english lit paper 2

• Mr Birling


  A heavy looking, rather portentous man… provincial in this speech
• Mr Birling: 'unsinkable, absolutely, unsinkable'
• Mr Birling: 'community and all that nonsense … mixed up together like bees in a hive'
• Mr Birling: 'a man has to mind his own business and look after himself and his…'
• Mrs Birling: 'girls of that class'
• Mrs Birling: 'You have no power to make me change my mind'
• Mrs Birling: 'I did no more than my duty'
• Mrs Birling: 'I accept no blame for it all'
• Sheila: 'Oh – Gerald – you've got it – is it the one you wanted me to have? … Look mummy, isn't a beauty!'
• Sheila: 'They're not cheap labour, They're people'
• Sheila: 'I'll never, never, do it to anybody again'
• Sheila: 'Between us we drove that girl to commit suicide'
• Sheila: 'It's you two who are being childish – trying not to face the facts.'
• Eric: 'I was in that state when a chap easily turns nasty'
• Eric: 'The girl's dead and we all killer her'
• Eric: 'Why shouldn't they try for higher wages? We try for the highest possible prices.'
• Gerald: 'It may have all been nonsense.'
• Gerald: 'She was young and pretty and warm-heated and intensely grateful'
• Inspector: A chain of events
• Inspector


  • He creates at once an impression of massiveness solidity, and purposefulness
• Inspector: It's better to ask for the earth than take it
• Mrs birling: I accept no blame for it at all
• Mrs birling: A rather cold woman and her husbands social superopr
• Mrs Birling: You dont get drunk
• Gerald: I became at once the most important person in her life
• Inspector: We don't live alone we are all members of one body
• Sheila: I cant believe that its true, but if it is then Im responsible too
• Sheila: But these girls arent cheap labour, they're people
• Inspector: Each of you helped to kill her
• Inspector: If men will not learn that lesson then they will be taught in blood, fire and anguish
• Mrs Birling: I dont suppose for a moment that we can understand why the girl comitted suicide. Girls of that class -
• Sheila: You mustn't try to build up a kind of wall between us and that girl. if you do, then the inspector will just break it down
• Eric: (Half shy, half assertive)
• Gerald: Were respectable citizens and not criminals.
• Key themes:

  • social responsobility
  • Gender
  • Class divide
  • Age