This essay focuses on Attitudes to women in An Inspector Calls, analysing various characters and their treatment of female characters and how this reflects the views of gender and women of the time. This essay was marked as a grade 9 and provides detailed analysis of the theme (with no in-depth co...
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Attitudes to Women Essay
You are advised to spend about 45 minutes on this question.
You should use the extract below and your knowledge of the whole play to answer this question.
Write about how Priestley presents attitudes towards women at the time in An Inspector Calls.
In your response you should:
refer to the extract and the play as a whole;
show your understanding of characters and events in the play.[40]
5 of this question’s marks are allocated for accuracy in spelling, punctuation and the use of
vocabulary and sentence structures
An Inspector Calls was written by J.B Priestley in 1945, based in the Industrial city
of Brumley in 1912. Priestley presents attitudes to women at the time was
writing through the use of gender stereotypes, and the common belief that
women were fragile and delicate. He uses Sheila to demonstrates the naivety of
women towards the problems in society, mainly due to the upper class
patriarchy, and Eva Smith to exemplify how they were exploited and used them.
At the beginning of the play, Priestley presents the dismissive attitude
toward women through the gender stereotypes that were heavily indoctrinated
into the classes. Mrs Birling tells Sheila: ‘When you're married you'll realise that
men with important work to do sometimes have to spend nearly all their time
and energy on their business. You'll have to get used to that, just as I had.’ The
verb ‘realise’ shows how women were taught submission through marriage, the
determiner ‘that’ demonstrating the dismissive attitudes to women, and the little
value they were seen to hold in society. The noun phrase ‘important work’
highlights the capitalist ideologies of Mrs Birlings – she believes the work of a
man is more important than his wife, though she is a woman herself,
emphasising how deeply implemented these attitudes towards women were in
society. However, this could also show how it is only the younger generations of
women that can changes these attitudes as Sheila herself refuses to accept her
mothers views, commenting: ‘I don’t believe I will.’ Sheila herself however, yields
to the patriarchy, stating: ‘Oh – Gerald – you’ve got it – is it the one you wanted
me to have…(giving the case to her).’ This shows further how women were
taught to dependent on a male, the verb phrase ‘you wanted’ capturing the
controlling attitudes towards women, and how they were expected to submit to
the wishes of their husbands. The verb ‘giving’ perhaps illustrates the lack of
emotion and affection shown towards women, particularly in the upper class;
taught to be materialistic and value objects, rather than true love. Furthermore,
Priestley presents the separation caused by the gender stereotypes through Mrs
Birlings statement: ‘I think Sheila and I had better go into the drawing room and
leave you men –‘ The verb ‘think’ shows how though Mrs Birling is a women she
has been inculcated with these ideologies for them to becomes her own, her use
of the modal verb ‘had’ depicting how she feels this is an obligation. The noun
phrase: ‘you men’ shows she separates the men from the women, and suggests
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