Act 1 — An Inspector Calls — Edexcel GCSE English Literature 1ET0
Edexcel GCSE English Literature · 1ET0
Act 1
The plot, part by part
What you need to know
The Birlings' celebration, Birling's speeches, the Inspector's arrival, Eva Smith's sacking and Sheila's confession.
Key quotations: 'pink and intimate', 'heavy-looking, rather portentous man', 'a hard-headed, practical man of business', 'unsinkable, absolutely unsinkable', 'a man has to make his own way', 'like bees in a hive', 'massiveness, solidity and purposefulness', 'But these girls aren't cheap labour', 'I'll never, never do it again to anybody'.
The doorbell that interrupts Birling's speech, and dramatic irony for a 1945 audience.
For Edexcel's essay on this text, link each point to its context and the writer's purpose, which earn as many marks as knowledge of the text (16 of 40); language analysis earns no marks there.
