You Say, We Play
• One person will come to the front.
• You (the callers), will try to get the
person at the front to say the key term
that appears behind their backs. You
are not allowed to use the key term.
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oV
DWUmVFGRY
Arthur Birling
Sheila
Gerald Croft
Eric
Objectives
By the end of today’s lesson you will be able to:
Recap the main
characters and
themes in An
Inspector Calls.
ATTITUDES TO THE
LOWER CLASS:
To this character, Eva
was...
ATTITUDES TO THE
UPPER CLASS:
WHO??
At the start of the play,
this character was:
cheap labour
keen to be knighted to
cement his hard-fought
rise to the upper class
someone who could be fired
out of spite
happy spending a lot of time
in expensive shops
a mistress who could be
discarded at will
prepared to marry Sheila,
despite her lower social
position
easy sex at the end of a
drunken night out
awkward about his 'publicschool-and-Varsity' life
a presumptuous upstart
socially superior to her
husband, and embarrassed
at his gaffes
April 1912
Sept 1910
Remember Mapping
the Plot?
R.I.P Eva Smith
Consequence
Motivation
Name:
Consequence
Action
Motivation
Mar 1912
Action
Arthur
Sybil
Sheila
Eric Gerald
Action
Action
Motivation
Action
Jan 1911
Motivation
Consequence
Motivation
Consequence
Dec 1911
Sept 1911
Consequence
Eva Smith’s Diary
• Inspector Goole tells the Birling family
that he has found Eva Smith’s diary.
Write diary entries for the critical
periods of Eva’s life between 1910
and 1912. Take into account not only
the events that are revealed during
the play but also Eva’s state of mind
and her changing moods.
What’s her role in the play?
Eva Smith/Daisy
Renton represents
the lower class, in
the same way the
Birlings represent the
upper-middle class.
Their treatment of her
is a comment on the
whole of society at
the time.
Eva Smith/Daisy Renton
• As we never ever see this character in the play
itself, can she be described as a character at
all?
• Is she even the same girl?
• Why doesn’t Priestly give rher a voice?
• Why does the inspector hide the photo?
Eva Smith’s Diary
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Choose a date from the list below, and create a diary entry.
August 1910: Birling’s employees return from the summer holidays and ask
for a pay rise.
End of September 1910: Eva Smith sacked – along with four or five others.
December, 1910: Eva Smith started at Milwards.
End of January, 1911: Customer complained about Eva.
Beginning February, 1911: Eva Smith sacked from Millwards. Eva
changed her name to Daisy Renton.
March 1911: Gerald meets Daisy Renton. They meet again two nights later.
The affair begins.
September 1911: The affair with Gerald ends first week of September.
Daisy Renton went away to a seaside place for about two months.
November 1911: Eric meets Daisy Renton. Meets her a second time two
weeks later. Their relationship begins.
Spring 1912: Meeting of the interviewing committee of the Brumley
Women’s Charity Organisation two weeks before the play opens.
Review – Just a minute
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Gerald
Arthur
Sheila
Sybil
Eric
Society
• You need to talk for as long as you can about how
each is responsible for the death of Eva Smith without
repeating or hesitating. When you run out of things to
say, repeat or hesitate, next speaker goes. The
challenge is to talk for one minute solidly. You get a
ten Positive Points for quotations.