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Summary GRADE 9 An Inspector Calls Exemplar Essays
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Grade 9 Full mark exemplar essays. 2 essays included. Revision of An Inspector Calls for AQA English Literature
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English - AIC Practice Q.s16-1
Exemplar Essay:
ow does Priestley use the character of the Inspector to suggest ways that society
H
could be improved? Write about:
• what society is shown to be like in the play and how it might be improved
• how Priestley presents society through what the Inspector says and does.
In ‘An Inspector Calls’, Priestley depicts society in 1912 as capitalist-ruled, segregated and
unfair, using the Birling family as a symbol for all upper-class aristocrats. The character,
Inspector Goole, acts as Priestley’s social mouthpiece to portray the idea that socialism is
the future. The Inspector could be the technique that Priestley uses to convey his own ideas
and opinions, because in 1944-1945 (when the play was written) Priestley was a figure who
campaigned for a social welfare state and a more ‘moral’ system. It is plausible that
Priestley wrote the play, set in 1912, to convey the contrast between the pre and post-war
societies (1945).
At the start of the play, stage directions indicate to us that the Birlings are having an
engagement meal in celebration of Sheila and Gerald’s pending marriage. When Birling, the
head of the house, and possibly the most passionate capitalist, says “a man has to make his
own way” in life, the doorbell rings – signalling the entrance of the Inspector. This stage
direction indicates to us that the Inspector will turn the Birlings’ artificial world upside down,
sobering them to the harsh realities of the life for the poor.
Equally, the entrance of Inspector Goole turns the stage lighting from “pink and intimate” to
“brighter and harder”. This, to the audience, would visually appear as if the rose-tinted
spectacles, filtering out negativity and realism in their lives, would have been lifted and
replaced with a “brighter”, “harder” light of an interrogation room. This theatrical device acts
as dramatic irony, because the audience can see how Priestley is changing the physical
setting to change the tone of the atmosphere, and to foreshadow change that the Inspector
represents. As an audience, one can infer that Priestley is using the Inspector to criticise
and reveal to the upper classes their sins.
When being questioned by the Inspector, Birling relates how Eva Smith had “far too much to
say” and therefore “had to go”, just for asking for a small raise – an amount Birling could
have easily spared. Instead, the “hard-headed business[man]” sent her on her way,
beginning the chain of events that would lead her to her untimely demise. Sheila, often
seems like a character heavily influenced by the Inspector’s questioning of her father’s
actions. This is particularly evident when she says that “these girls” are people too, not just
“cheap labour”. In the context of a society in 1912, if you were female your options were
considerably limited. Firstly, the expectation was that women should marry and be a faithful
housewife; or secondly, to become “cheap labour” for those within power. The Inspector
also concludes that Birling’s reactions were hasty, ill-advised and wrong, because he later
mentions how we are all of “one body”. This phrase “one body” indicates to an audience that
he believes in order to prevent such tragedies occurring in the future, we must act as a
communal “body”, in a socialist revolution.
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