An Inspector Calls

Mr Birling; Act 1?

-Unsinkable, absolutely unsinkable.
-one of the happiest nights of my life.
-its my duty to keep labour costs down.

Mr Birling; Act 3?

-I'd give thousands - yes, thousands.
-probably a socialist or some sort of crank.

Mrs Birling; Act 1?

-girls of that class.

Mrs Birling; Act 2?

-she called herself Mrs Birling - a piece of gross impertinence.
-I think she had only herself to blame.
-I consider I did my duty.
-as if a girl of that sort would never refuse money.
-your behaving like a hysterical child.

Gerald; Act 1?

-I know we'd have done the same thing.

Gerald; Act 2?

-I'm rather more - upset - by this business than I probably appear to be.

Gerald; Act 3?

-Everything's alright now, Sheila. What about this ring?

Sheila; Act 1?

-look, mummy, isn't it a beauty?
-now I really feel engaged.

Sheila; Act 2?

-he's giving up the rope so that we'll hang ourselves.
-I'm not a child, don't forget.

Sheila; Act 3?

-you don't seem to have learnt anything.

Eric; Act 3?

-I wasn't in love with her or anything.
-you don't understand anything, You never did.

Inspector to Eric: "used her for the end of a stupid drunken evening, as if she was an animal, a thing, not a person."

Inspector; Act 1?

Stage Directions:
"an impression of massiveness, solidity, and purposefulness."

Inspector; Act 2?

-We often do on the young ones. They're more impressionable.
-A chain of events.
-Don't stammer and yammer at me again.
-Public men, Mr Birling, have responsibilities as well as privileges.

Inspector; Act 3?

-Each of you helped to kill her
-We don't live alone, We are members of one body, We are responsible for each other.
-taught in fire and blood and anguish.

THEMES?

-Advocates for socialism, Capitalism as morally unacceptable.
-Gender inequality.
-Class inequality.
-Hierarchy.

CONTEXT?

-Wrote in 1945.
-1942 Beveridge report, 1940s welfare state for social and economic protection.
-1912 settings; before the war.
-1912 was Capitalist, 1945 was Socialist.
-Poor factory conditions, women exploited.
-Women subservient to men, suffragettes.