Act 1 — An Inspector Calls — Eduqas GCSE English Literature C720
Eduqas GCSE English Literature · C720
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.
Eduqas's essay on this text marks your response and your analysis of language, form and structure, not context: use context only where it helps an interpretation, and treat the printed extract as a starting point for an essay on the whole play.
