THE ROLE OF THE INSPECTOR

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THE ROLE OF THE INSPECTOR

• ESSAY PARAGRAPHS
• Paragraph checklist

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Introduction write this when you have decided
on your topic sentences (ie what your paragraph
is about)
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Social and historical context
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Dramatic Structure (Two Paragraphs)If you think
about the play as a whole, the inspector is
central to the structure and narrative of the
play.

• Unities of time (see notes)
• Whodunnit (see notes)

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DRAMATIC TENSION A good idea to say how the
inspector effects the audience both during and
after the play.Could split this into 2
paragraphs

• See tension graph
• Page 28 Hes pretty good at exits too)

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ThemesWhat the inspector represents in terms of
the themes in the play.At least two paragraphs
worth here
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Who is he and where has he come from creates
intrigue and a sense of mystery so as well as
guessing whodunnit or who is the most
responsible, we are constantly asking ourselves
who is this mysterious figure.
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JUDGEMENT This is where you include the words
moral and philosophical-see booklet as well as
page 28 (bootom of) and 29 CGP
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RESPONSIBILTYMost important concern of the
play. Again try to include philosophy eg It
is quite clear that through the inspector
Priestly promotes his socialist philosophy.
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LANGUAGE How the inspector uses emotive
language Inspector speaks carefully,
weightily (Act 1, Page 10) and constantly uses
questions and instructions in a commanding and
sometimes menacing way. This helps him to
control, direct and develop the plot. His
language also gives him authority.His final
speech uses quite a different sort of language
it is the language of a prophet and sounds more
like a sermon than the carefully weighted words
of a policeman.Times when he produces dramatic
results by the use of short sentences or even a
single word ( give an example). Other times when
he speaks in long sentences which have an
emphatic rhythm. (eg Because what happened to
her then may have determined what happened to her
afterwards, and what happened to her afterwards
may have driven her to suicide (Act 1, Page 14)
(FIND YOUR OWN EXAMPLE!)
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A VEHICLE FOR PRIESTLYs DRAMATIC IRONYMuch of
the plays success depends upon the D.I. which
Priestly creates. The inspector is heavily ironic
in an early exchange with A.B. who that it would
be very awkward if we had to be responsible
for everything that happened to everybody wed
had anything to do with (Act 1 Pg 14. The
inspector echoes Birlings very words very
awkward. It seems he is agreeing with Birling,
but we soon come to realise that he is hinting
that what will follow will indeed be very awkward
for the Birling family. They will look at
responsibility in a very different way.Perhaps
the greatest irony is that the inspector has been
talking to us the audience as much as he has been
talking to the characters on stage. Are we in a
position to judge what has happened when we
ourselves are as guilty of acting irresponsibly
and unkindly as anyone on stage! This irony
strengthens our feeling that Priestlys type of
socialism is not so much about politics but about
caring and even, perhaps,about love.
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INSPECTORS EFFECT ON CHARACTERS Two paras. One
on younger generation and one on older.
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REMEMBER TO QUOTE IN EVERY PARAGRAPHREMEMBER TO
QUOTE PROPERLY (see notes)
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AN INSPECTOR CALLS

• PARAGRAPH SUGGESTIONS

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PRIESTLY FASCINATED BY THEORIES ABOUT THE NATURE
OF TIME
most of see time as a straight line going from
one point to another in continuous sequence
OUSPENSKYS THEORY

• when we die we re-enter our life once more from
  the beginning same house same parents
  continue to repeat events of our life as before.
• in order to stop this we to improve in some
  significant spiritual way so that we can escape
  from the repetitions and mistakes into a new life.

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Dunnes Time Theory

• Laid out the idea that you could be given the
  gift of seeing forward in time as well as looking
  back.
• So not only would u be able to see what actions
  led to your present situation youd also see
  the consequences of your action. Thus, if you
  so wished u could change those actions and so
  avoid the consequences.

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I.C. contains some of these time elements

• Inspector arriving before suicide offers each
  character a chance to see the consequences and
  therefore change their future. S G seem
  prepared to face up to their past actions and
  improve themselves the others dont

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How do you tie this into the essay

• something like With regard to Time Priestly
  uses the inspector to put forward his ideas about
  time

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May want to link with the reason why Priestly set
the play in 1912

• Sets the play in 1912 but because hes presenting
  the play to a later audience, Priestly has
  covered an era which includes both World Wars.
  The failure of the older characters to take on
  board the inspectors ideas reflects the failure
  of generations to learn from the mistakes of the
  recent past

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Through the inspector, Priestly is hoping that
second time around the world will learn from past
mistakes and we may see such hopes of looking
after one another, if we the audience, can
accept the challenge to be caring and socially
aware.
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WHO IS THE INSPECTOR?
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The mystery of who the inspector is one the play
never answers
One answer is that he is simply a dramatic
device without him there would be no play.
But given that the other characters are all
believable and realistic, audiences want to know
about the reality of the inspector. Gerald
discovers that the inspector is not who he says
he is. He helps the unpick the inspectors story
of the girl. S E hang on to the conviction
that it was anything but a joke while accepting
that there may have been more than one girl and
that no girl may have committed suicide.
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• Hes Priestly
• Hes God (in the sense that hes telling the
  Birlings to repent of their sins)
• Hes the voice of our conscience
• Hes the child Eva Smith was pregnant with
• Hes a ghost
• Hes a time traveller
• Hes a real police inspector

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You will pick up marks for saying who you think
the inspector is and why.
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STRUCTURE Well-made playThis paragraph must
include a quotation
J.B. follows the tradition of the three unities
of the well-made play. The action is focused on
one story-line, there is only one setting, and
the time of the action on stage is identical to
the real time that the action takes. Even if
there is a break for a possible interval, the
start of the next Act takes us to the same point
in time at which we left the action. Notice how
the inspector is integral to this. Give an
example with quotation. The Inspectors
questioning of each character in turn propels the
play forward. Their exits and entrances are
always plausible and always allow some new aspect
of the plot to be introduced or something
mentioned earlier to be developed. Eg Geralds
walk what does this allow for? The Inspector
controls all of this. In particular, each new
revelation, prompted by the Inspectors careful
use of the photograph or information from the
diary, adds to the overall picture of those two
crucial years in the girls life.
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Following on from Unities of time paragraph
Dramatic Tension Paragraph
Priestly uses the conventions of the well made
play to build up the mystery and suspense. The
first scene gently introduces the main
characters, and from then on each entrance or
exit highlights a dramatic moment. REST OF
PARAGRAPH USE THE TENSION GRAPH Make sure you
focus on the Inspectors entrance and you must
mention the STAGE DIRECTIONS (esp. stage lighting
u need the book for this)
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Dramatic Genre Paragraph Essential for A Grade
The play has elements of a whodunnit since the
girls story is gradually revealed through the
Inspectors careful questioning of the
suspects. SEE NOTES Page 15 re GENRE You must
make these brief (theres over a page of very
small writing) Must say how An Inspector Calls
differs from a traditional whodunnit If you are
doing the role of the Inspector make sure you
tie the paragraph with the role.
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ENGLISH LANGUAGE P.F.O.C.ENGLISH LIT. OF MICE
AND MENENGLISH LIT. POETRY
Unless you learn how to use quotations properly
the marker will not be able to award you an A
Grade
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HOW TO USE QUOTATIONS

• Put double inverted commas at the beginning and
  at the end of the quotation
• Write the quotation exactly as it appears in the
  original. The only exception is if it is a long
  quotation then you can omit some of it using
• DO NOT use a quotation that merely repeats what
  you have just written

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• Try to use the quotation so that it fits into
  your sentence.
• Try to keep the quotation as short as possible

QUOTATIONS SHOULD BE USED TO DEVELOP THE LINE OF
THOUGHT IN YOUR ESSAYS. YOUR COMMENT SHOULD NOT
DUPLICATE WHAT IS IN YOUR QUOTATION
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DO NOT
Gerald Croft tells the inspector that he first
met Daisy Renton in the bar of the local theatre
the previous spring, I met her first, sometime
in March last year, in the stalls at the Palace
Bar.
DO
Gerald Croft says that he first met Daisy Renton
in the stalls bar at the Palace.
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Far better is to embed the quotation

• Gerald, seeing that Alderman Meggarty was
  half-drunk and goggle-eyed (Act II, Page 35),
  wanted to rescue Daisy Renton from him.