Key Quotations and Analysis for 'The Inspector'

Overview

• Focus on 10 critical quotations to achieve a Grade 9.
• Most important quotation: Inspector's final speech.

Political and Social Messages

• Quotation: "millions of John Smiths and Eva Smiths."

  • Eva represents exploited working classes.
  • Political message against upper/business classes like the Birlings and Croft.

• Christian Imagery: "we are all of one body."

  • References to Jesus and The Last Supper.
  • Links Christianity with socialism.
  • Appeals to the largely Christian audience of the time.

Anti-War Message

• Context: Play published in 1945 post-WWII.
• Links capitalism to war.
• Quotation: "Fire and Blood and Anguish."
  • Direct reference to wartime suffering.
  • Suggests socialism as a deterrent to war.

Violence and Brutality

• Violence of Eva's Death:
  • Quotation: "burnt her insides out, of course, she was in great Agony."
  • Designed to shock Sheila and the audience.
  • Reflects on the cruelty of the Birlings and Gerald.

Capitalism vs. Moral Responsibility

• Quotation: "better to ask for the Earth than to take it."
  • Critique of rapacious capitalist society.
  • Highlighted through Gerald's defense: "we are responsible citizens and not criminals."
  • Shows ruling classes' moral and literal corruption.

Feminist Context and Women’s Role

• Representation of Women: Eva & Sheila
  • Quotation: "put ourselves in the place of these young women."
  • Emphasizes pre-1912 women's lack of power.
  • 1945 audience urged to use their power (voting rights achieved).

Supernatural Elements

• Inspector as a Supernatural Presence:
  • Quotation from Sheila: "when the inspector came in just after father said that."
  • Mirrored in Dickens’ 'A Christmas Carol.'
  • Inspector summoned to correct selfish viewpoints.

Responsibility and Blame

• Inspector's Departure:
  • Challenges characters to accept blame.
  • Christian parallel: choice between good and evil.

Warnings and Consequences

• Repeated Warning: "each of you helped to kill her, remember, remember, remember."
  • Suggests they won't learn the lesson, leading to future wars.
  • Eric and Sheila's potential to change is symbolically limited.

Feminist Power and Change

• Eva's Posthumous Influence:
  • Parallels with suffragette movement.
  • Urging women in the 1945 audience to maintain their wartime roles and push for equality.

Conclusion

• The play is a call to action against capitalism, war, and for social equality.
• Encourages the audience to remember the inspector's lessons and act upon them.
• Suggestion to make notes and apply them to essays for better retention and top grades.