An Inspector Calls: Overview (AQA GCSE English Literature)

An Inspector Calls: Overview

The An Inspector Calls question is part of Paper 2, Section A of your GCSE. For this, you are required to write one essay-length answer to one set question. This can seem daunting at first, but this page contains some helpful information, and links to more detailed revision note pages, that will enable you to aim for the highest grade. This page includes:

• Who was J.B. Priestley?

• An Inspector Calls plot summary

• A brief overview of what is required in the exam

• An Inspector Calls characters

• An Inspector Calls context

• An Inspector Calls themes

• An Inspector Calls quotes

• Top tips for the highest grade

Who was J.B. Priestley?

John Boyton Priestley was an English novelist, playwright, screenwriter and broadcaster. Priestley was born in Bradford, England on 13th September 1894 and died at the age of 89 on the 14th August 1984. Priestley’s career as a playwright began in the 1930s and theatre became the form for which he was most renowned. 

An Inspector Calls is Priestley’s best-known and most-performed play and was written in 1945. 

Many of Priestley's plays were associated with 'drawing room' theatre which emerged during the Victorian period, whereby the events occur in a single room which would have been intended to be recreated in one’s own house. This genre of plays was developed as a result of the widespread practice of entertaining visitors at home during this time and is clearly evident in An Inspector Calls, whereby all of the action takes place in the Birlings’ dining room. Priestley was also interested in subverting narrative structures and in the theories of time and An Inspector Calls is typically seen as one of his 'Time Plays', in which the characters are encouraged to look back at their past actions.

Social responsibility in An Inspector Calls is a recurrent theme throughout many of Priestley’s plays and it is one of the most prevalent themes within An Inspector Calls, with the role of the Inspector used to highlight that all actions have consequences. For further ideas about this theme and others explored in the play, please see the An Inspector Calls: Themes page.

An Inspector Calls plot summary

An Inspector Calls is a three-act play set in the dining room of the Birlings, an affluent family living within the fictional and industrial city of Brumley, in the north of England. The play is set in 1912, just two years before the First World War. Inspector Goole is the stranger who visits the affluent Birling family and confronts them with their complicity in the suicide of a young woman named Eva Smith. 

Inspector Goole arrives just as the Birlings are celebrating Sheila Birling and Gerald Croft's engagement. While the Inspector informs that a young woman committed suicide by drinking disinfectant, the family is bewildered as to how they are connected. As the plot progresses, each character begins to realise their connection to Eva, and as the play concludes and the mysterious Inspector departs, an ominous phone call notifies them that another police inspector is on his way. For a more detailed summary, please see the An Inspector Calls: Plot Summary page.

How is An Inspector Calls assessed in the exam?

• Your GCSE Paper 2 requires you to answer four questions in 2hr 15min. Within that time, you have approximately 45 minutes to plan, write and check your An Inspector Calls essay

• Paper 2 is worth 96 marks and accounts for 60% of your overall GCSE grade

• The An Inspector Calls essay is worth 34 marks in total, because it also includes 4 marks for spelling, punctuation and grammar

• Section A of Paper 2 contains the An Inspector Calls question and you are required to answer one question on the play from a choice of two 

• It is a closed-book exam, which means you will not have access to a copy of the text in your exam (and there is no printed extract from the text on your question paper, unlike in Paper 1)

• You will be asked a question that asks you to analyse and write in detail about an aspect of An Inspector Calls

• Your answer will need to address the play as a whole

For a much more detailed guide on answering the An Inspector Calls question, please see our revision notes on How to Answer the Modern Prose and Drama Essay Question.

An Inspector Calls characters

The characters you should focus on when revising An Inspector Calls are:

• Arthur Birling

• Sybil Birling

• Sheila Birling

• Eric Birling

• Gerald Croft

• Inspector Goole

• Eva Smith

When considering Priestley’s play, or any other text, it is critical to understand that characters are deliberate inventions made by a writer for a purpose. These characters frequently represent concepts or belief systems, and a writer, such as Priestley, uses them to explore these ideas and views. For more details on the characters in An Inspector Calls, please see the An Inspector Calls: Characters revision notes page.

An Inspector Calls context

At GCSE, it can be difficult to understand what context actually is. Examiners define context as the ideas and perspectives addressed by a writer through their text, not as historical information or facts and details about a writer. Therefore, for the An Inspector Calls context you should not write information about England in 1912, or facts about Priestley’s life, but instead refer to ideas about:

• Capitalism and Socialism 

• Responsibility

• Class

• Gender

Lots of these ideas and perspectives are universal, so your own opinions of them are valid, and will be rewarded in an exam. For a detailed breakdown of the contextual topics listed above, see the An Inspector Calls: Context page.

An Inspector Calls themes

Understanding the themes in An Inspector Calls is one of the best approaches any student can take when revising the play. This is because to get the highest mark on your exam, you need to take what examiners call a “conceptualised approach”: a detailed and perceptive exploration of Priestley’s ideas and intentions. The key themes in An Inspector Calls are:

• Responsibility

• Capitalism versus Socialism

• Generational divide

• Guilt 

• Class 

• Gender

There are of course more themes than just those listed above that are investigated by Priestley in An Inspector Calls, and you are encouraged to explore these too. However, the above list makes a great place to start, and detailed breakdowns of each of these themes can be found on our An Inspector Calls: Themes page.

An Inspector Calls quotes

Although you are given credit for including quotations from An Inspector Calls in your answer, it is not a requirement of the exam. In fact, examiners say that “references” to the rest of the play are just as valid as direct quotations: this is when students pinpoint individual moments in the play, rather than quoting what the characters say. In order to select references really successfully, it is extremely important that you know the play itself very well, including the order of the events that take place in the play. This detailed act-by-act breakdown of the plot will help you to revise the chronology of An Inspector Calls.

However, it can also be useful to revise a few quotations from the play that can be used in a variety of essays on different themes and characters. For an analysis of each of these quotations, see our An Inspector Calls: Key Quotations page.

Top tips for the highest grade

Please see our revision pages on the modern text exam for guides on:

• Structuring your An Inspector Calls essay

• An Inspector Calls methods and techniques

• How to include context in the An Inspector Calls essay

• Understanding the An Inspector Calls mark scheme

• An Inspector Calls model answer