Act 2

An uninterrupted investigation

Act 2 of An Inspector Calls begins exactly where Act 1 ended: the Inspector is looking at Sheila and Gerald after Gerald has revealed that he knew Daisy Renton. The action remains in the Birlings’ dining room in Brumley on the same evening in spring 1912. Although the curtain has fallen, the characters have had no escape from the questioning. This continuity helps Priestley maintain pressure as the investigation moves from Gerald’s affair to Mrs Birling’s refusal of charity and finally towards Eric.

Eva never appears on stage. Instead, the audience learns about her through other people’s accounts and the Inspector’s questions. Their attitudes towards her therefore reveal their own character as well as explaining what happened to her.

Sheila wants understanding, not escape

Gerald tries to persuade Sheila to leave before he is questioned. His wish can be understood partly as concern for her distress, but it also protects him from having to describe his affair in front of his fiancée. When Sheila refuses, he accuses her of wanting to watch someone else suffer. This exposes the lack of trust beneath their apparently happy engagement.

The Inspector explains that Sheila needs to hear the rest because otherwise she may believe she alone caused Eva’s death. He tells them in Act 2, “If there’s nothing else, we’ll have to share our guilt.” Shared responsibility does not excuse Sheila: it places her wrongdoing within a sequence of harmful actions.

Gerald’s wish to protect Sheila displays paternalism: he treats her as someone who should be sheltered rather than allowed to decide what she needs to hear. It also exposes a class and gender double standard. When Gerald agrees that young women should be protected from disturbing things, the Inspector replies in Act 2, “Well, we know one young woman who wasn’t, don’t we?” A wealthy young woman is supposedly to be sheltered from unpleasant realities, while Eva has experienced those realities without protection. Priestley challenges the Edwardian expectation that a respectable young woman should remain ignorant rather than participate in difficult discussions.

Mrs Birling’s confidence meets Sheila’s changing outlook

Mrs Birling enters in Act 2 “briskly and self-confidently, quite out of key with the little scene that has just passed”. This stage direction makes her confidence visibly clash with the atmosphere of guilt and distress. Sheila understands the seriousness of the inquiry; her mother initially treats it as something beneath the family’s concern.

When Mrs Birling remarks on the Inspector’s influence over Sheila, he replies in Act 2: “We often do on the young ones. They’re more impressionable.” Here, being impressionable suggests an ability to learn and change, not simply weakness. Sheila increasingly accepts his view that social position does not remove moral responsibility. Priestley’s moral socialism values cooperation and concern for the wider community; Sheila’s development offers hope that these values can replace her parents’ defensiveness.

Mrs Birling begins the dismissive phrase “Girls of that class” in Act 2, but Sheila interrupts. She warns her mother not to “build up a kind of wall between us and that girl”. The imagined wall represents both social division and the family’s attempt to separate themselves from responsibility. The Inspector can break it down by exposing their actual connections to Eva.

Mrs Birling also tries to assert authority by mentioning her husband’s position as former Lord Mayor and magistrate. The Inspector refuses to be impressed. Meanwhile, Sheila reveals that Eric has been drinking heavily for two years, and Gerald confirms this. Mrs Birling’s shock shows that her certainty about her family is not based on knowing them well. This revelation also prepares the audience to recognise Eric in the later description of the baby’s father.

When Birling threatens to limit the Inspector’s freedom to question them, Sheila observes in Act 2 that “he’s giving us rope”, so that they will hang themselves. She recognises that their own answers expose them. This anticipates Mrs Birling’s interrogation: the Inspector will allow her to insist on a punishment before she realises whom she is condemning.

Gerald’s rescue of Daisy Renton

Gerald explains that he first met Daisy in March 1911 at the Palace music hall bar. In Act 2, he describes it as “a favourite haunt of women of the town”. This is a euphemism for prostitutes. Following the loss of her jobs, Eva’s presence there suggests that poverty has pushed her towards prostitution and exposed her to men who can exploit her vulnerability. The setting connects economic insecurity with the particular dangers faced by working-class women.

Alderman Meggarty was harassing Daisy, and Gerald intervened. He took her to the County Hotel, listened to her and arranged food when he discovered she was hungry. Two nights later, he learned that she had no money and was about to lose her room.

Gerald moved Daisy into rooms at Morgan Terrace belonging to his absent friend, Charlie Brunswick, and gave her money. In Act 2, he insists, “I didn’t install her there so that I could make love to her.” His stated motive is pity, not a planned exchange of accommodation for sex. Sheila later says that she believes he initially helped Daisy out of pity, so the play gives evidence for taking that kindness seriously.

Meggarty’s behaviour also undermines Mrs Birling’s assumptions about respectability. She is shocked that an alderman could behave in this way. Priestley exposes the difference between holding a prestigious public position and acting morally: social standing is not proof of decency.

Kindness does not make the relationship equal

Daisy became Gerald’s mistress: a woman having a sexual relationship with a man outside marriage. Gerald says in Act 2, “She was young and pretty and warm-hearted”, then adds that she was intensely grateful. He became the most important person in her life, but admits that he did not feel about her as she felt about him.

The relationship can therefore be read in two connected ways. Gerald genuinely rescued Daisy from immediate danger and deprivation, and gave her happiness. Yet his money and access to accommodation placed him in a much stronger position. Her gratitude and dependence helped make the affair possible, while he could return to his own secure life.

Sheila sarcastically calls him “the wonderful Fairy Prince” in Act 2. The fairy-tale image suggests a wealthy rescuer, but her sarcasm questions how much he enjoyed being adored. Gerald admits that he did enjoy it. Priestley complicates the rescue story: benevolence can coexist with unequal power and self-satisfaction.

Gerald ended the affair in the first week of September 1911 before leaving on business. Daisy had to leave the rooms, although he gave her enough money to last until the end of the year. According to the Inspector, she then spent about two months at a seaside place, remembering their time together. Her diary’s wish “just to make it last longer”, reported by the Inspector in Act 2, suggests how precious that happiness had been to her.

Sheila returns the ring

Before Gerald leaves for a walk, Sheila hands back her engagement ring. This stage action reverses her delighted acceptance of it in Act 1: the object that represented their secure future now marks a broken understanding between them.

Sheila does not simply reject everything Gerald has said. She respects his eventual honesty and acknowledges her own part in making Daisy desperate. Nevertheless, she says in Act 2, “We’d have to start all over again, getting to know each other”. The engagement cannot continue on its previous assumptions. Her willingness to judge Gerald fairly, while refusing to pretend nothing has changed, demonstrates increasing independence.

Charity controlled by prejudice

The Inspector next questions Mrs Birling about the Brumley Women’s Charity Organization. She chaired its interviewing committee when Eva appealed for help two weeks before the investigation. Eva was pregnant, almost penniless and without support.

Eva initially called herself Mrs Birling and claimed that a husband had deserted her. Mrs Birling treated the use of her name as an insult. She admits that this prejudiced her against the application and that she used her influence to have assistance refused.

Mrs Birling’s defence is that the committee must investigate claims and help deserving applicants. Eva’s false initial story gives her a reason to doubt the account. However, the Inspector challenges her conclusion: personal offence and class assumptions have displaced sympathy for an urgently vulnerable woman. Calling the refusal her duty does not make it morally right.

The deeper prejudice emerges when Mrs Birling cannot believe that Eva refused further money from the baby’s father because she suspected it was stolen. In Act 2, she exclaims, “As if a girl of that sort would ever refuse money!” She assumes that poverty prevents moral principles. Eva’s reported refusal instead suggests integrity and a wish to keep the young man out of further trouble.

Priestley uses this encounter to question charity that depends on wealthy people’s approval of the poor. For a post-war audience considering how to build a fairer society, the episode makes a case for care based on human need rather than social superiority.

Mrs Birling closes the trap on Eric

Mrs Birling insists in Act 2, “I accept no blame for it at all.” She expresses sorrow about Eva’s death but refuses to recognise her own contribution to it. This distinguishes feeling sorry about an outcome from accepting responsibility for an action.

She repeats her advice to Eva in Act 2: “Go and look for the father of the child. It’s his responsibility.” The father does have responsibilities, but the Inspector insists that this does not cancel hers. Someone else’s wrongdoing is not a reason to refuse help that she has the power to give.

The account of the father describes a young man who drinks too much and has supplied stolen money. Together with Eric’s established drinking and unexplained departure, these details enable Sheila and the audience to suspect his involvement before his parents do.

Mrs Birling demands that the father be punished severely and compelled to confess publicly. Sheila repeatedly tries to stop her, but Mrs Birling dismisses her warnings. This creates dramatic irony: Mrs Birling believes she is directing blame away from herself, while the audience can see her condemning her own son.

The Inspector prolongs the moment by saying that he is waiting to do his duty. Only then do the parents begin to understand. Mrs Birling’s confidence becomes fear when the judgement she has applied to an unknown young man threatens her family. Priestley tests whether her moral standards are consistent when privilege no longer protects those closest to her.

The cliffhanger turns suspicion into a stage image

At the end of Act 2, the Inspector raises his hand, the front door is heard, and everyone looks towards the entrance. Eric appears “looking extremely pale and distressed”. The stage direction then states, “Curtain falls quickly.”

Eric has not yet given his account. His appearance strongly reinforces the suspicion that he is the father, but the details of his involvement remain unresolved. The quick curtain freezes him under the others’ questioning stares, creating a cliffhanger that carries the pressure into Act 3. The ordering matters: Mrs Birling has committed herself to punishment before Eric can explain.

Turning evidence into an argument

For Edexcel’s post-1914 essay, knowledge and interpretation of the text carry 16 marks, context carries 16, and accurate written expression carries 8. AO2 language, form and structure analysis earns no marks in this question. Use your understanding of dialogue and dramatic choices to develop a relevant argument about characters, events and ideas, connecting these to context and Priestley’s purpose.

A paragraph about Mrs Birling’s judgement might develop that connection like this:

Priestley exposes the danger of Mrs Birling’s belief that her family stands apart from the people she judges. In Act 2, she demands that the unborn child’s father confess publicly, only to discover that her demands threaten Eric. Her earlier ignorance of his drinking helps explain why she fails to recognise him in Eva’s account, while Sheila’s warnings show that her daughter understands the situation more clearly. In the class-conscious society of 1912, Mrs Birling assumes that her status gives her the authority to judge others, yet the investigation reveals wrongdoing within her own supposedly respectable household. By making her condemn her own son, Priestley challenges the separation between privileged families and vulnerable outsiders and urges his post-war audience to apply moral responsibility consistently.

Recall the sequence

• Sheila stays to understand the shared guilt; Mrs Birling enters confidently and ignores her warnings.
• Gerald met Daisy in March 1911 at the Palace bar, associated with prostitution. He rescued her from Meggarty, then provided rooms and money. Their affair ended in early September.
• Sheila returns the ring: she respects Gerald’s honesty, but their relationship must be reconsidered.
• Mrs Birling used her influence to refuse the pregnant Eva charity two weeks before the inquiry.
• She demands punishment for the father; Sheila recognises the danger. Eric enters pale and distressed, and the curtain falls quickly.

Evidence and meaning — all Act 2

• Inspector: “We often do on the young ones. They’re more impressionable.” → openness to change.
• Sheila: “build up a kind of wall between us and that girl” → class division cannot erase responsibility.
• Sheila: “he’s giving us rope”, so that they will hang themselves → their own answers expose their wrongdoing.
• Gerald: “I didn’t install her there so that I could make love to her.” → stated initial kindness; later dependence complicates the rescue.
• Gerald: “She was young and pretty and warm-hearted” → attraction and unequal emotional investment.
• Sheila: “the wonderful Fairy Prince” → sarcastic challenge to Gerald’s enjoyment of being adored.
• Mrs Birling: “Girls of that class” and “As if a girl of that sort would ever refuse money!” → prejudice prevents recognition of Eva’s integrity.
• Mrs Birling: “I accept no blame for it at all.” → sorrow without acceptance of responsibility.
• Mrs Birling: “Go and look for the father of the child. It’s his responsibility.” → shifts blame rather than accepting shared duty.

Essential distinctions

Gerald: genuine help and affection can coexist with unequal power and harm.

Sheila and Mrs Birling: willingness to learn contrasts with confidence, prejudice and denial.

The trap: Eric’s drinking and the father’s description foreshadow the revelation; Mrs Birling’s unwitting condemnation creates dramatic irony.