An Inspector Calls by J.B. Priestley

Welcome to HSLC Guru. In this lesson, we present a complete study guide for Chapter 10 of the ASSEB Class 11 Alternative English textbook — An Inspector Calls by J.B. Priestley. This three-act drama, written in 1945 but set in 1912, is one of the most powerful morality plays of the twentieth century. It examines guilt, social responsibility, and the consequences of selfish choices. This guide includes a playwright biography, plot summary, character analysis, themes, symbolism, textbook questions and answers, multiple-choice questions, fill in the blanks, true or false statements, and a glossary — all aligned with the ASSEB syllabus.

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About the Playwright — J.B. Priestley (1894-1984)

John Boynton Priestley was an English novelist, playwright, broadcaster, and social critic born in Bradford, Yorkshire, in 1894. He served in the First World War, an experience that shaped his lifelong concern with humanity, peace, and social justice. Priestley became one of the most influential British writers of the twentieth century, producing over fifty novels and numerous plays, including Time and the Conways, Dangerous Corner, and An Inspector Calls. He was also a popular wartime broadcaster on BBC Radio. Priestley was a committed socialist, and his 1945 play An Inspector Calls, set in 1912, captures his belief in collective social responsibility and the moral duty of the privileged.

Plot Summary

The play is set in the fictional industrial town of Brumley, in the north Midlands of England, in the spring of 1912. The action takes place in the dining room of the prosperous Birling family. Arthur Birling, a wealthy factory owner, his wife Sybil, their daughter Sheila, and their son Eric are celebrating Sheila’s engagement to Gerald Croft, the son of a rival businessman. The atmosphere is one of confidence, complacency, and capitalist optimism. Arthur boasts about progress, the unsinkable Titanic, and the impossibility of war.

The celebration is interrupted by the arrival of a mysterious figure — Inspector Goole — who announces that a young woman named Eva Smith has died in the local infirmary after swallowing disinfectant. The Inspector begins to question each member of the family. Arthur Birling admits he sacked Eva from his factory two years earlier for leading a strike for higher wages. Sheila confesses that she had Eva dismissed from a dress shop out of jealous spite. Gerald Croft reveals that he had a romantic affair with Eva — who had renamed herself Daisy Renton — and kept her as his mistress before abandoning her.

The questioning continues. Eric Birling confesses that he met Eva at a bar, got her pregnant, and stole money from his father’s office to support her. Sybil Birling, chairwoman of a women’s charity, admits that she refused to help the pregnant Eva when she came begging for assistance, blaming the unborn child’s father — not knowing it was her own son. Each revelation tightens the chain of guilt. Inspector Goole leaves with a stern warning that if humanity does not learn to share responsibility for one another, it will be taught the lesson “in fire and blood and anguish.”

After the Inspector departs, the family begins to suspect he was not a real police officer. A telephone call to the infirmary confirms that no girl has died and no inspector named Goole exists. The older Birlings are relieved, but Sheila and Eric remain shaken by what their behaviour revealed. Then the telephone rings — a real call from the police — informing the Birlings that a young woman has just died on her way to the infirmary, and an inspector is on his way to ask questions. The play ends in shocked silence. The final twist suggests that whether or not the first Inspector was real, the moral judgement he delivered was inescapable.

Characters

• Arthur Birling — A self-made wealthy factory owner; the embodiment of Edwardian capitalism, complacent, pompous, and dismissive of social responsibility.
• Sybil Birling — Arthur’s cold, snobbish wife; a member of the social elite who refuses charity to a desperate young woman.
• Sheila Birling — The Birlings’ young daughter; the most transformed character in the play, who genuinely repents her cruelty.
• Eric Birling — The Birlings’ troubled, drunken son; secretly an alcoholic who fathered Eva’s unborn child.
• Gerald Croft — Sheila’s fiancé, son of Sir George Croft; a charming aristocrat who had Eva as a mistress.
• Inspector Goole — A mysterious figure who acts as the moral mouthpiece of the play; possibly a ghost, conscience, or symbol of collective responsibility.
• Eva Smith / Daisy Renton — The unseen young working-class woman whose suicide drives the entire plot; symbol of all exploited workers.
• Edna — The Birlings’ maid; a minor character who silently represents the working class within the household.

Themes

• Collective Social Responsibility — The central theme; we are all “members of one body” and responsible for each other.
• Capitalism vs Socialism — Priestley contrasts Arthur’s selfish capitalism with the Inspector’s socialist morality.
• Generational Change — The younger Birlings (Sheila and Eric) accept blame; the older generation refuses.
• Gender Inequality — Eva’s vulnerability as a working-class woman highlights the powerlessness of women in 1912.
• Class Hierarchy — The play attacks the rigid Edwardian class system that allows the rich to exploit the poor.
• Time and Choices — Priestley suggests that every choice we make shapes the lives of others.
• Guilt and Conscience — Each character must confront their own role in Eva’s death.
• Truth and Deception — The mystery of the Inspector’s identity blurs the line between reality and moral allegory.

Symbolism

• Inspector Goole — A spectre of collective conscience; his name (Goole/ghoul) hints he may be supernatural — a moral force rather than a man.
• The Engagement Ring — Symbolises a broken promise; Sheila returns it to Gerald, showing the collapse of social pretence under truth.
• The Telephone — Represents the inescapable arrival of consequence and judgement.
• Lighting — Priestley directs that the lights become “brighter and harder” when the Inspector arrives, symbolising the exposure of truth.
• Eva Smith — Symbolises the millions of voiceless working-class women; the name “Eva” recalls Eve, the universal woman.
• Champagne and Port — Symbols of capitalist excess and false celebration.

Setting and Dramatic Irony

The play is set in 1912, but it was written in 1945, immediately after the Second World War. Priestley exploits this gap to create powerful dramatic irony. Arthur Birling confidently dismisses the threat of war and praises the Titanic as “absolutely unsinkable” — but the audience knows that the Titanic sank in April 1912, that the First World War broke out in 1914, that the Great Depression devastated the 1930s, and that the Second World War had just ended. Every confident prediction Birling makes is exposed as disastrously wrong. This irony reinforces the play’s message: the smug, capitalist worldview of 1912 led directly to the catastrophes of the twentieth century, and only through collective responsibility can humanity build a better future.

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Textbook Questions and Answers

A. Short Answer Questions (1 mark each)

Q1. Who is the author of An Inspector Calls?

Answer: The play An Inspector Calls was written by the English playwright J.B. Priestley.

Q2. In what year is the play set?

Answer: The play is set in the spring of 1912.

Q3. When was the play written?

Answer: The play was written in 1945, immediately after the Second World War.

Q4. Where is the play set?

Answer: The play is set in the fictional industrial town of Brumley, in the north Midlands of England.

Q5. What is the name of the young woman who dies?

Answer: The young woman is Eva Smith, who later changed her name to Daisy Renton.

Q6. How does Eva Smith die?

Answer: Eva Smith dies after swallowing strong disinfectant; she commits suicide.

Q7. Who is Sheila engaged to?

Answer: Sheila Birling is engaged to Gerald Croft, the son of Sir George Croft.

Q8. What is Inspector Goole’s first name never given?

Answer: The Inspector is referred to only as Inspector Goole; the surname puns on “ghoul,” hinting at a supernatural identity.

Q9. Why did Arthur Birling sack Eva Smith?

Answer: Arthur Birling sacked Eva Smith for leading a strike at his factory demanding higher wages.

Q10. What is the central moral message of the play?

Answer: The central moral message is that we are all responsible for one another and must care for those less fortunate.

B. Short Answer Questions (2-3 marks each)

Q1. Describe the opening atmosphere of the Birling household.

Answer: The play opens in the dining room of the Birling family in Brumley in 1912. The family is celebrating Sheila’s engagement to Gerald Croft. The atmosphere is one of warmth, comfort, and capitalist confidence — champagne is being drunk, port is being served, and Arthur Birling is making complacent speeches about progress, prosperity, and the impossibility of war. The lighting, as Priestley directs, is “pink and intimate,” reflecting the family’s cosy self-satisfaction. This atmosphere is shattered the moment Inspector Goole arrives.

Q2. Why is the year 1912 important to the play?

Answer: The year 1912 is crucial because it allows Priestley to use dramatic irony. Arthur Birling speaks confidently about the unsinkable Titanic, the impossibility of war, and the unbroken progress of capitalism. The audience, watching in 1945, knows that the Titanic sank that very year, that the First World War broke out in 1914, that the Great Depression occurred, and that the Second World War had just ended. Every prediction Birling makes is exposed as wrong, undermining his entire worldview.

Q3. How does Sheila change during the play?

Answer: Sheila begins the play as a spoilt, somewhat childish young woman of privilege. When she learns that her jealous complaint led to Eva Smith losing her job, she is genuinely horrified and accepts full moral responsibility for her cruelty. By the end of the play, Sheila has become the most morally aware character. She rejects her parents’ attempts to dismiss the affair, returns Gerald’s engagement ring, and warns the family that the Inspector’s lesson cannot be ignored, regardless of his identity.

Q4. What role does Eric play in Eva’s downfall?

Answer: Eric Birling met Eva Smith at a bar called the Palace Variety Theatre. Drunk and aggressive, he forced his way into her room and later began an affair with her. When Eva became pregnant, Eric tried to support her but, having no money of his own, stole around fifty pounds from his father’s office. Eva refused the stolen money out of pride and went instead to the women’s charity — where she was rejected by Eric’s own mother. Eric thus contributed both to her pregnancy and indirectly to her despair.

Q5. How does Sybil Birling refuse to help Eva?

Answer: Sybil Birling chairs the Brumley Women’s Charity Organisation. When Eva, pregnant and desperate, came to the charity using the name “Mrs Birling,” Sybil was offended and used her influence to have Eva’s appeal rejected. She blamed the father of the unborn child for the situation, demanding that he take responsibility — without realising the father was her own son Eric. Her refusal sealed Eva’s despair and is a key step in her suicide.

Q6. What is the significance of the final telephone call?

Answer: The final telephone call is the play’s most dramatic twist. After the Birlings convince themselves that Inspector Goole was a fake and that no girl has died, the phone rings with a real call from the police announcing a young woman has just died on her way to the infirmary, and an inspector is on his way. This terrifying repetition suggests that whether or not the first Inspector was real, the moral judgement is inescapable. Time itself seems to fold back on the family, dragging them into a second confrontation.

C. Long Answer Questions (5-7 marks each)

Q1. Discuss An Inspector Calls as a play about social responsibility.

Answer: An Inspector Calls is, above all, a moral parable about collective social responsibility. Priestley wrote the play in 1945, after two World Wars had exposed the catastrophic consequences of greed, nationalism, and indifference, and he set it in 1912 to expose the smug capitalist worldview that he believed had led directly to those catastrophes. Through the figure of Inspector Goole, the play insists that human beings are not isolated economic units but members of “one body,” and that the choices made by the privileged shape the lives of the powerless. Each member of the Birling family — and Gerald Croft — has, through small acts of cruelty, contributed to the death of one young woman. Arthur sacked her for asking for a fair wage. Sheila had her dismissed out of jealousy. Gerald used her as a mistress. Eric exploited her drunkenly and stole to support her. Sybil refused her charity. None of these acts is, in isolation, a crime. Together, they form a chain of moral neglect that destroys a human life. Priestley’s point is that small, individual acts of selfishness accumulate into systemic injustice. The Inspector’s closing speech — that if men do not learn responsibility, they will be taught it “in fire and blood and anguish” — is both a warning about war and a call for socialist solidarity. The play insists that personal morality cannot be separated from political responsibility.

Q2. Examine the character of Inspector Goole. Is he a real policeman, a ghost, or a symbol?

Answer: Inspector Goole is one of the most enigmatic figures in modern drama. On the surface, he behaves like a police inspector — he questions the Birlings methodically, presents what appears to be evidence, and demands confession. But many details suggest he is something more. His name itself, “Goole,” puns on “ghoul,” a supernatural creature. He seems to know intimate secrets that no real police officer could possibly have gathered in such a short time. He arrives at the precise moment the family is most complacent, and he leaves before any of his “facts” can be verified. After his departure, a phone call confirms that no inspector by that name exists and that no girl has yet died — yet immediately afterwards, a real death is reported. Critics have read the Inspector variously as a ghost, a manifestation of collective conscience, an angel of judgement, or even a personification of socialist morality. Priestley deliberately leaves the question open. What matters is not who the Inspector is, but what he represents: the moral truth that no one can escape responsibility, regardless of social rank. Whether he is human or supernatural, the lesson he delivers is real and inescapable.

Q3. Compare the older and younger generations of the Birling family. What is Priestley suggesting?

Answer: Priestley draws a sharp moral contrast between the older Birlings (Arthur and Sybil) and the younger generation (Sheila and Eric). The older Birlings, after the Inspector leaves, are concerned mainly with avoiding scandal and protecting their reputation. They quickly seize on the possibility that the Inspector was a fraud and use it to dismiss everything that was said. Their priority is class status, not moral truth. By contrast, Sheila and Eric — though they too acted cruelly — are genuinely transformed by the experience. They accept their guilt, refuse to laugh off the Inspector’s words, and warn their parents that the lesson cannot be unlearned. Sheila in particular grows from a spoilt fiancée into a moral conscience for the play. Through this generational contrast, Priestley suggests that change must come from the young. The older capitalist generation is too entrenched in its privilege to see the truth, but the young — who lived through the ruins of two World Wars in Priestley’s audience — must build a more responsible society. The play is, in this sense, a hopeful message addressed to the post-1945 generation.

Q4. Discuss the use of dramatic irony in An Inspector Calls.

Answer: Dramatic irony is one of the most powerful tools Priestley employs in the play. Because the action is set in 1912 but the audience is watching in 1945 (or later), almost every confident pronouncement made by Arthur Birling is undercut by historical knowledge. He proclaims that war is impossible — yet the First World War began two years later, in 1914. He praises the Titanic as “absolutely unsinkable” — yet the ship sank on its maiden voyage in April 1912. He predicts unbroken capitalist prosperity — yet the Great Depression of the 1930s devastated millions, and the Second World War destroyed Europe. The audience watches these speeches with a mixture of horror and recognition, knowing that the smug worldview Birling represents led directly to catastrophe. The irony also operates on a personal level: Sybil condemns the unborn child’s father as the real villain without knowing he is her own son Eric. By embedding such irony into the play’s structure, Priestley turns the entire 1912 setting into a moral mirror in which the audience sees its own twentieth-century history.

Q5. Analyse the role of Eva Smith in the play, even though she never appears on stage.

Answer: Eva Smith is the silent centre of An Inspector Calls. Although she never speaks a single line and never appears on stage, every word in the play revolves around her. Her absence is, in itself, deeply meaningful. As a working-class woman in 1912, Eva had no voice in society; the play dramatizes that voicelessness by literally silencing her. Each of the Birlings, in turn, treats her not as a person but as a function of their own desire — a worker, a shop-girl, a mistress, a problem to be dismissed. Only after her death are her experiences pieced together, and even then she is reconstructed through the words of those who wronged her. Her two names — Eva Smith and Daisy Renton — suggest both the universal woman (Eva, recalling Eve) and the everyday individual (Smith, the commonest English surname). Priestley uses her to symbolise the millions of working-class women whose lives were destroyed by Edwardian inequality. Her silence is the play’s loudest accusation against the comfortable classes who never bothered to listen.

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Multiple Choice Questions (MCQs)

Q1. Who wrote An Inspector Calls?
(a) George Bernard Shaw
(b) J.B. Priestley
(c) Arthur Miller
(d) Henrik Ibsen

Answer: (b) J.B. Priestley

Q2. The play is set in the year:
(a) 1912
(b) 1945
(c) 1939
(d) 1900

Answer: (a) 1912

Q3. The Birling family lives in:
(a) London
(b) Manchester
(c) Brumley
(d) Liverpool

Answer: (c) Brumley

Q4. Eva Smith dies by:
(a) Drowning
(b) Hanging
(c) Swallowing disinfectant
(d) Falling from a window

Answer: (c) Swallowing disinfectant

Q5. Sheila is engaged to:
(a) Eric Birling
(b) Gerald Croft
(c) Inspector Goole
(d) Sir George Croft

Answer: (b) Gerald Croft

Q6. Eva Smith renamed herself:
(a) Daisy Renton
(b) Lily Smith
(c) Sybil Goole
(d) Sheila Birling

Answer: (a) Daisy Renton

Q7. Why did Arthur Birling sack Eva?
(a) For stealing
(b) For leading a strike
(c) For being late
(d) For dishonesty

Answer: (b) For leading a strike

Q8. What does Sybil Birling chair?
(a) The Brumley Bank
(b) The Women’s Charity Organisation
(c) The Town Council
(d) The Police Committee

Answer: (b) The Women’s Charity Organisation

Q9. Eric stole money from:
(a) Gerald
(b) The bank
(c) His father’s office
(d) Inspector Goole

Answer: (c) His father’s office

Q10. The Inspector’s surname puns on:
(a) Ghost
(b) Ghoul
(c) Goal
(d) Gold

Answer: (b) Ghoul

Fill in the Blanks

Q1. The play is set in the town of __________ in 1912.

Answer: Brumley

Q2. Sheila is engaged to __________ Croft.

Answer: Gerald

Q3. The Inspector’s name is Inspector __________.

Answer: Goole

Q4. Eva Smith later renamed herself __________ Renton.

Answer: Daisy

Q5. The Inspector warns that humanity will be taught its lesson “in fire and blood and __________.”

Answer: anguish

True or False

Q1. The play An Inspector Calls was written in 1912.

Answer: False — it was written in 1945 but set in 1912.

Q2. Eva Smith appears on stage at the end of the play.

Answer: False — Eva Smith never appears on stage.

Q3. Arthur Birling sacked Eva Smith for leading a strike.

Answer: True.

Q4. Sybil Birling helped the pregnant Eva at the charity.

Answer: False — Sybil refused to help her.

Q5. The play ends with a telephone call announcing a real death and a real inspector.

Answer: True.

Glossary

Word	Meaning
Capitalist	A person who owns or controls wealth used to produce more wealth.
Suicide	The intentional taking of one’s own life.
Disinfectant	A strong chemical liquid used to kill germs.
Fiancé	A man engaged to be married.
Brumley	The fictional industrial town in which the play is set.
Inspector	A senior police officer who investigates crimes.
Ghoul	A ghost or evil spirit; pun on Inspector Goole’s name.
Strike	A protest in which workers refuse to work for higher wages.
Charity	An organisation that gives help to those in need.
Mistress	A woman who has a long-term relationship with a married or engaged man.
Dramatic Irony	When the audience knows something the characters do not.
Edwardian	Belonging to the reign of King Edward VII (1901-1910), often extended to 1912.
Socialism	A political theory that advocates collective ownership and social equality.
Snobbish	Showing exaggerated respect for high social class and contempt for those below.
Complacent	Smug and self-satisfied, unaware of dangers or wrongs.
Spectre	A ghost or haunting presence.
Conscience	The inner sense of what is right and wrong.
Allegory	A story in which characters and events represent moral or political ideas.
Infirmary	A small hospital, especially in a town.
Anguish	Severe mental suffering.

This concludes the HSLC Guru study guide for Chapter 10 of Class 11 Alternative English (ASSEB) — An Inspector Calls by J.B. Priestley. Reflect on the Inspector’s closing words: “We are members of one body. We are responsible for each other.” Priestley’s warning, written from the ruins of 1945, remains as urgent today as it was then. Continue your preparation with the other chapters of the ASSEB syllabus on HSLC Guru.