©JOSHCLAY 2024/2025. YEAR PUBLISHED 2024.
An Inspector Calls Quotes and Analysis
Exam Questions and Answers 100%
Solved
Stage directions: All three acts...are continuous - ✔✔Act 1 Page 1:
Traditional Greek tragedies written in three acts. The action is continuous
suggesting there is no time to think, action happens in real time and with a
sense of pace and immediacy and inevitability
Stage directions: Spring 1912 - ✔✔Act 1 Page 1: The play is set in the
spring of 1912 which sets up much of the dramatic irony: the Titanic is
about to sink, world war 1 starts in 1914 (the play was written in 1945 at the
end of world war 2 - creating dramatic irony for the audience who know
about both wars)
Stage directions: The lighting should be pink and intimate until the
INSPECTOR arrives and then it should be brighter and harder - ✔✔Act 1
Page 1: The lighting presents the changing mood of the play - the pink light
,©JOSHCLAY 2024/2025. YEAR PUBLISHED 2024.
suggests that the family see life through rose tinted glasses, they do not
see the reality of the impending war, the suffering of the working classes,
etc. The harsher lighting suggests the light of truth which the inspector
brings with him. The light used in an interrogation. It also reveals the truth
about the family; they begin to see each other in a different light.
Stage directions: Arthur Birling is a heavy-looking, rather portentous man in
this middle fifties with fairly easy manners but rather provincial in this
speech. " - ✔✔Act 1 Page 1: Heavy-looking suggests he is over-weight like
a fat cat - someone who gluttonous (wealth, food, money). Notice that he is
physically 'big' unlike the inspector who is described as having a large
physical presence although is not necessarily a physically large man.
Portentous suggests he is pompous, self-important
Notice that both Birling and the Inspector are BOTH in their fifties - Priestly
is inviting us to compare these men and compare what they represent.
, ©JOSHCLAY 2024/2025. YEAR PUBLISHED 2024.
Provincial - from the countryside - suggests that he is not sophisticated
and narrow minded in his views of the world and the big political issues of
the day eg the impending war.
Stage directions: His wife is about fifty, a rather cold woman and her
husband's social superior. - ✔✔Act 1 Page 1: Suggests that Mrs Birling is
incapable of empathy and other human emotions that make us better
people.
Stage directions: Sheila is a pretty girl in her early twenties, very pleased
with life and rather excited. " - ✔✔Act 1 Page 42401: Notice that BOTH
Sheila and Eva smith are both in their early twenties. Again, priestly is
inviting us to compare Sheila's life with Eva Smith's life. Sheila: 20s, has
family, rich, doesn't need to work, has a future, going to be married. Eva:
20s, orphaned/no family, poor, must work to survive; is dead/has no future,
used sexually/unmarried.
Pleased with life/excited suggests she is carefree
Stage directions: Gerald croft is an attractive chap about thirty, rather too
manly to be a dandy but very much the well-bred young man-about-town. -
An Inspector Calls Quotes and Analysis
Exam Questions and Answers 100%
Solved
Stage directions: All three acts...are continuous - ✔✔Act 1 Page 1:
Traditional Greek tragedies written in three acts. The action is continuous
suggesting there is no time to think, action happens in real time and with a
sense of pace and immediacy and inevitability
Stage directions: Spring 1912 - ✔✔Act 1 Page 1: The play is set in the
spring of 1912 which sets up much of the dramatic irony: the Titanic is
about to sink, world war 1 starts in 1914 (the play was written in 1945 at the
end of world war 2 - creating dramatic irony for the audience who know
about both wars)
Stage directions: The lighting should be pink and intimate until the
INSPECTOR arrives and then it should be brighter and harder - ✔✔Act 1
Page 1: The lighting presents the changing mood of the play - the pink light
,©JOSHCLAY 2024/2025. YEAR PUBLISHED 2024.
suggests that the family see life through rose tinted glasses, they do not
see the reality of the impending war, the suffering of the working classes,
etc. The harsher lighting suggests the light of truth which the inspector
brings with him. The light used in an interrogation. It also reveals the truth
about the family; they begin to see each other in a different light.
Stage directions: Arthur Birling is a heavy-looking, rather portentous man in
this middle fifties with fairly easy manners but rather provincial in this
speech. " - ✔✔Act 1 Page 1: Heavy-looking suggests he is over-weight like
a fat cat - someone who gluttonous (wealth, food, money). Notice that he is
physically 'big' unlike the inspector who is described as having a large
physical presence although is not necessarily a physically large man.
Portentous suggests he is pompous, self-important
Notice that both Birling and the Inspector are BOTH in their fifties - Priestly
is inviting us to compare these men and compare what they represent.
, ©JOSHCLAY 2024/2025. YEAR PUBLISHED 2024.
Provincial - from the countryside - suggests that he is not sophisticated
and narrow minded in his views of the world and the big political issues of
the day eg the impending war.
Stage directions: His wife is about fifty, a rather cold woman and her
husband's social superior. - ✔✔Act 1 Page 1: Suggests that Mrs Birling is
incapable of empathy and other human emotions that make us better
people.
Stage directions: Sheila is a pretty girl in her early twenties, very pleased
with life and rather excited. " - ✔✔Act 1 Page 42401: Notice that BOTH
Sheila and Eva smith are both in their early twenties. Again, priestly is
inviting us to compare Sheila's life with Eva Smith's life. Sheila: 20s, has
family, rich, doesn't need to work, has a future, going to be married. Eva:
20s, orphaned/no family, poor, must work to survive; is dead/has no future,
used sexually/unmarried.
Pleased with life/excited suggests she is carefree
Stage directions: Gerald croft is an attractive chap about thirty, rather too
manly to be a dandy but very much the well-bred young man-about-town. -
