Key Themes & Exam Technique
Theme: Responsibility
Responsibility is the play’s dominant theme. Every character is shown to have contributed to Eva Smith’s death, and the Inspector’s purpose is to make each one accept their share. Birling sacked her; Sheila had her fired; Gerald used and abandoned her; Mrs Birling rejected her plea for help; Eric assaulted her and stole to support her. No single action killed Eva — it was the cumulative weight of an entire society’s indifference.
Priestley draws a clear distinction between two kinds of responsibility. The first is personal: each Birling must accept what they individually did wrong. The second is collective: the Inspector’s line “We are members of one body. We are responsible for each other” demands that society as a whole takes care of its most vulnerable members. Birling’s philosophy — “a man has to mind his own business” — represents the rejection of collective responsibility. The play’s entire structure exists to demolish that philosophy.
Personal responsibility: each character’s individual actions toward Eva (“I know I’m to blame” — Sheila). Collective responsibility: society’s duty to protect the vulnerable (“We are members of one body. We are responsible for each other” — Inspector). Priestley argues that both are essential: you cannot have a just society without individuals who accept their own guilt AND a system that protects people like Eva.
Theme: Class
Class is the mechanism through which responsibility is avoided. The Birlings feel entitled to treat Eva badly because she is working class. Birling treats her as a labour cost. Mrs Birling refers to “girls of that class” as if they are a different species. Gerald’s relationship with Daisy Renton is only possible because the class system gives him power over her. Even Sheila’s act at Milwards depends on the shop manager’s deference to a wealthy customer.
Priestley shows that the class system is not just unfair — it is actively destructive. It allows the powerful to exploit the powerless with impunity, and it prevents empathy by creating a psychological distance between “us” and “them.” Mrs Birling cannot help Eva because she literally cannot see her as a fellow human being. The class lens distorts everything. The Inspector’s role is to strip away that lens and force the Birlings to see Eva as Sheila already does: not cheap labour, but a person.
The generational divide is Priestley’s structural expression of hope. The older generation — Arthur and Sybil — cannot change. They are too deeply embedded in the class system, too invested in their status, and too emotionally closed to feel genuine remorse. When the Inspector is discredited, they immediately celebrate. Sybil insists she has nothing to be ashamed of. Birling calls the evening “moonshine.”
The younger generation — Sheila and Eric — can change, and do. Sheila says: “You’re pretending everything’s just as it was before.” Eric insists: “You lot may be letting yourselves out nicely, but I can’t.” They accept moral responsibility regardless of consequences. Priestley writes this divide as a message to his 1945 audience: the old world (represented by the older Birlings) failed. The new world must be built by a generation willing to accept responsibility. The 1945 election, in which Labour defeated Churchill, was precisely this moment of generational change.
Theme: Gender and Exploitation
Eva Smith’s journey through the play maps the limited options available to working-class women in 1912. She is a factory worker, a shop assistant, a kept woman, a charity applicant, and finally a suicide. At every stage, men control her fate: Birling fires her, Gerald possesses her, Eric assaults her. Even Mrs Birling, who should understand gender vulnerability, uses her institutional power to reject Eva. Priestley shows that gender and class exploitation are intertwined: Eva is vulnerable not just because she is working class, but because she is a working-class woman in a world run by men of higher status.
The play also critiques the double standards applied to men and women. Gerald’s affair is treated as unfortunate but understandable; Eva is the one who suffers. Eric’s drinking and violence are seen as youthful indiscretions; Eva bears the consequences alone. Priestley exposes a society in which men are forgiven and women are destroyed.
Eva’s journey — factory worker, shop assistant, mistress, charity applicant, suicide — maps the narrow and dangerous paths available to working-class women in Edwardian Britain. At every stage, her fate is controlled by someone with more power: employer, customer, lover, committee chair. Priestley uses her story to argue that gender and class exploitation are structural problems, not individual failings.
Theme: Morality and Conscience
The play asks a simple but profound question: does it matter whether you get caught? After Gerald proves the Inspector may have been a fraud, the family splits. Birling and Mrs Birling believe that if there are no legal consequences, they have done nothing wrong. Sheila and Eric believe that the moral reality — what they did to Eva — exists regardless of whether a real inspector punishes them. Priestley sides firmly with the young: moral conscience should be your guide, not fear of punishment.
This is the play’s ultimate message to its audience. You do not need an Inspector to tell you what is right. You should not wait until a girl dies to examine your own behaviour. The responsibility is yours — every day, in every interaction with the people whose lives are “intertwined with” your own.
Your drama question on An Inspector Calls is a single source-based task worth 40 marks. An extract is printed on the paper, and one answer has to work closely on that passage and range across the rest of the play. It tests AO1 (understanding and response), AO2 (analysis of language, form and structure) and AO4, which rewards accurate written English. Context is not assessed on this question. You sit the paper without the play in front of you, so learn your quotations.
For close extract work, stay close to the passage. Analyse specific words, phrases, and techniques. Use short embedded quotations. Identify the method before analysing its effect: “Priestley uses the metaphor of…” For wider-text work, range across the whole play. Cover at least two or three different moments from different acts. Use topic sentences: “Elsewhere, Priestley presents this theme when…” Never add a separate context paragraph, because background earns nothing on its own here; use it only where it sharpens a point about the writing.
Pulling It Together: How Themes Connect
In the exam, the strongest answers show how themes interconnect. Responsibility connects to class (the Birlings avoid responsibility because they see the working class as beneath concern). Class connects to gender (Eva’s exploitation is worse because she is both working class and female). The generational divide connects to morality (the young develop conscience; the old do not). Priestley designed these themes to reinforce each other, so an answer that links them demonstrates the deepest understanding of the play.