today I'm going to start taking you through one of my favorite plays ever and inspector chords in school if you are going through this it would be like a six week course I'm going to cover all the key things you need to know in just three videos which is quite impressive if I may say so myself pause the video whenever you need to and make sure you take loads of notes thank you in this lesson we're going to go through context and all of act one before reading an inspector call it's really important for you to have some basic understanding of politics because JB Priestly the playwright was not writing for entertainment he didn't just sit at home bored one day and decide to write this play for bands he was definitely writing with purpose to make his political views heard briefly supported the labor party he was a socialist which means he believed in creating a fair and equal Society where poor people get an equal chance of being successful and living a good life and he thought it was everyone's responsibility to look after each other so if you had a lot of money and you were Rich then you should share that so that no one struggles so this play is therefore promoting socialism as a political ideology but also showing why capitalism the opposite of socialism was wrong capitalists believed in everyone looking after themselves if you're born poor tough deal with it work harder try to make more money now the play is set in 1912. it's set in the Edwardian era where capitalism was the main ideology and there was a really strong class system with a huge divide between rich and poor there was no welfare state like benefits and pensions labor brought that in later there was no free health no free schools all of this was brought in by labor later trade unions didn't exist so workers couldn't strike in the way that they do now again labor brought that in much later 1912 was a very significant year firstly because it was two years before World War One and secondly it's the year in which the Titanic sank however Priestly wrote the play in 1945. so straight after the second world war when people had been through so many difficult times they were feeling completely disillusioned and they were ready for a political change capitalism wasn't working for them Society had been through so much social unrest poverty and recession strikes the emergence of the feminist suffrage movement the Russian Revolution people were sick to death and this feeling really seeps through in priestly's words throughout the play so for the first time the labor party won the election now the fact that this play was written in 1945 after two world wars after Titanic everyone was Fed Up of all of these tragedies but it was set in 1912 before any of this happened this creates dramatic irony the audience knows more than the characters the characters in the play have no idea what's about to happen in life they are clueless about how radically Society will change starting in two years time yet the audience watching post 1945 know exactly what went down and how Priestly was not writing for votes labor had already won he was writing to show people why this change was a great one and why it was necessary for a hopeful future the play is written in three acts with no scene breaks it's all pretty intense it starts with a wealthy capitalist Burling family celebrating the engagement of their daughter Sheila Burling she is getting engaged to the very elite Gerald Croft Priestly introduces his characters in the opening stage directions first the two interesting quotes from the opening stage directions are about the inspector and about Eric the inspector's significance is emphasized when it says the lighting should be pink and intimate until the inspector arrives and then it should be brighter and harder there is so much we can say about this quotation we can zoom into the pink and intimate because that really connotes a calm and cozy atmosphere and it's also fairly romantic but it also alternative interpretation implies that the Burling family prefer their little Rose tinted bubble rather than confront the reality of their privilege also isn't that color pink really interesting because you go pink when you blush so could Priestly be implying that the family has something to be ashamed of that hasn't been revealed yet now when the inspector comes it forces the Burling family to see the truth and that's why the lighting goes brighter and harder they can't hide away anymore the inspector is going to expose them or that lighting serves as a light of interrogation you know when you're being interrogated you're under the spotlight if we go to a deeper level it could also be seen as the light of divinity morality the light of the truth whatever the case the inspectors mere entrance changes the entire mood of the play showing his status and his Supernatural qualities now Mr burling's son Eric is described as not quite at ease half shy half assertive there's an interesting repetition of half here as if Eric is still forming his identity and discovering himself later on in this act Priestly States Eric suddenly guffles his parents look at him gaforce means laughs aloud but there was no joke no one said a joke Eric just bursts out laughing randomly so Priestly uses these stage directions to tell us that there is something strange about Eric and soon we realize that he is just squiffy he's an alcoholic but his parents don't seem to have noticed that despite all of the obvious Clues factual details are also given about the family's wealth they have a maid Edna and we learn how Mr Burling is Nouveau Rich he's new money and his wife is his social Superior social Superior so he wasn't always Rich he married a woman who was richer than him to move up in society Sheila is described as a pretty girl that's important I want you to keep that in mind I'm going to come back to that later we're at this engagement party and when the dialogue begins this opening is dominated by Mr burling's long speeches mainly about himself but also about why socialists are done and capitalists are the best he is desperate to impress his future son-in-law Gerald craft wait for this he even researched which Port which alcohol Gerald's father buys and then bought the same one which is another example supporting the view that Mr Burling is simply emulating the upper class rather than actually belonging to that world Priestly mocks Mr Burling and his views like when Mr Burling says the famous quote about the Titanic being Unsinkable absolutely Unsinkable it is clearly written to get the audience to laugh at Mr Burling and therefore laugh at the capitalism he represents if the audience is pitted against Mr Burling right at the start of the play they will therefore be pitted against everything Mr Burling believes in and therefore they will hate capitalism too the audience know what Mr Burling is saying is nonsense he doesn't know what he's talking about but as long as there's money involved he's loving it he keeps referring really proudly to himself as hard-headed practical man of business I'm Priestly cleverly uses the hard head as a metaphor for Mr burling's foolishness and his ignorance the alliteration of H hard-headed shows how excited Mr Burling gets when he's talking about himself he is the ultimate narcissist but the worst part is Mr Burling imposes these views in Long rambling incoherent speeches onto the younger Generations a really great quotation to analyze in your exams is when Mr Burling tries to impress his son and his son-in-law by exploring the possibility of war and he says you'll hear some people say that was inevitable and to that I say fiddlesticks bear in mind the audience know that wars did happen but Mr burling's use of some people are some people think that is dismissive he disregards what some people are saying in favor of I oh they don't know what they're talking about but this is what I think his hubris and his arrogance is the problem but he clearly has no knowledge to back up his views the dash creates this strong pause like a sense of anticipation we're all waiting he's like to that I say and we're like yeah what's your view what like what have you got for us and he follows it with this anticlimactic nonsensical word fiddlesticks the man has no substance no rational argument to support his predictions therefore his ideologies like him are absurd he declares that a man has to look after himself Dash and his family too of course connoting that in capitalism even your own family becomes an afterthought however it is here when the inspector enters the stage in fact the inspector Cuts Mr Burling off he is the first character who stops Mr Burling from chatting the inspector is presented as the antithesis to Mr Burling Mr Burling thinks that socialism is Despicable he says socialists act like we were all mixed up together like bees in a hive community and all that nonsense he uses this simile to say socialists are like bees they're pests they're dangerous they're annoying do you want to be in there a bee I don't he doesn't want to be near socialists but what he fails to see is that bees produce honey sweetness we depend on bees for survival he cannot see the importance and the sweetness of socialism in complete contrast to that the inspector is here to enforce the message of social responsibility he speaks carefully weightally in contrast to Mr burling's long ramblings when the inspector speaks it is honest and it gets straight to the point he has come to investigate the death of a factory worker Eva Smith who used to work for Mr Burling but he fired her she committed suicide and the inspector says she'd swallowed a lot of strong disinfectant burnt her insides out of course this is really interesting the disinfectant becomes a powerful symbol of how the proletariat the working class the poor people are treated like dirt in the capital Society Eva tries to cleanse herself of her status through death the inspector's language is graphic and brutal and immediately Eric gives a very Humane response it says involuntarily my gods and even Sheila manages a great socialist response she says but these girls aren't cheap labor they're people let's compare this to Mr burling's immediate reaction he says rather impatiently yes yes horrid business but he doesn't care he cannot even fake a moral reaction the repetition yes yes shows he is just trying to get this conversation over and done with as quickly as possible Mr Burling is devoid of thinking of anything outside of money profit and business to him even his own daughter's engagement was a transactional deal because cross limited are both older and bigger than Burling and Company in fact when Mr Burling fails to intimidate the inspector using his own status he then pathetically tries to use Gerald's family's higher reputation he says this is Mr Gerald Croft the son of Sir George Croft you know cross Limited he repeats Croft three times he's so gross is disgusting I hate him and maybe any normal working class inspector would be scared but not this one his name is ghoul inspector ghoul g-o-o-l-e which is a homophone for ghoul like g-h-o-u-l he isn't phased by any worldly class barriers he doesn't behave like a typical Edwardian inspector he is ready to take this family on they are so ingrained in their capitalist ideologies that it's going to take something Way Beyond human to break them and to make them learn the importance of responsibility and Community during Mr burling's interrogation he continues his callous rejection of any responsibility he thinks that he had no part to play in Eva Smith's death even though he confesses that Eva was a good worker too and on the brink of a promotion but he sacked her because she asked for her and other girls to be paid a little bit higher she didn't just want her own pay to go up because he offers that to her but she thinks that actually all these girls should be paid a little bit more so that we can survive but Mr Burling says she'd had a lot to say far too much so she had to go the irony this man has not stopped talking himself at this point but he's saying she had too much to say his view of Eva is Tainted by his stereotype of the working class and remember Eva can come up as an exam question don't think because she's dead she's not going to come up so look at how other characters describe her and what you learn about her from what other people say now Mr Burling uses pejoratives like wretched girl and implies that Eva must have moved on to either becoming a criminal or becoming a prostitute he says get into trouble go on the streets showing his complete disregard and contempt for the underprivileged by the end of his interrogation Mr Burling is a bit ruffled but he's still not willing to admit that he's done much wrong Gerald seems to agree with him which is quite disappointing Gerald at this point Mrs Burling hasn't revealed too much of herself in that one she tells her husband off for breaking social etiquette it says um reproachfully Arthur you're not supposed to say such things because clearly Mr Burling doesn't fully understand upper class behavior and Mrs Burling also enforces traditional gender roles onto her daughter Sheila she says to her when you're married you'll realize that men with important work to do despite the fact that she herself bosses everyone around and doesn't actually adhere to traditional submissive gender stereotypes so our first impression of Mrs Burling seems to be that she's a hypocrite Sheila is arguably the most interesting character in the play she is introduced as spoiled superficial and silly she says oh it's wonderful look Mommy isn't it a beauty when Gerald gives her a ring despite her reservations about her fiance Gerald and her thinking where was he Last Summer she still gets hyperbolically excited in this quotation all because of a ring she addresses her mother as mummy another really important point it shows how childish she is at the beginning of the play and there are lots of exclamation marks and she has this childlike desire to impress her mum and gain her mum's approval and that cemented through the rhetorical question isn't it a beauty it's like she can't form opinions by herself she says now that she has the ring she really feels engaged because it took a ring something expensive to make her feel engaged rather than human love or human emotions however even just within this first act more is revealed about Sheila we find out that once Eva was fired by Mr Burling she got a job in a clothes shop but during Sheila's interrogation she reveals that she went to the manager of that shop and told him that this girl Eva had been very impertinent at the beginning of the place Sheila uses the same language as her parents impertinent is a word that her mother uses it means rude but unlike her father Sheila does feel remorse she feels bad that she got her fired and Sheila's perceptive too I know she seems all silly silly but at the end of act one she confronts Gerald and she laughs rather hysterically and says about the inspector why you fool he knows of course he knows you'll see you'll see Sheila May pretend to be all playful and bubbly because that's how patriarchy wants her to be but she's the first character to realize that the inspector cannot be fooled and there are signs that Sheila is a lot more intelligent and a lot more aware than we or her family think one really interesting grade nine perceptive point about Sheila is that in the beginning stage directions remember I said she's described as a pretty girl and when the inspector is talking to the family about Eva Sheila asks whether Eva was pretty and the inspector says yes she was a pretty girl Priestly uses the same exact description to describe both girls they were both pretty girls why does Priestly do that did he run out of words no he uses an identical description to subtly imply that there was no difference between these two girls the only difference was how much money they were born into and yet look at the outcome of their lives the outcome of their lives was so different one ended with her insides burn out and one is sitting chilling celebrating her engagement party and that is not fair and I'm Gonna Leave You with that thought that is the end of this video make sure you watch the next video to learn about the next bit of an inspector called I hope you found this video helpful if you did give it a like and don't forget to check out all the other videos in this series