An inspector calls

• Protagonist


  The first or leading actor, the main character in the play
• Antagonist


  The principal opponent or foil of the main character
• How the inspector shifts from antagonist to protagonist


  1. Introduced later in the play

  2. Clashes with Mr Birling initially

  3. Audience starts to view Mr Birling as antagonist and inspector as protagonist
• Stage directions describing the inspector


  • Connote power, confidence, authority (e.g. cutting in massively, interposes himself, taking charge masterfully, coolly looking hard)
• Topic management


  Who decides what gets talked about and how in a conversation
• Turn taking


  Who speaks the most or least in a conversation
• Back channeling


  Words used to show that you are listening and agree
• Before inspector arrives


  Mr Birling topic manages, speaks the most, characters back channel him
• When inspector arrives


  Inspector topic manages, controls turn taking, characters back channel him instead of Mr Birling
• Inspector's use of imperatives and declaratives


  • Shows his command and control (e.g. don't stammer, stop and be quiet, I'm afraid not)
• Mode of address


  The names used to address one another, indicating power dynamics (e.g. calling Mr Birling 'man', calling the family 'you people')
• Inspector's blunt language


  • Shocking, graphic, honest and truthful compared to the Birling family's euphemistic language (e.g. a girl died tonight, she lies with a burnt out inside on a slab)
• euphemistic language it's my duty to keep labor costs down and full of excuses and full of utter rubbish
• we come to actually prefer the honesty of the inspector and that is done with this blunt language
• Graphic imagery


  Techniques that create a picture in the reader's mind
• The imagery refers to the suffering and pain that Ava went through
• Ava died in misery and agony
• Misery


  Emotional pain
• Agony


  Physical pain
• The juxtaposition of misery and agony conveys the all-consuming pain of Ava's life
• The inspector exerts power over the Birling family
• The inspector is a symbol of socialist values


  • Collectivism - giving priority to the group over the individual
  • Social responsibility - the idea that everyone has a responsibility to look after one another
• Mr Birling says "if you don't come down sharply on some of these people they'd soon be asking for the earth"


  The inspector replies "they might but after all it's better to ask for the earth than to take it"
• Synthetic list


  A list where items are connected by commas, not the word 'and', creating a steamroller effect
• The synthetic list describing Ava's situation emphasises the range of ways she is suffering
• The inspector places responsibility for Ava's plight on the selfish capitalists and their exploitation of cheap labour
• Tricolon


  A list of three items, used to contrast with the longer synthetic list
• The tricolon "advice, sympathy, friendliness" contrasts with Ava's isolation, highlighting what she needed but didn't receive
• Analyzed with the one before you've got that range as well the alone and friendless her isolation penniless lack of money desperate her kind of mental state so the listing there is really part of just emphasizing the desperation of eva
• What Eva needed


  • Advice
  • Sympathy
  • Friendliness
• This quote is an attack of the lack of social responsibility that those with more capitalist values have
• One of the biggest recommendations is memorizing the majority of the inspector's final speech
• The inspector's final speech is rich linguistically and works for a bunch of different essays
• Inspector's final speech


  1. Starts with an imperative

  2. Says one Eva Smith has gone but there are millions and millions and millions of Eva Smiths and John Smiths still left

  3. Lists their lives, hopes, fears, suffering, chance of happiness as intertwined with our lives and what we think, say and do

  4. Repeats "we" to convey a sense of collective responsibility

  5. Uses metaphor of being members of one body

  6. Warns that if people don't learn the lesson, they will be taught it in fire, blood and anguish
• The dramatic irony is that the audience knows about the world wars that the characters don't
• The inspector and Mr Birling are foils, opposites that reveal information about each other