An Inspector Calls Lesson 3 Big Idea and Techniques

Write for 10 minutes on the choices that Priestley has made and the possible effect on the audience at the end of Act II and the beginning of Act III. Use some of the vocabulary in the box to help you explain your ideas.

Further research into the techniques ands ideas presented in Act II There are key quotations around the room Take your felt tip pen Read each quotation carefully and write your response to each as you go around. What ideas is Priestley exploring with that quotation? Be prepared to discuss your ideas on one of them with the class

Together we will research and write up ideas on: The ways that Priestley presents the character of Sheila. What ideas is he exploring through this characterisation? First individual thoughts placemat. (Use the script to help you) 5 mins Consensus – discuss the ideas and place the best ones in the centre

Improve this B-grade work.. This student needs an A in English and they’vve gone and written at B-grade – the idiot! Improve this analysis of Sheila’s presentation and purpose in the play by including further supportive quotations and more developed analysis, particularly of language and writer’s intention.

Sheila Birling is described in the opening stage directions as a very pretty girl in her mid-twenties, 'excitable and very pleased with life‘. Priestley presents her initially as a playful, self-centred girl who loves attention. Throughout the play, she becomes the most sympathetic family member, showing remorse and guilt on hearing the news of her part in the girl's downfall, and encouraging the family (mostly unsuccessfully) to accept responsibility for their part in Eva/Daisy’s death. As the play progresses she is revealed not to be as naive as originally thought; she has her suspicions about her fiancé’s infidelity. Despite continual criticism from her father, she becomes more rebellious toward her parents, supporting her brother against them and assisting Goole in his interrogations. By the end of the play, she represents the younger generation's protests against the morality of the older generation and seems the most responsive to Goole’s Socialist views about moral responsibility towards others. Priestley uses Sheila to show that even though most wealthy people are snobbish and don't care about anybody but themselves there are exceptions: Sheila is one. At the end of the play, Sheila is much wiser. She can now judge her parents and Gerald from a new perspective, but the greatest change has been in herself: her social conscience has been awakened and she is aware of her responsibilities. The Sheila who had a girl dismissed from her job for a trivial reason has vanished forever.