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An Inspector Calls · AQA GCSE

An Inspector Calls Themes

Written by a 160/160 student
Quick answer: The major themes of An Inspector Calls are social responsibility, class, gender and generational conflict. Responsibility is the play's central argument, the Inspector's belief that we are all answerable for each other against Birling's selfish individualism. Class and gender shape who suffers, and the generational split shows who can learn. Learn the themes together and you can answer almost any question.
Responsibility Quotes, An Inspector Calls'We are members of one body', the play's central message.Class Quotes, An Inspector CallsEdwardian class division and Priestley's socialist critique.Gender Quotes, An Inspector CallsHow women are treated by the Birlings, and by 1912 society.

Every theme in An Inspector Calls flows from one event: the death of Eva Smith, and the question of who is responsible for it. Priestley uses that single death to argue about how society should work. This page surveys the big themes and links to the deeper pages where you need the quotes.

Social responsibility

This is the heart of the play. Priestley uses the Inspector to argue that we are 'members of one body', responsible for one another, against Mr Birling's belief that a man should look after himself and his own. The chain of guilt for Eva's death proves the Inspector's point: when everyone acts selfishly, the vulnerable are destroyed. Go deeper on the responsibility quotes page.

Class

Class is the system that makes the cruelty possible. The wealthy Birlings treat the working-class Eva as cheap labour or 'girls of that class', using and dismissing her without a thought. Priestley, a socialist, attacks both the snobbery that looks down on the poor and the capitalist logic that sees workers only as costs. Explore it on the class quotes page.

Gender

Women in 1912 are expected to be decorative, obedient and focused on marriage, while men hold the power and escape the consequences of their behaviour. Eva suffers doubly as a poor woman used by wealthy men, and Sheila's growth quietly challenges the passive role her society hands her. See the gender quotes page.

Generational conflict

Priestley divides his characters by whether they accept responsibility, and the line falls between the generations. The younger characters, Sheila and Eric, are changed by the evening and accept their guilt, while the older Mr and Mrs Birling deny it and slip back into complacency. The young carry Priestley's hope that society can learn; the old are his warning that it might not.

✍ Chloe's Grade 9 tip: Do not write about a theme as a fixed thing. Write about how Priestley develops it and, above all, how he uses the play as a message to his 1945 audience. The context is the theme in An Inspector Calls, so weaving in Priestley's socialism is what lifts an answer into the top band.

When the themes are clear, anchor them to people on the character pages, and learn the lines that prove each one on the An Inspector Calls key quotes page.