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An Inspector Calls Grade 9 Essay on Gerald Croft
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This is an essay on An Inspector Calls focusing on the character: Gerald Croft. This helped me to achieve a Grade 9 in English Literature.
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Gerald, the fiancé of Sheila Birling, is used by Priestley to act as a bridge between the twogenerations in order to show how widespread the problem of the upper class abusing their power
during the early twentieth century.
In his first appearance Priestley makes the audience wary and suspicious of Gerald’s character. In the
stage directions he is described as an “easy, well-bred,young man about town” where the power of
three highlights his privileged and elite life as all three adjectives “easy, well-bred and young” have
connotations of something trouble-free and straight forward. Moreover Priestley uses unusual
adjective “young” describe him although he is in his “thirties” and so perhaps Priestley is implying
that Gerald’s character is immature and thoughtless which could reflect his inability to understand
the Inspector’s moral message of social responsibility by the end of the play. The fact that he is a
“man about town” implies that he is a fashionable socialite which once again suggests his easy and
privileged life. These stage directions most likely allude to some men in the audience of London in
1946 and so Priestley maybe wanted to set Gerald up as a character with whom some members of
the audience would engage, empathise with and finally condemn in order to voice his own hatred of
Capitalism and most of all the upper class. Priestley had lived through both the world wars and had
served as an officer in the first one. Alternatively Gerald would have also been the real face of
capitalism as due to his age he would have been able to escape the First World War and run his
father’s textile business for the war effort in 1914 thus bringing in profit from making uniforms and
other clothing for the soldiers at the country’s expense. He is the kind of capitalist who has exploited
the country during its most vulnerable times and therefore is representative of people that Priestley
is trying to reject and so he portrays Gerald in a negative light. Moreover Sheila’s persistent
questioning unnerves him as he replies “And I told you-” where the connective “and” suggests that
Sheila has already questioned Gerald over what happened in summer which makes the audience feel
uneasy about his character. Moreover Gerald adds tension to the dinner party at the beginning of
the play. His excuse for his absence over summer is that he was “awfully busy” and as a
consequence Sheila adopts a “half playful, half serious” tone. The adjectives “playful” and “serious”
contradict with each other and so they depict Sheila’s suspicion highlighting the tension felt in the
atmosphere and may be foreshadowing the Gerald’s affair that is revealed later on in the play.
Priestley has immediately given Gerald a negative impression. The play sends an allegorical message
of the unfairness of the class system and how Socialism should prevail as Priestley was an avid
Labour supporter therefore Priestley has made Gerald’s character to show how the upper class and
capitalists were untrustworthy to the audience.
Priestley also presents Gerald as misogynistic and dismissive towards women to contribute further
to his negative impression. Gerald represents lust from the seven deadly sins as he pursues Eva in a
sexual relationship. Eva is objectified by Gerald who refers to her using a lexical field synonymous
with office work. He says “I didn’t install her there” where the verb “install” has connotations of
equipment which is defined as a “necessary item for a particular purpose” which highlights his lust
for her. This connotation also implies that she can be manipulated and used as Gerald sees fit which
further objectifies her. The verb also literally means to “fix something into their position”. This could
mean that Gerald who is part of the upper class is putting Eva a working class woman into her place
or it could be linked with his sexual desire for Eva which once again debases her dignity. Gerald also
says that he does not “come into this suicide business.” The utilisation of the noun “business”
suggests that Eva was like a trade to make profit which conveys his exploitation of her once again. In
addition to this Gerald says that Eva had lived very “economically” on what he had “allowed her.”
The adverb “economically” is literally defined as using something “in a way that involves careful use
of money or resources.” This could imply that Eva was saving up money and perhaps this could be
due to the fact that she knew that she was being exploited and knew that this affair would not last
but she could not do anything about it because Gerald provided her safety and security which gives
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