key quotations

“ A lively good looking girl”

• Word: “lively” suggests energy and potential.

• Technique: Positive adjectives.

• Context: Eva represents many working-class young women whose opportunities were restricted.

• Themes: Class, gender, vulnerability.

• Grade 9 idea: The positive description creates a sense of Eva’s lost potential, making her death more significant because the audience is encouraged to recognise the individual life behind the social label of “working class.”

• Priestley’s message: Working-class people have individual lives, hopes and potential despite being treated as socially insignificant.

“ She was a good sport”

• Word: “sport” can suggest a casual, male-centred attitude towards women.

• Technique: Colloquial language.

• Context: Women could be economically dependent on men, especially within relationships.

• Themes: Gender, power, objectification, class.

• Grade 9 idea: The colloquial phrase can be interpreted as revealing how Eva’s vulnerability is trivialised by male attitudes, suggesting that women can be expected to tolerate behaviour that benefits men.

• Priestley’s message: Casual attitudes towards women's vulnerability can contribute to exploitation.

“Millions and millions and millions of Eva Smith”

• Word: Repetition of “millions” makes Eva representative of countless people.

• Technique: Repetition + hyperbole.

• Context: Priestley wanted his audience to think beyond one fictional woman and consider wider social inequality.

• Themes: Class, responsibility, socialism, inequality.

• Grade 9 idea: The escalating repetition transforms Eva from an individual into a symbol of an entire oppressed population, suggesting that her story is not an isolated tragedy but evidence of a systemic social problem.

• Priestley’s message: Eva is symbolic of the many vulnerable people society has a responsibility towards.

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