English Literature

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GCSE English Literature: An Inspector Calls

Priestley's morality play — social responsibility, class, and generation.

1. Who wrote the play An Inspector Calls?

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   J.B. Priestley

2. In what year was An Inspector Calls written?

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   1945

3. In what year is An Inspector Calls set?

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   1912

4. Why did Priestley set An Inspector Calls in 1912 when he wrote it in 1945?

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   To create dramatic irony — the audience knows about the world wars and Titanic that the confident characters do not.

5. In An Inspector Calls, {Eva Smith} is the working-class woman whose death the Inspector investigates.

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   Eva Smith

6. What is the central theme of An Inspector Calls?

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   Social responsibility — the idea that we are all responsible for one another.

7. What phrase does the Inspector use to express collective responsibility in An Inspector Calls?

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   "Members of one body" — meaning we are all responsible for one another.

8. What does Mr Birling believe about individual responsibility in An Inspector Calls?

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   That "a man has to look after himself and his own" — representing capitalist individualism.

9. How do the younger Birlings (Sheila and Eric) respond to the Inspector's revelations in An Inspector Calls?

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   They feel genuine guilt and are changed by the experience, unlike the older generation who refuse to accept blame.

10. What does the Inspector's warning of "fire and blood and anguish" foreshadow in An Inspector Calls?

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    The world wars to come (which the 1945 audience would know about but the 1912 characters do not).

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