English Literature Paper 2

• Inspector Calls Context points

  1. Priestly was a socialist
  2. Lack of womens rights
  3. Deep class divisions
  4. Undeserving poor
  5. World War 1
• Inspector Calls Key themes

  1. Class
  2. Age
  3. Social responsibility
  4. Gender
• Mr Birling Key Quotes

  1. ‘The Titanic… unsinkable‘ - Dramatic irony, shows Mr Birlings ignorance and arrogance
  2. ‘it’s my duty to keep labour costs down’ - Calls Eva ‘labour’ and dehumanises her, shows how businessman at the time mistreated and exploited the workers
  3. Famous younger generation‘ - Mocks Shiela and Eric for wanting to change, shows he refuses to change and has a closed mind
• Sheila Birling Key Quotes

  1. ‘These girls aren’t cheap labour‘ - Criticising her father, shows she is humane, shows sympathy towards the issues lower class women face
  2. ’I started it‘ - Openly admits her fault in the suicide of Eva, she takes social responsibility
  3. ‘Nothing to be sorry for, nothing to learn’ - disgusted at the behaviour of Gerald and Mr and Mrs Birling, they are celebrating that the inspector is not real and they have got away with it rather than learning a lesson, Shiela instead wants to change her attitude towards the working class
• Gerald Croft Key Quotes

  1. ‘We’re respectable citizens and not criminals‘ - Deeply ironic, the way he treated Eva ‘Daisy’ could be classified as immoral and perhaps criminal
  2. ‘The most important person in her life‘ - admits he really liked the power he had over daisy before he just threw her away
  3. ‘What girl? four or five different girls‘ - Incredibly dismissive, doesn’t care about eva and the issues she had faced, all he cares about is protecting himself
• Mrs Birling Key Quotes

  1. ‘Girls of that class’ - use of girls shows how mrs birling looks down on lower classes and represents the theme of undeserving poor
  2. ‘impertinently made use of our name‘ - excuse, shows how she is trying to distance herself from lower class women
  3. ’You might be wanting to help him instead of us‘ - Uses pronoun us to illustrate that she sees the inspector and working class people as outsiders
• Inspector Key Quotes

  1. ’ A young woman died… she was in great agony‘ - acts as a mouthpiece for woman like eva
  2. ‘public men… have responsibility’ - part of Priestleys message to people of power to take responsibility and help the lower classes
  3. ’Millions and millions and millions of eva smiths and john smiths’ - big message, representation of all the poor people that need help and guidance.