An Inspector Calls Quotes and Analysis Exam Questions and Answers 100% Pass

An Inspector Calls Quotes and Analysis Exam Questions and Answers 100% Pass 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 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 2COPYRIGHT © 2025 BY KATELYN WHITMAN, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED 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. 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 3COPYRIGHT © 2025 BY KATELYN WHITMAN, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED 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. - Act 1 Page 2: A lady's man - foreshadows his relationship with Eva Smith Stage directions: Eric is in his early twenties, not quite at ease, half shy, half assertive. - Act 1 Page 2: Like his sister he is in his early 20s - he is young and impressionable, can be changed by the inspector. Stage directions: They ... are pleased with themselves. - Act 1 Page 2: Unaware of their cruelty which is about to be exposed; carefree; lacking social awareness of their responsibility to those who are vulnerable in society Sheila: Mummy Daddy" - Act 1 Page 2 to 6: At the beginning refers to her mother