How class works in the play
Class is the system that makes all the cruelty in the play possible. The Birlings and Gerald sit near the top of it, wealthy, respectable and secure, while Eva Smith sits at the bottom, poor, powerless and dependent on their goodwill. Priestley shows again and again how that imbalance lets the comfortable classes use and discard people beneath them without ever having to think about it.
The play attacks two class attitudes in particular: the snobbish contempt that treats the poor as a lesser kind of person, and the capitalist logic that sees workers only as costs to be cut. Both allow the powerful to ignore their responsibility to the powerless. Priestley, a socialist writing in 1945, wants his audience to see the class system itself as the villain. Because the play is in copyright, I quote short lines only; use your copy of the script for the full text.
Key class quotes in An Inspector Calls
“these girls aren't cheap labour, they're people”
Where: Sheila, Act 1Sheila insists on the humanity of workers her father sees only as costs. Argue that Priestley gives her the play's central class insight, marking her as the character who grows past her family's prejudice.
“girls of that class”
Where: Mrs Birling, Act 2Class contempt in three words, reducing Eva to a type beneath notice. Use it to show how snobbery let the wealthy dismiss the suffering of the poor, and how Priestley exposes that attitude through Mrs Birling.
“she had only herself to blame”
Where: Mrs Birling, Act 2The habit of blaming the poor for their own suffering. It shows the powerful protecting their conscience by refusing to see their part. Argue that Priestley attacks this self-serving class attitude directly.
“It's better to ask for the earth than to take it”
Where: the Inspector, Act 2The Inspector reverses the family's class judgements: Eva only asked for fair treatment, while the Birlings took what they wanted. Use it to show Priestley challenging who really deserves respect.
“a hard-headed practical man of business”
Where: Mr Birling, Act 1Birling's pride in capitalist logic, valuing profit over people. It underpins his sacking of Eva for asking for fair pay. Argue that Priestley links class exploitation to the business attitudes Birling embodies.
“we're respectable citizens and not criminals”
Where: Gerald, Act 2Gerald uses class respectability as a shield against guilt. Argue that Priestley attacks exactly this assumption, showing that respectable, upper-class people can do real harm and hide behind their status.
How class develops across the play
Class is established from the first scene, in the Birlings' comfortable dining room and Mr Birling's delight that Sheila's marriage will connect his family to the higher-class Crofts. Their wealth and status are the ground everything else stands on. Then the Inspector arrives and begins to expose how that privilege was used against Eva.
Each confession is a class crime: Birling sacking a worker for asking for fair pay, Sheila abusing her power as a wealthy customer, Gerald using a poor woman as a mistress, Mrs Birling denying charity to someone she saw as beneath her. As the play goes on, the younger generation start to see the injustice, while the older cling to their class superiority even at the end. Priestley leaves the class hierarchy exposed but not yet reformed, a challenge thrown to his 1945 audience to change it.
Using class in the exam
Write about class as the system Priestley is attacking, not just a feature of the setting. Show how the Birlings' wealth and snobbery let them exploit Eva, and use Mrs Birling's 'girls of that class' against Sheila's 'they're people' to capture the divide between prejudice and conscience. Link each character's crime to their class power.
For a perceptive point, bring in Priestley's socialism and the contrast between 1912 and 1945, arguing that he wants his post-war audience to dismantle the class system that made Eva's death possible. Anchor the theme to the Mrs Birling and Eva Smith pages, and gather the wider evidence on the key quotes page.
Revise class alongside responsibility, the duty the wealthy ignore, and gender, since Eva suffers as both poor and female. See how they connect on the An Inspector Calls themes page and secure your lines with the key quotes page.