An Inspector Calls Grade 9 References 2025
Spc English Composition I
An Inspector Calls: Grade 9 Notes
Characters - used as constructs
Inspector Calls - didactic morality play
Play is only set in the Dining Room
● Aristotle's Unity of Place in traditional tragic plays.
● Alludes to the Birling’s disconnect from the wider world.
● An overt to allow us to focus on the moral lesson.
● Lack of subtlety.
“Light should be pink and intimate until the Inspector arrives, and then it should be brighter
and harder.”
➔ The Inspector will reveal and uncover the Birlings’ dark secrets. “Bright” alludes to
optimism in the future.
➔ The Inspector is like the spotlight in a criminal interrogation room.
“Pink and intimate” suggests the idiom of 'rose-tinted glasses' - as if the Birlings' have been
looking in this light, seeing things from an unrealistic, optimistic, point of view, suggesting a
certain amount of ignorance, which later emphasised through Mr Birling's speech.
“Honours List. Just a knighthood, of course.”
Exemplifies how war is an extension of Capitalist thinking when Mr Birling’s rhetoric causes
him to reach for higher social circles.
It was a result of a capitalist crisis, the Great Depression, that the Nazi Party was elected
into Germany.
Inspector Ringing Doorbell
Cuts Birling off mid-sentence to highlight the clash between socialism and capitalism.
Ironic: Birling doesn’t have the patience to listen to any other characters.
Signals an interruption and acts like a spell; the words “look after himself” are the words that
summon the inspector.
Birling and Propitiation
Birling attempts to propitiate the inspector.
● His actions serve as an example that the rich/powerful will overlook moral atrocities
in order to avoid conflict and protect themselves - rather than challenging oppression.
● His actions may relate to the foreshadowing of war as reference to the unprincipled
Spc English Composition I
An Inspector Calls: Grade 9 Notes
Characters - used as constructs
Inspector Calls - didactic morality play
Play is only set in the Dining Room
● Aristotle's Unity of Place in traditional tragic plays.
● Alludes to the Birling’s disconnect from the wider world.
● An overt to allow us to focus on the moral lesson.
● Lack of subtlety.
“Light should be pink and intimate until the Inspector arrives, and then it should be brighter
and harder.”
➔ The Inspector will reveal and uncover the Birlings’ dark secrets. “Bright” alludes to
optimism in the future.
➔ The Inspector is like the spotlight in a criminal interrogation room.
“Pink and intimate” suggests the idiom of 'rose-tinted glasses' - as if the Birlings' have been
looking in this light, seeing things from an unrealistic, optimistic, point of view, suggesting a
certain amount of ignorance, which later emphasised through Mr Birling's speech.
“Honours List. Just a knighthood, of course.”
Exemplifies how war is an extension of Capitalist thinking when Mr Birling’s rhetoric causes
him to reach for higher social circles.
It was a result of a capitalist crisis, the Great Depression, that the Nazi Party was elected
into Germany.
Inspector Ringing Doorbell
Cuts Birling off mid-sentence to highlight the clash between socialism and capitalism.
Ironic: Birling doesn’t have the patience to listen to any other characters.
Signals an interruption and acts like a spell; the words “look after himself” are the words that
summon the inspector.
Birling and Propitiation
Birling attempts to propitiate the inspector.
● His actions serve as an example that the rich/powerful will overlook moral atrocities
in order to avoid conflict and protect themselves - rather than challenging oppression.
● His actions may relate to the foreshadowing of war as reference to the unprincipled
