Notesale: Turn your study into money

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Analysis of an inspector calls act one
The appearance and quality of the Birlings’ dining- room suggests that they are a family of wealth
and class
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They are all dressed for a special occasion
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and Mrs
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Also, note the different ages of the characters: the
established older parents comfortable and proud of their position; the successful thirty-year old; the
two twenty-somethings who seem less set in their places, making one more excited by life and the
other uncomfortable
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Birling knows the port to be the same port that Mr
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Birling may aspire to be like Mr
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In chastising her husband for a rather harmless
remark, Mrs
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Sheila is resistant to the gender roles typical of the period—the man busy with work, and the woman
left alone in the house— and is uncomfortable with her mother’s suggestion that marriage will
create this role division
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Eric is acting strangely, for reasons that we do not yet
know but will become clearer as the play progresses
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It becomes clear that Mr
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He is
always looking to move further up in the world, and an "alliance" with the even more well-off Crofts
will help him do that
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Birling monitors her husband’s contributions to the conversation,
to keep him in line with the tone of the evening
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She likes it
because he likes it
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Birling briefly indicates the political atmosphere of the time—the frightening prospect of war,
and heightened political conflict between those who care most for the prosperity of their own
business and those who care more for the rights and fair wages of the businesses’ laborers
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Mr
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He considers his
prospective knighthood to be very important for his advancement, both in his eyes and in the eyes
of the Crofts
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Birling speaks out for the “Capital” side of the conflict that he
laid out earlier, by arguing for the priority of business and self-interest over communal interest
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Birling demonstrates his familiarity with the local police officers
as a sign of power
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Birling's unfamiliarity with Inspector Goole will also prove
significant as the play progresses
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Birling's claim not to know the girl even though she worked for him is an attempt to insulate himself
from her suicide, to assert to no connection to her or her death, almost to deny that he knew her as
a human being
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The Inspector's strict procedural protocol of only showing the picture to one person at a time will
become very significant later in the play
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In asking whether his father should be deemed
responsible for the girl’s suicide, Eric takes a stance against his father's position that no person owes
any responsibility to anyone else
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Birling seeks to overawe the Inspector by revealing Gerald's importance
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The Inspector
theorizes about the nature of responsibility: in some sense, he proposes, we are responsible even
for events very distant from the immediate consequences of our actions, because our actions
precipitate others, which precipitate others, and so on and so forth
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" The implication of the play is that "awkwardness" is not suitable grounds to dismiss
one's own responsibility
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Eric sees that the "free" world that Birling sees is not so free for the poor
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It's noteworthy that the
older more successful Gerald takes Birling's side
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He seeks to use his connections to
control or limit this investigation
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The investigation is beginning to introduce
conflict into the family
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Up until this point, it has seemed as though the Inspector came for the
sole purpose of interrogating Mr
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As at other moments throughout the investigation, the Inspector universalizes Eva Smith’s situation,
by comparing her to the countless other girls in her position as an underpaid, downtrodden laborer
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, seeing them as people and not just resources
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The Inspector reminds the family
of his peculiar procedural preferences, and contributes yet another pointed theoretical statement
inspired by the case, regarding the thin line between criminality and innocence, which seems to
suggest that even those acting within the law can be responsible for great harm
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Sheila’s reasons for demanding that Eva Smith be
fired from Milward’s were petty and thoughtless
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The hurt Sheila caused was much greater than what
she endured
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Sheila has caught on to the logic and rigor of the Inspector’s investigation, and is
confident that it will be exhaustive

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