Priestley sets the play in 1912 and delivers a powerful message about social responsibility. Our notes prepare your child to analyse the play for Edexcel 4ET1.
An Inspector Calls by J. B. Priestley is a play set for IGCSE and International GCSE Literature (Pearson Edexcel 4ET1, Cambridge International 0475, OxfordAQA 9275). The board decides the set texts and the years they are examined, and your school confirms them. Our teachers teach whichever text your child sits.
What it is
J. B. Priestley's three-act play takes place on a single evening in 1912, in the dining room of the prosperous Birling family in the fictional industrial town of Brumley. The Birlings are celebrating the engagement of daughter Sheila to Gerald Croft when Inspector Goole arrives to question them about the suicide of a young working-class woman, Eva Smith. One by one, each character is shown to have contributed to her downfall, through dismissal from work, misuse of power, or moral failure.
The Inspector leaves them with a warning about shared responsibility. After he goes, the family debates whether he was genuine, only for a telephone call to announce that a real inspector is on his way to ask the very same questions. Priestley wrote the play in 1945 but set it on the eve of great upheaval.
Themes and ideas to track
Social responsibility
The play's central message is that people are responsible for one another, not just for themselves. Priestley uses the Inspector to argue that a society divided into the privileged and the powerless cannot ignore the consequences of its actions. The Birlings' treatment of Eva becomes a test of this idea, and the ending insists the lesson cannot be avoided.
Class and inequality
Set among the wealthy Birlings, the play exposes how class shapes power and opportunity. Eva Smith, poor and without protection, is used and discarded by those above her. Priestley presents the complacency of the prosperous middle class and contrasts their comfort with the vulnerability of workers, urging the audience to question an unequal social order.
The generational divide
The younger Birlings, Sheila and Eric, accept their guilt and want to change, while their parents and Gerald retreat into denial once they doubt the Inspector was real. Priestley uses this divide to suggest that hope for a fairer society lies with the young, who are more willing to learn and take responsibility for their actions.
Gender and the treatment of women
Eva Smith's fate is shaped by men who hold power over her and by Mrs Birling's cold judgement. Priestley shows women as economically vulnerable and easily exploited, while Sheila's growing awareness marks a change in outlook. The play draws attention to how women were used, silenced and blamed within the society it depicts.
How the writer builds it
Priestley uses the tight conventions of a well-made play, a single set, continuous time and a family gathering interrupted by an outsider, and turns them towards a moral purpose. The Inspector functions as both interrogator and mouthpiece, driving the plot and voicing Priestley's ideas. Dramatic irony is central: because the play is set in 1912 but watched by a later audience, Arthur Birling's confident predictions about the future are exposed as foolish.
Priestley controls tension through carefully timed entrances and exits, the passing round of the photograph, and shifts in lighting that signal a change in mood. The cyclical ending, with a second inspector expected, denies the family escape and leaves the audience with the moral unresolved.
A teacher can practise essay planning on An Inspector Calls with your child in a one-hour trial.
How to write about it in the exam
Because this is a play, our teachers encourage students to write about it as drama, analysing structure, stage directions, the Inspector's role and how an audience responds, not simply as a story. Choose moments that answer the question and examine Priestley's methods and purpose, remembering the 1912 setting and the 1945 first performance. Describe key exchanges and the ending in your own words with brief, precise references.
Track how a character or idea changes across the three acts, and always link technique to Priestley's social message. A confident Edexcel answer argues a clear line and considers the play as a whole.
An exam-style question to practise
Explore how Priestley presents ideas about social responsibility in An Inspector Calls.
Plan three points before you write, with a short quotation for each. Then check your plan against the mark scheme section below.
More question angles
- How does Priestley use the character of the Inspector to convey his message?
- Explore the ways Priestley presents the differences between the older and younger generations.
- How does Priestley present the theme of class in An Inspector Calls?
How this maps to the mark scheme
Examiners mark Literature answers against assessment objectives. These are the skills the paper rewards. For Pearson Edexcel 4ET1, the objectives are summarised on our qualification page.
- AO1: Demonstrate a close knowledge and understanding of texts, maintaining a critical style and presenting an informed personal engagement
- AO2: Analyse the language, form and structure used by a writer to create meanings and effects
- AO3: Explore links and connections between texts
- AO4: Show understanding of the relationships between texts and the contexts in which they were written
For An Inspector Calls, build your argument around “Social responsibility” and “Class and inequality”. Support each point with a short quotation. Then analyse the writer's method, using the section above.
Keep context about J. B. Priestley brief and tied to the words on the page.
Read the text alongside these notes. This page is our own analysis and original teaching material. We quote at most a short attributed phrase where a point needs it, so keep your copy of the play open as you read.
Where to go next
Plan your essay with our guide to planning a literature essay, then see a worked answer in our literature essay structure model response. Browse more set-text notes or read about Literature in English tuition.
When you have written an answer on An Inspector Calls, a paid one-hour trial lesson lets the teacher who would continue mark it with you.