This discussion is now closed.

Check out other Related discussions

Inspector calls essay

I would like critique on this essay please

Arthur Birling says, ‘If we were all responsible for everything that happened to everybody we’d had anything to do with, it would be very awkward, wouldn’t it?’
How does Priestley present ideas about responsibility in An Inspector Calls? (30 marks)
Priestley cleverly uses the contrasting personalities of all of the characters in the Birling family along with the socialist Inspector who is a mouthpiece for Priestley’s view in the morality play. The inspector is seemingly the most responsible in his ideas, as we can see by the connotations of his speech as well as his judgement of the Birling family. He also offers supernatural themes to this otherwise normal play. Priestley sets the scene within the Birling household of a rich family who are very self- satisfied and somewhat ignorant sitting at the table discussing future prospects with the family.

Priestley conveys his own personal ideas about the social class system within the play through Inspector Goole, who could be seen as a mouthpiece for Priestley’s opinion in the play. In act one of the play the Inspector is introduced as someone who ‘creates at once an impression of massiveness, solidity and purposefulness’ This suggests that the inspector is very wise and ‘purposefulness’ can imply that the Inspector knows what his duty is in terms of interrogating the Birling family and also he has a strong sense of social responsibility. Following this, when offered whisky the Inspector immediately emphasises the fact that he is ‘on duty’. This conveys to the audience that the inspector knows what his responsibility is at that point in time and whatever is a distraction is not important to him whatsoever. The Inspector is also portrayed as a moral being who realises that the Birling family’s contribution to Eva’s death was unethical and also due to a lack of social responsibility, in the sense that all of the wrongdoings to Eva also known as Daisy Renton were an equal contribution of their abuse of social authority. The Inspector says “we are members of one body.” This is biblical language that would have been preached by Jesus Christ in the bible, who knew not to do wrong, and had a very strong sense of responsibility. As well as this the Inspector clearly states later in the play that each of the Birling family ‘helped to kill her’. This shows that Priestley believed the Inspector to be the most responsible and morally enlightened character and as a result used him as a mouthpiece of his own views, because he realised that it was through the multi contribution of social abuse and the idea of social hierarchy was what lead to Eva committing suicide.

Linking in with this, Birling has a completely contrasting identity in this play in comparison with the Inspector and seems to lack social awareness, which is conveyed through the use of dramatic irony. In act one, Birling states that the Titanic is ‘absolutely unsinkable’, which of course the audience knows will already take place. Birling’s rich status is clearly a key contribution to lack of social awareness because he believes that life is as perfect as it is for his family for everyone, which is not the case whatsoever. This shows a lack of responsibility because it is evident that Birling does not know the extremes of life in terms of poverty and suffering and as a result he believes that nothing bad can come of the Titanic sailing just because it is built with a lot of money. As well as this, Birling shows a clear lack of social responsibility because he refuses to take any blame for Eva smith’s death. This takes place when he refers to Eva as a ‘wretched girl’. By calling Eva ‘wretched’ this portrays connotations of ignorance to the audience because Birling does not show any remorse even though he knows Eva has died and still makes it clear that he considers her a nuisance that deserved to be fired from his works. Birling may be a mouthpiece of some ignorant people who are at the top of society who refuse to take responsibility for the possible harm they may be causing to those lower down in the social class system such as Eva. The stage direction of ‘still angrily’ shows that instead of taking responsibility for his actions, Mr Birling is instead reacting aggressively and refusing to accept the fact that he contributed to Eva’s death in any way.

However, Priestley does portray some aspects of the Birling family in a good light with the younger generation. He paints the image of a bright future in the absence of the abusing of social class with the reformation of Sheila throughout the play. This is done through the use of the stage direction ‘miserably’ to convey Sheila’s reaction vividly to the audience. ‘Miserably’ shows to the audience that Sheila is clearly showing remorse for what how she had treated to Eva and clearly contributed to her death and is willing to take responsibility for her actions and move forward positively. Another clear connotation of Sheila thinking about others apart from the family is where she asks the question ‘So I’m really responsible?’ This is a personal question that makes it seem as if Sheila is actually asking herself this, which shows that she is pondering deeply about what she did and how she practiced the idea of social responsibility in the past. In this way Sheila could move on and amend her past mistake by focusing on not abusing her social class in the future, in this way she develops a very strong relationship with the Inspector. Priestley could be implying here that the younger audience viewing the play were supposed to act in the same way as Sheila and really take in to account social responsibility to create a better future.

In conclusion, Priestley conveys ideas about responsibility positively in the form of Sheila and the Inspector but also negatively in the form of Mr Birling, who refuses to accept any responsibility for what he has done. Priestley does this through his effective use of language and also stage directions in the play to convey a clear image to the audience on how the character is feeling and reacting to the various testing situations in the play.

Reply 1

Llewellyn

14

I would recommend you get your English teacher to critique this for you. If you are lucky someone may take the time to look over this.

Reply 2

09hm

3

I think for 30 marks this is far too short, however you do have the basics mastered. Use more quotes and establish MORE POINTS to get the full marks!!

Reply 3

foreverluigi

You should link it to the question more as some parts are not related to the question :smile:

Reply 4

hhhhjjjjkkk

3

khhhhgfdyuikjhgfdertyuijm

Reply 5

uzma.29

you should use more quotes to support each characters

Reply 6

Milena1810

5

Personally I think it's too vague. You need to mention each character and give at least one quote for each to support your point and then link it in with the theme of responsibility. Very good points about the Inspector though but expand more on the Birling family and Gerald so show your knowledge off to the examiner. Re write it and post it up and I'll look again.

Reply 7

BarlowBoy29

3

Its a good essay, however I would recommend reading over it after writing as there are a few obvious grammatical errors. I think it may also be a good idea to look more into vocabulary used, and analyse the text in more detail, for example what each quote infers. Definitely spend some more time focusing on quotes than generally discussing themes in the play, and always refer the quotes from to the question. It may be a good idea to learn a structure for your essays, as I find this helps!
Good luck.

fademnese

MEN

Amazing spectacular I was dazzled by that speech well done use contextual link and analyse quotes more.

Reply 11

IvyL

1

I think that it is good starting off, but then you start to ramble, repeating words instead of using synonyms. Also, in your paragraph about Birling not taking responsibility about Eva's/ Daisy's death, I'm very surprised that you didn't actually use the quote where Birling actually says ' Still. I can't accept any responsibility.' Sometimes the most obvious route is the best one. It is good and has great potential, it just needs more detail.

Reply 12

IvyL

1

Original post by IvyL

I think that it is good starting off, but then you start to ramble, repeating words instead of using synonyms. Also, in your paragraph about Birling not taking responsibility about Eva's/ Daisy's death, I'm very surprised that you didn't actually use the quote where Birling actually says ' Still. I can't accept any responsibility.' Sometimes the most obvious route is the best one. It is good and has great potential, it just needs more detail. Keep going, it is good.

Reply 13

siiimjbvyh

1

for 30 marks you only need 4 - 5 paragraphs

Reply 14

hadiqaa

1

yess use more quotess

Reply 15

parkeunha

3

you're all reacting like this because you have no life and you cant accept that your essays are not even half the marks this person would get. your style of speech shows everything

Reply 16

parkeunha

3

you're all acting this way because you have no life and you are failing in your English essays.
your probably not even going to get half as much marks as this essay
the style of your speech shows it all

Reply 17

madina.chaudhary

4

I answered the same question 2 weeks ago. You have very interesting ideas which i'll probably steal. to improve I think you should link in Mr Birling's capitalist views and analyse your quotes deeper(word to word analysis), you did show this but if you did more you probably could get more marks, it would help if you wrote a bit more, maybe about mrs Birling. Here's some quotes I used for my essay:
'She only had herself to blame'-mrs birling
'allright I knew her let's leave it at that'-gerald
'we're beginning to pretend like nothing happened'-Sheils or Eric

i used a lot more but these are some suggestions for you.

Reply 18

LibraStarsXo

8

i think you made such amazing points and your analysis for every quote is so thorough, however I would rate this a C because it's not relevant to the question. Mr Birling's quote within the question wasn't interpreted at all which shows you need to link your answer to the question

Reply 19

LuisaIsBeaut

1

i think you made such amazing points and your analysis for every quote is so thorough, however I would rate this a C because it's not relevant to the question. Mr Birling's quote within the question wasn't interpreted at all which shows you need to link your answer to the question

Inspector calls essay

Related discussions

Latest

Trending

Trending

Articles for you