English Inspector calls quotes and meanings

Stage direction: The lighting should be pink and intimate until the inspector arrives and then it should be brighter and harder

Stagecraft, adjectives change → mood changes

Stage Direction: Arthur Birling is a heavy-looking, rather portentous man in his middle fifties with fairly easy manners but rather provincial in this speech

Wants to be impressive, Thinks highly of himself → higher than he actually is, wants to be in upper class

Stage Direction: His wife is about fifty, a rather cold women and her husbands social superior

Cares about social status and appearance, cold-looking

Stage Direction: Sheila is a pretty girl in her early twenties, very pleased with life and rather excited

Cares about appearance, sympathetic, clueless, naive

Stage Direction: Gerald Croft is an attractive chap about thirty, rather too manly to be a dandy but very much well-bred young man-about-town

Self-absorbed, posh

Stage Direction: Eric is in his early twenties, not quite at ease, half shy, half assertive

Unsure about himself

Stage Direction: At the moment they have all had a good dinner, are celebrating a special occasion, and are pleased with themselves

Foreshadowing bad events, bit tipsy, pleased with themselves

Birling: You ought to like this port, Gerald, as a matter of fact, Finchley told me its exactly the same port your father gets from him

Ought - verb suggesting that Mr Birling has good taste, its exactly the same port your father gets from him - Trying to impress Gerald by making him think he’s in a higher class than he actually is - shows arrogance, Key theme of class

Mrs Birling: When your married you’ll realize that men with important work to do sometimes have to spend nearly all their time and energy on their business. You’ll have to get used to that, just as I did.

Suggests about her relationship with Mr Birling, highlights that marriage is the only important thing for women, she’s showing bitterness and possible grudge towards Mr Birling, , Key theme of gender roles, Suggests Mrs Birling thinks Sheila is naive (she is)

Eric: I dont know - really. Suddenly I felt I just had to laugh. Sheila: You’re squiffy.

Eric shows uncertainty and awkwardness, squiffy - adjective shows how Sheila is informal unlike parents and suggests laughing is an unusual normal behaviour for Eric, Key theme of Age

Birling: We may look forward to the time when Crofts and Birlings are no longer competing but are working together - for lower costs and higher prices

Mr Birling is eager to be linked with the Crofts as it makes him seem more powerful and have a better class, for lower costs and higher prices - juxtaposition proves how much money/power matters to him, Key theme of social responsibility and class

Sheila: (taking out the ring) Oh - its wonderful! Look - mummy - isn’t it a beauty! Oh - darling - (she kisses Gerald hastily)

Key theme of gender roles, hastily, exclamation mark, and dashes - shows sheilas excitement, mummy - childish, shows how womens duties and stereotypes were for people to know their married and to care about their appearance

Mrs Birling: (smiling) I think sheila and I had better go into the drawing room and leave you men-

(smiling) - shows politeness as a stereotype for women, men - shows the ‘men’ have something to discuss that is too important for the women to discuss, Mrs Birling is following gender roles, shows women are less important as they are the ones leaving the room not the men, key theme of gender roles

Birling: And Im talking as a hard-headed, practical man of business. And I say there isn’t a chance of war … the titanic - … unsinkable. … forgotten all these capital versus labour agitations and all these little war scares. There’ll be peace and prosperity and rapid progress everywhere … we’ve passed the worst of it (strikes)

further strikes in 1919, 1921, and 1926, the titanic sinks, 1929 - Great Depression, 1914-1918 WW1, 1945 Labour government. Shows arrogance and ignorence

Birling: I gather there’s a very good chance of a knighthood - so long as we behave ourselves, don’t get into the police court or start a scandal - eh? (laughs complacently)

knighthood - wants respect and power, confidant, foreshadowing, key theme of class

Birling: clothes mean something quite different to a woman. Not just somthing to wear - and not only to make ‘em look prettier - but - well, a sort of sign or token of their self-respect

Key theme of gender roles, shows women in edwardian era don’t have anything else, sign or token - nouns are small - little respect women get, belittling women, ‘em - not well spoken, casual, typical stereotype

Birling: (solemnly) … as if we were all mixed up together like bees in a hive - community and all that nonsense … a man has to mind his own business and look after himself and his own - and - // we hear the sharp ring of a door bell. Birling stops to listen.//

Key theme of social responsibility, community and all that nonsense - capitalism and belittling lower class → mocking socialism, ‘a man has to mind his own business and look after himself and his own’ - shows how women get taken care of and that they can’t do anything themselves, ‘bees in a hive’- simile describing socialism, duhumanisation, and criticising socialism - the analogy doesn’t work (queen bees) so shows Mr Birlings ignorance, ‘sharp ring’ - adjective, loud, interupts him - inspector = socialism.