“Please, sir, an inspector's called.” ACT ONE “Please, sir, an inspector's called.”

Dramatic Irony By setting the play in the past, Priestley can make use of dramatic irony – the audience knows what happens after the events in the play but obviously the characters don’t. Why would a writer use this device? What kind of effect does it have on an audience?

Revisionpedia Kempner5.wikispaces.com In charge of: Summary Quotes Analysis Revisionpedia Mr Birling Mrs Birling Sheila Birling Eric Birling Gerald Croft Eva Smith Inspector Goole Social Responsibility Class System Women's Right Capitalism Socialism Generational Differences Act 1 Quotes Act 2 Quotes Act 3 Quotes J.B. Priestly Dramatic Tension Audience in 1945

Eva Smith / Daisy Renton Arthur Birling Head of Birling family, capitalist businessman Sybil Birling Birling’s snobby wife Inspector Goole A police inspector sent to investigate Eva Smith’s suicide Eva Smith / Daisy Renton A young working-class woman with connections to the Birlings Gerald Croft Sheila’s fiancé, and son of Birling’s business rival Sheila Birling Birling’s daughter and Gerald’s fiancée Eric Birling The youngest Birling

Act One Stage Directions Mr Arthur Birling Gerald Croft Sheila Birling Mrs Sybil Birling Edna – The Birlings’ maid Eric Birling Inspector Goole

First Impressions Arthur: a heavy-looking, rather portentous man in this middle fifties with fairly easy manners but rather provincial in this speech. Sybil: about fifty, a rather cold woman and her husband's social superior. Gerald: an attractive chap about thirty, rather too manly to be a dandy but very much the well-bred young man-about-town. Sheila: a pretty girl in her early twenties, very pleased with life and rather excited. Eric: in his early twenties, not quite at ease, half shy, half assertive. Annotate the descriptions of the main characters

Inspector Goole The Inspector need not be a big man but he creates at once an impression of massiveness, solidity and purposefulness. He is a man in his fifties, dressed in a plain darkish suit of the period. He speaks carefully, weightily, and has a disconcerting habit of looking hard at the person he addresses before actually speaking.