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Descriptive words for the characters in Priestley’s An Inspector Calls
Taking a different coloured pencil for each character, colour in their names below. Then select descriptive words
from the 50 boxes that you feel correspond with the characters.
Copyright © 2006 www.englishteaching.co.uk + www.english-teaching.co.uk
SELFISH ARROGANT MANIPULATIVE VICTIMISED INSENSITIVE
SENSITIVE CUNNING NAÏVE RESPONSIBLE POMPOUS
IMPATIENT SUPERIOR POWERFUL DECEPTIVE MYSTERIOUS
LYING IMPERTINENT VILLAIN OBSTINATE FRUSTRATING
CONSIDERATE MATURE APOLOGETIC GRAVE SURPRISED
AUTHORITATIVE SHARP CARING IMPOSING PLAYFUL
INSISTANT MISERABLE UNRELENTING DISTRESSED STUBBORN
SARDONIC PERSISTANT HYSTERICAL SCORNFUL EMPHATIC
STERN ANIMATED BITTER VOLATILE ACCUSING
GUILTY PANICKED CONTEMPTUOUS TRIUMPHANT FORCEFUL
GE
MRS.
INSPE
SH
EIL
A
E
R
I
C
MR.

Comparing characters - An Inspector Calls
TASK 1: Both Gerald Croft and Eric Birling were involved with Eva Smith/Daisy Renton – using
points, quotes from the text and comments of your own that expand your ideas, complete the
chart below.
TASK 2: Both Mr and Mrs Birling treat Eric and Sheila like young children. For each of the
parents, use the PQC rule to explain this.
CHARACTER POINT QUOTE COMMENT
GERALD
ERIC
GERALD
ERIC
CHARACTER POINT QUOTE COMMENT
MR BIRLING
MR BIRLING
MRS BIRLING
MRS BIRLING

GCSE STUDY GUIDE: A Inspector Calls
Includes:
- Notes on the play (genre, form, background info)
- Plot overview
- Priestley – the playwright
- Character profiles
- Themes
- Language
- Key quotes
- Historical/social context
Plot overview : Priestley’s real time play An Inspector
Calls tells the story of how a strange Inspector, who
goes by the name of Goole, investigates the suicide of
a young girl. He interrogates each member of the
Birling family and Gerald Croft to piece together the
events that led to her death.
Act 1

* FORM
The play follows a ____________________ structure, mirroring the events as they would take
place in real life. This adds to the tension as Act 2 begins exactly where Act 2 ended – the
audience does not miss any of the action; it all unfolds before their eyes!
It follows the three unities: _______________, _________________ and _______________
* GENRE
The play could be described as a ________________ in terms of its genre, as it follows a
mystery and the interrogation of suspects.
* BACKGROUND INFO
The play was written by Priestley in one week in ___________.
It is set in _________________. This is because __________________________________
_________________________________________________________________________
* PRIESTLEY THE PLAYWRIGHT
(use the front of your copy of An Inspector Calls to write a
series of detailed bullet points about Priestley, his
influences, his purpose. his background, the context in
which he was writing…)
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•

* CHARACTER PROFILES (consider the initial stage directions describing these characters, their actions,
things they say, what is said about them and their relationship with others – USE QUOTES WHEN YOU CAN!)
LANGUAGE

* THEMES (for each theme write a sentence about how it is included in the play, which characters are involved,
using a quote if you can)
Social responsibility -
Role of women –
Relationships –
Pride and status –
Love -
Morality –
British class system -
* LANGUAGE
* KEY QUOTES
* SOCIAL AND HISTORICAL CONTEXT
1.
6.
2.

EXAM QUESTION – timed assay (45 mins)
Consider and explain the role of the inspector and what he represents.
- Priestley’s vehicle through which to air his political views?
- ideal of a pun on the word ‘ghoul’?
- look at his manner (analysis of stage directions)
- how do the other characters react to him?
- inspector’s use of emotive language
- apparent knowledge of the other characters
- judge and jury? Moral outlook on their actions, delivering judgements and social analysis.

An Inspector Calls – HOW MUCH DO YOU KNOW?
• ACT 1
1. When is the play set?
2. From the initial stage directions, how do we know that the Birlings have an affluent lifestyle?
3. Quote how the lighting is described at first, then when the inspector arrives.
4. Who is a ‘heavy-looking, rather portentous man in his middle fifties’?
5. Who is ‘not quite at ease, half-shy, half-assertive’?
6. Who is ‘very pleased with life’?
7. Who is ‘very much the easy well-bred young man-about-town’?
8. How is Mrs Birling described?
9. What are they celebrating?
10. Name the maid.
11. What type of businessman does Mr Birling think he is?
12. What does Sheila’s engagement to Gerald mean to Arthur?
13. Name 2 major events that Birling predicts incorrectly in his long speech.
14. Why does Priestley script the doorbell to ring when it does?
15. On arrival, quote two words/phrases that illustrate the inspector.
16. Why was Eva dismissed from Birling and Co.?
17. Where does Eva get a job afterwards?
18. How does Eva die? (be specific!)
19. Who says: ‘the way some of these cranks talk and write now, you’d think everybody has to look after everybody
else, as if we were all mixed up together like bees in a hive.’
20. Who says: ‘You seem to be a nice, well-behaved family.’
21. Who says: ‘She was very pretty and looked as if she could take care of herself. I couldn’t be sorry for her.’
22. It is the Inspector’s task to confront deception and peel away layers of lies and self-protection. To do this, he
often turns the character’s words on their head. What are his responses to these quotes?
SHEILA: ‘I feel I can never go there again. Oh – why had this to happen?’
23. (Inspector’s response?)
BIRLING: ‘Why the devil do you want to go upsetting the child like that?’
SHEILA: ‘if I could help her now I would.’
GERALD: ‘After all, y’know, we’re respectable citizens and not criminals.’
• ACT 2
1. Who was harassing Eva/Daisy in the Palace Bar?
2. What phrase is later used to describe him, much to the disgust of Mr and Mrs Birling?
3. Who expresses very definite views as to who is ‘entirely responsible’ for Eva’s death?
4. What does Sheila give to Gerald before he leaves?
5. Why does Mrs Birling remain nonchalant (casual/detached) even when she has seen the photograph?
6. How does Gerald attempt to defend the affair initially?
7. How does the Inspector claim to know so much about her life?
8. Who says this and to whom?
‘I feel you’re beginning all wrong.’
9. Who says this and to whom?
‘I never take offence’.
10. The Inspector creates a play on the word ‘offence’ – what are the two meanings of the word that become tangled
in this Act?
11. Throughout the act, moral judgements are made by the audience and the characters themselves about each other.
Who condemns whom here?
‘I think it was cruel and vile’.
12.
13. The Inspector claims that the girl needed more than money. He lists three things – what are they?
14. How does Mrs. Birling give many of her answers?
15. What does the Inspector’s visit expose about Eric that Mrs. Birling claimed not to be aware of?

16. How does she refer to her son in this scene?
18. In what 3 ways does Gerald describe Daisy when he first meets her that made her look ‘totally out of place’ at
the Palace Bar? ___________ and ________________ and ___________________
17. Who says ‘I must say, we are learning something tonight’?
18. Quote the line in which the Inspector attempts to make Mr. Birling realise that Sheila isn’t a dreamy little girl.
19. Who is described as the ‘fairy prince’ and by whom?
20. When Gerald has confessed his role in knowing Eva, why does Mr. B intervene and begin defending him in front of
Sheila?
21. The Inspector is angered by Mr. B’s inability to accept any responsibility for his actions. The Inspector tells him’
Public men, Mr Birling, have ________________ as well as _____________________.’ Complete quote.
22. What specific form of language does the Inspector use to try and enforce guilt onto the family?
Give an example from the text ______________________________________________.
23. What is the term used in a play when the audience know more about the plot and how it seems to be unfolding
than the characters on stage?
• ACT 3
1. What is the mood in the dining room at the start of this act?....and why?
2. What effect do this evening’s events have on the Birling family and their relationships?
3. How should the actor playing the Inspector listen to Eric’s story and why?
4. Why does it ‘not much matter’ to Sheila whether the Inspector was a real policeman or not?
5. Why does it matter a ‘devil of a lot’ to Mr Birling?
6. Who says ‘It’s what happened to the girl and what we all did to her that matters’?
7. List 3 features of the play that justify its name as a murder mystery.
8. How do the final stage directions instruct the actors to ‘stare’ as the curtain falls? ___________ and
_________
9. What are the 3 ‘unities’ of the play?
10. What is the term used to describe the way in which the acting mirrors the scenario as if it was really unfolding?
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
Now make up 5 more questions relating to themes,
characters, plot…that you feel haven’t been covered
above (using your copies of the play if it helps):
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.

CHARACTER WHAT
INVOLVEMENT
DID THEY HAVE
IN EVA’S
SUICIDE?
HOW DOES THE
INSPECTOR
TREAT THEM?
(language, tone,
manner…)
REACTION TO
THE CRIME/THE
INSPECTOR?
(accept
responsibility?
Change tone?
Tactics?)
WHAT HAVE
THEY
LEARNT(IF
ANYTHING)
AND HOW
DO YOU
KNOW?
ARTHUR
BIRLING
SHEILA BIRLING
GERALD CROFT
SYBIL BIRLING
ERIC BIRLING

THE

BRUMLEY

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