Writer’s Toolkit

An Inspector Calls — 6 sections · A4 printable

“We don't live alone. We are members of one body. We are responsible for each other.”

Language

Technique

Example

What It Reveals

Diction (word choice)

"A man has to mind his own business"

Shows Birling's selfish capitalist values — the possessive 'his own' draws a tight circle of responsibility around the individual, excluding the wider community.

Adjectives / adverbs

"Sharp ring of a front door bell"

Suggests intrusion and moral awakening — the adjective 'sharp' implies the Inspector's arrival cuts through the comfortable atmosphere like a blade.

Repetition

"We are members of one body. We are responsible for each other"

Reinforces moral responsibility — the anaphoric 'We are' creates an inescapable collectivist message, refusing to let any individual exclude themselves.

Imperatives

"Don't interfere" / "Stop it, you two"

Assert power and control — Birling uses commands to silence dissent within his own family, policing moral feeling as well as behaviour.

Rhetorical questions

"Why — you fool — he knows!"

Heighten tension and dramatic irony — Sheila's exasperation exposes others' failure to see what she considers obvious about the Inspector's omniscience.

Euphemism

"Discharged her" / "Got into trouble"

Hides uncomfortable truths and moral hypocrisy — sanitised language distances the Birlings from the real human consequences of their actions.

Colloquialism

"Rubbish!" / "Rot!"

Reveals arrogance and dismissiveness — Birling's blunt exclamations silence Eric's tentative sympathy, actively enforcing indifference in others.

Emotive language

"Burnt her inside out" / "Fire and blood and anguish"

Creates shock and guilt in audience — graphic, visceral diction forces confrontation with the physical reality of suffering that the Birlings try to abstract away.

Metaphor / imagery

"A girl of that class" vs "we helped to kill her"

Divides between denial and acceptance — the contrast between dehumanising class language and the direct accusation of killing exposes the gap between evasion and truth.

Contrast / juxtaposition

"The Titanic — unsinkable, absolutely unsinkable"

Dramatic irony exposing Birling's ignorance — the intensifier 'absolutely' amplifies the irony; his certainty is inversely proportional to his understanding.

Irony

"Clothes mean something quite different to a woman"

Highlights condescension and gender roles — Birling's patronising remark reveals the patriarchal assumptions that allow the family to exploit Eva without guilt.

Polysyndeton / listing

"their lives, their hopes and fears, their suffering and chance of happiness"

Humanises the working class by accumulating emotions and aspirations — the Inspector's list counteracts the Birlings' tendency to reduce workers to statistics.

Short, abrupt sentences

"A girl died tonight" / "No, wait a minute"

Increase tension and urgency — declarative simplicity refuses the Birlings' tendency to complicate and deflect from moral truth.

Structural Techniques

Technique

Example / Description

What It Does

Cyclical structure

Ends with another phone call announcing a real Inspector is on his way

Suggests history repeats unless lessons are learned — refuses the audience comfortable closure, insisting that the moral question remains open.

Three-act structure

Each act heightens tension and moral conflict, building toward revelation

Builds dramatic momentum — Act 1 establishes complacency, Act 2 deepens guilt, Act 3 delivers moral reckoning and tests whether change is possible.

Cliff-hanger endings

"A police inspector is on his way here" — final line

Sustains tension and moral reflection beyond each act — the audience is denied resolution, forcing continued engagement with the play's moral questions.

Gradual revelation

Inspector reveals each character's guilt step by step, one at a time

Forces audience to face collective responsibility — the chain of guilt builds link by link, proving that Eva's destruction was systemic, not individual.

Change in lighting

"Pink and intimate" → "brighter and harder" when the Inspector arrives

Symbolic exposure of truth — the lighting is a metaphor for the transition from complacent self-delusion to uncomfortable moral scrutiny.

Entrances and exits

Inspector's arrival interrupts Birling's capitalist speech mid-sentence

Controls the pace of moral revelation — Priestley literally silences capitalism with the arrival of social conscience.

Shifts in tone

From complacency → panic → realisation across the three acts

Mirrors the moral journey Priestley demands of his audience — the emotional arc of the play is the arc of awakening.

Turning points

Eva's suicide revealed / Mrs Birling condemns the father / final phone call

Pivot points of moral consequence — each turning point forces characters (and the audience) to confront a deeper level of culpability.

Parallel structure

Each family member is linked to Eva through a separate act of exploitation

Shows chains of guilt — the parallel structure argues that Eva's destruction was not one person's fault but a systemic failure of the entire class.

Foreshadowing

"They'll be taught it in fire and blood and anguish"

Prophetic tricolon carries apocalyptic weight — the 1945 audience knows this prophecy was literally fulfilled through two World Wars.

Real-time unfolding

Events play out continuously in a single evening without time jumps

Heightens realism and tension — the audience experiences the moral pressure in real time, with no escape or relief.

Interrupted speeches

"a man has to mind his own business and look after himself and his own — and —" (doorbell)

Birling's philosophy is never allowed to reach its conclusion — Priestley structurally silences the ideology the play exists to dismantle.

Dramatic Techniques

Technique

Example / Description

Purpose / Effect

Dramatic irony

Birling's confident predictions about the Titanic and war — the 1945 audience knows he is catastrophically wrong

Exposes arrogance of capitalism — destroys Birling's credibility before the Inspector arrives, ensuring the audience distrusts his entire worldview.

Stage directions

"Heavily comfortable" home / Inspector creates "an impression of massiveness, solidity and purposefulness"

Symbolise wealth and complacency vs moral authority — Priestley uses physical description to establish the ideological conflict before any dialogue.

Lighting

Becomes "brighter and harder" when the Inspector enters

Represents truth and moral exposure — the Inspector's presence literally changes the world of the play from comfortable illusion to harsh reality.

Props

Photograph, engagement ring, telephone

Objects as catalysts for truth or symbolism — the photograph forces recognition, the ring symbolises the broken social contract, the telephone delivers the final moral reckoning.

The Inspector's timing

Arrives exactly when Birling states his anti-social philosophy; leaves immediately after his prophetic speech

Controls moral revelation with surgical precision — his timing is so exact it suggests supernatural or allegorical purpose rather than realistic police procedure.

Role reversal

Sheila judges her parents: "I'm ashamed of you as well — yes both of you"

Inverts the family hierarchy — moral authority is earned through conscience, not inherited through age or class, arguing that the young must lead change.

The photograph device

Inspector shows the photograph one person at a time, preventing comparison

Creates structural ambiguity about whether all characters saw the same woman — controls information and forces individual confession rather than collective evasion.

Breaking the fourth wall

Inspector's final speech addresses the audience as much as the Birlings: "We are responsible for each other"

Functions as a Brechtian alienation effect — forces the audience out of passive entertainment into active moral reflection and political commitment.

Naturalistic dialogue

Characters speak in realistic Edwardian register with interruptions, hesitations, and class-specific diction

Mirrors 1912 class dynamics — the realistic speech patterns make the social critique feel authentic and grounded rather than abstract.

The unseen character (Eva Smith)

Eva never appears on stage — her story is reconstructed entirely through others' accounts

Forces the audience to construct Eva from self-serving accounts — her absence keeps her universal (she IS every exploited worker) and dramatises the silencing of the powerless.

Dramatic tension

Mrs Birling unknowingly condemns her own son: "he should be made an example of"

Creates devastating ironic trap — the audience watches with dread as Mrs Birling builds the case against Eric, proving the Inspector's method of giving them 'rope to hang themselves'.

Moral proxy characters

Sheila and Eric function as audience surrogates who model the correct moral response

Guides the audience's moral journey — the younger generation's transformation provides a path the 1945 audience is invited to follow.

Form and Genre

Form / Technique

Description

Effect

Morality play

Each character faces moral testing — their response reveals their virtue or vice

Exposes vices of pride, greed, and hypocrisy — the Inspector functions as a morality figure who tests each soul and pronounces judgement.

Didactic structure

Clear moral purpose delivered through the Inspector's speeches and the play's resolution

Teaches audience social responsibility directly — Priestley instrumentalises the play as a political manifesto for the 1945 welfare state.

Well-made play

Builds to a climactic twist with the final phone call reversing the false resolution

Keeps audience engaged and reflective — the structural satisfaction of the twist forces the moral lesson to land with maximum dramatic impact.

Detective genre inversion

The Inspector investigates morality, not crime — there is no legal case, only a moral one

Makes audience "detectives" of conscience — by inverting the genre, Priestley shifts the investigation from whodunit to who-is-responsible.

Real-time setting

Events unfold continuously in a single evening within the Birling dining room

Heightens realism and tension — the unity of time and place creates a pressure-cooker atmosphere with no escape from moral scrutiny.

Naturalistic dialogue

Socially realistic speech patterns reflecting Edwardian class distinctions

Mirrors 1912 class dynamics — makes the social hierarchy visible through language, from Birling's 'provincial' speech to the Inspector's measured authority.

Social commentary form

Political theatre written in 1945 within a post-war socialist context

Urges collective change — the play is designed to persuade the audience to vote Labour and support the welfare state, functioning as dramatic propaganda for social justice.

Drawing-room drama

Confined to the Birling dining room — a private, bourgeois domestic space

The private space is invaded by public accountability — Priestley argues that actions taken behind closed doors have social consequences that cannot be contained.

Symbolism and Motifs

Symbol / Motif

Meaning / Context

Example Use

The Inspector

Moral conscience, collective voice, possibly supernatural — 'Goole' puns on 'ghoul'

Challenges each character's morality and functions as Priestley's mouthpiece for social responsibility.

Eva Smith / Daisy Renton

The exploited working class, everywoman figure — 'Eva' echoes 'Eve' (all women), 'Smith' is the most common English surname

Exposes social inequality — her multiple names suggest she represents not one woman but an entire class destroyed by the system.

The engagement ring

Symbol of the social contract between upper-class families — a transaction, not a romance

Represents false security and broken promises — Sheila's return of the ring signals that the old social arrangements cannot survive moral scrutiny.

The telephone

Communication, exposure, and cyclical warning — delivers both the false reprieve and the final reckoning

The final phone call creates the cyclical structure — history repeats, and the moral test will come again until it is passed.

Lighting

From "pink and intimate" (warm, comfortable) to "brighter and harder" (exposure, truth)

Symbol of interrogation and truth — the lighting shift is a visual metaphor for the play's central movement from ignorance to moral awareness.

Names

"Birling" suggests burning/boiling arrogance; "Eva" echoes Biblical Eve (universal humanity); "Goole" puns on ghoul

Symbolic of creation and downfall — Priestley embeds meaning in names to signal each character's thematic function.

The 1912 time setting

Set two years before WWI but performed in 1945 — the gap creates devastating dramatic irony

Warns the 1945 audience not to repeat the mistakes of the past — every complacent Edwardian certainty has been proved catastrophically wrong.

War references

"Fire and blood and anguish" — the Inspector's prophetic tricolon

Contextual warning of the consequences of greed and social irresponsibility — the 1945 audience knows this prophecy was already fulfilled.

Class and gender divisions

Upper vs working class, men vs women — every relationship in the play is structured by power imbalance

Embody Priestley's critique of patriarchy and capitalism — the play argues that both systems dehumanise the vulnerable for the comfort of the powerful.

Youth as renewal

Sheila and Eric's genuine remorse vs their parents' stubborn denial

Symbolises post-war social hope — the younger generation represents Britain's chance to build a more just society if they choose conscience over comfort.

The dining table

The family gathered around a celebratory dinner that is progressively destroyed

Symbol of bourgeois comfort and family unity — the Inspector's investigation dismantles both, exposing the rot beneath the surface.

The photograph

Shown one person at a time — a controlled, rationed revelation of truth

Eva's only physical presence on stage — functions as a moral mirror; each character's reaction reveals their guilt.

Higher Concepts

Conceptual Method

Description

Example / Application

Anagnorisis

Moment of recognition or moral awakening

Sheila's transformation from naive socialite to moral authority — she recognises the truth the Inspector reveals and cannot 'unsee' it.

Hubris

Excessive pride or self-confidence leading to downfall

Birling's arrogance — his Titanic prediction and capitalist philosophy are systematically demolished, proving that certainty without wisdom is dangerous.

Allegory

A story with a hidden moral or political meaning

The play functions as a moral allegory for post-war Britain — the Birling household represents the old order that must be replaced by collective responsibility.

Catharsis

Audience's emotional release at recognition of truth

The final phone call delivers catharsis — the audience's tension is released through the confirmation that the moral lesson was real and inescapable.

Social Realism

Authentic portrayal of class dynamics and social inequality

Priestley uses realistic 1912 class dynamics to expose the mechanisms of exploitation — the naturalistic setting makes the political argument feel grounded.

Temporal irony

1912 setting written and performed in 1945

The dual time frame is Priestley's most powerful structural device — every Edwardian certainty has been disproved by history, giving the audience godlike knowledge.

Didactic tone

Priestley teaches a moral/social lesson directly through the Inspector's speeches

The play abandons dramatic subtlety for direct political instruction — the Inspector's final speech is a manifesto, not a character moment.

Collective responsibility motif

"We are members of one body" — organic metaphor echoing 1 Corinthians 12:27

Priestley's central thesis given religious and universal authority — society is a single living organism, not a collection of competing individuals.

Circular narrative

The ending repeats the beginning — another Inspector is coming

Warns of repeated mistakes — the cyclical structure insists that moral reckoning cannot be avoided, only postponed.

Foreshadowing of war / judgement

Inspector's prophetic tricolon: "fire and blood and anguish"

Moral prophecy through the Inspector's speech — for the 1945 audience, this is not prediction but devastating retrospective truth.

Dramatic unity

Unity of time, place, and action — single evening, single room, single investigation

Creates an inescapable moral pressure-cooker — no character (and no audience member) can leave until the truth has been fully exposed.

Brechtian alienation

The Inspector breaks naturalistic convention to address the audience directly

Forces the audience out of passive entertainment into active moral and political engagement — the play demands a response, not just appreciation.