn't learned to read and write
  • Characters take on particular characteristics
• Seven deadly sins

  • Envy
  • Gluttony
  • Greed/Avarice
  • Lust
  • Pride
  • Sloth
  • Wrath
• Priestley attaches the seven sins to the characters to talk about Christian morality, as 80% of his audience went to church weekly
• Greed/Avarice


  The desire to have an item or experience that someone else possesses
• Gluttony

  Excessive consumption of food or drink
• Lust


  Intense sexual desire
• Pride

  Excessive self-esteem or self-importance
• Wrath

  Extreme anger
• Priestley uses the seven sins to show that to be a capitalist is to behave in an anti-Christian manner, and that to be a good Christian you must also be a socialist
• Inspector: 'We are all members of one body'
• Priestley's audience would have understood this Christian message as they regularly rehearsed it in the communion service at church
• Priestley uses the notion of free will, as in the story of Adam and Eve, to say the audience can change their behaviour by voting for a socialist government
• Literary allusion


  References to literature or literary texts
• Priestley uses literary allusions, like the ghosts in A Christmas Carol, to emphasise his message and draw parallels with his play
• Didactic

  Intended to teach or instruct
• Priestley's play is didactic, just as A Christmas Carol is, as it is trying to teach a strong moral message
• Morality tale

  A story that teaches good morals
• Priestley uses the morality play structure and the seven deadly sins to create a morality tale
• Priestley uses the detective story genre, and borrows the plot device of 'they all did it' from Agatha Christie, to convey his moral and political message
• Tragedy


  • Unified plot
  • Action takes place over 24 hours
  • Unity of place
• Priestley structures the play as a tragedy to represent the tragedy of the working classes and the exploitation of capitalism
• The two deaths of Eva Smith symbolise the tragedies of the two world wars, which Priestley argues could have been prevented if society had learned the lessons of the first war
• Capitalism


  A system where businesses make money for the people who own them, the rich
• Socialism

  A system where big businesses are owned by the government, and profits are used for public services and welfare
• Priestley believes capitalism is immoral and anti-Christian, while socialism is a moral and Christian way of organising society
• Priestley presents himself as a teacher in the play, using the Inspector character to explicitly instruct the characters and the audience on morality and responsibility
• Didactic

  Teaching explicitly
• Priestley's father was a teacher
• Priestley is used to thinking in a didactic way
• The inspector is a teacher in this play, not just there to discover what happened but to train the Birlings and the audience in what to think
• Birling says how he chooses to run his business is not relevant

  The inspector replies that it might be because business and capitalism is affecting everybody in the audience
• Inspector: 'It is better to ask for the earth than to take it'
• Capitalism


  Portrayed as theft, stealing something that doesn't belong to them
• Eric has stolen 50 pounds from his father's business, more than he could have given to Eva
• The inspector accuses Eric of theft, representing how capitalism is stealing money from the poor workers
• Capitalists don't view their taking of profits as a crime, they view it as the natural order of things
• Priestley deliberately has Edna, the one working class person, announce the arrival of the inspector to show her importance
• Patriarchal society

  • Men have significant power, women are excluded from power
  • Daughters are less important and can be bought and sold like property
• Birling is selling off his daughter Sheila to Gerald