An Inspector Calls Context: 10 Facts for Grades 5 to 9

Added: 2026-05-18

[00:00:00]Context is so cool. I'm going to teach you what you need for each grade and how to apply it so you get the marks. At number one, the Titanic. It is unsinkable. Absolutely unsinkable, says Berlin. He's speaking just before it sinks in April 1912. Obviously, this discredits him and it discredits his capitalist view. That's important because many people in the audience would agree with Berling's idea that we are all responsible for each other and our family. That seems quite reasonable, doesn't it? And so Priestley needs to discredit his view by showing that he knows nothing. He is ignorant. The dramatic irony is important. The Titanic also symbolizes the fate or the fate that priestly hopes the upper classes will have. Gloug gug glo. It's going to sink. Next we have the first world war known at the time as the war to end all wars. Yes, it was so horrifying that everyone thought nothing like this could happen again. That of course is also dramatic irony because it finished in 1918.

[00:01:22]21 years later there's another one. The Second World War. And obviously all the audience they've lived through it. So when Berlin says the Germans don't want no war, everybody knows he is a buffoon, an idiot, a simpleton. Now we get to number three. You need to know the Christian context of the play. We are members of one body. These are the inspector's words. And what he means is we're all connected to each other. We all have social responsibility towards each other. But where do these words come from? They come from the Christian service at mass. This is what the vicar in tones. We are all members of one body in Christ. What's the point of that?

[00:02:12]Most of the audience of course are Christian. And Priestley's point is if you are a Christian, you cannot be a capitalist. You can only be a socialist because only socialism matches your Christian values. That is enough to get you grade five easily, possibly dipping into grade six as long as you apply it to the question. There are two aspects of socialism which get you into grade six and seven. So we have the socialist landslide, the Labour Party landslide victory in 1945. Now this was amazing because it followed on from Churchill the conservative.

[00:03:00]He's the guy who supports the capitalists. He's led Britain to this fantastic and many would have said unlikely victory and the country they get rid of him. It's incredible.

[00:03:14]The reason they get rid of him is Priestley's message. They can see that the conservatives, the capitalists have led the country to war, not just once in the First World War, but twice with the Second. and they want a socialist government. Now, lots of students comment on my video and say, "Hang on, Mr. Sales. This play wasn't performed until 1946, so you can't say it was trying to get people to vote for a socialist government." But all those people are completely wrong because it was supposed to be performed in the West End in 1945 before the election, but the theaters were shut.

[00:03:59]Poor old priestly didn't know this in advance and then he had to put it on in Moscow of all places 1946.

[00:04:06]But that was not his intention and therefore my context proves Priestley was trying to persuade the audience to vote for a socialist government. Shazam. Then we have the idea of the welfare state. The welfare state is what we have now. It created the National Health Service so that you don't have to go out and pay for health care or to see a doctor. This was a revolution.

[00:04:32]This was a gift from the rich to the poor through taxation. The idea was we'll tax the rich. We'll use that money to benefit the poor. The other thing that came out of this, of course, was welfare for unemployment benefit. You couldn't get a job. The state was going to support you while you looked for a job. How is the welfare state referenced by Priestley? Well, through civil burling and her charity. She represents what the state should do. And when she refuses to help the needy because she's prejudiced against the working classes, girls of that class, Priestley demonstrates that without a welfare state, there will always be class prejudice. Therefore, you can now relate it at context to the meaning. Now, we come to grade seven, the cardinal sins, the deadly sins. There were seven of them. We're going to focus on just four.

[00:05:41]We have lust, Eric and Gerald, their lust for Eva, Daisy Renton. Then we have greed. That is Berling. Give me the money. That's Berling. Then we have envy. That is Sheila being jealous of Eva's beauty and getting her sacked. And then we have pride. Mrs. Berling and her pride in her own class and her prejudice against everybody else. Great. Does that get you any marks? Not yet. With all context, you have to relate it to the meaning. And the meaning is this. The play is in the tradition of a Christian morality play. The morality play was here are the lessons that Jesus taught us. We'll create a play to demonstrate those lessons.

[00:06:36]So we had characters who were called lust and greed and envy and pride and they came on as villainous beings in the play. This of course links us to the Christian message we had earlier of we are members of one body to appeal to the Christian audience. And that is why these references are now combining to give you at least grade seven. What is next? We have a Marxist critique. So Karl Marx comes along. He realizes that the rich are getting richer. And what's worse, they're getting richer from the work that poor people do. Poor people are being paid a very low wage. They're being forced to work in inhuman conditions in these new factories and they're being exploited for money. This, of course, is what we get at the beginning of the play with Eva. She is a symbol of that industrial capitalist exploitation of the worker. But Carl Mars goes further. He says war is the logical end point of capitalism because a capitalist economy that's all about wealth needs growing markets. You have to sell more to make more. What is going to make people buy more of your products when you've already got those products?

[00:08:06]We've invented the fashion industry so that people wear something ridiculous every month. We've invented phones that get upgraded all the time so we buy something new or Apple products which suddenly become obsolete after 2 years because they stop working. This is how capitalism works now. But Marxist critique says war, that's what you need to make the big bucks. If all the society goes to war, everyone needs to spend money on a huge amount of things to fund the war effort. Businessmen cash in. Kachching king king. They make a fortune. Now, the quote that leads us to that is when Berling refers to himself as a hard-headed man of business.

[00:09:01]This language comes directly from a former prime minister, Sir Stanley Baldwin, who was prime minister not just once but twice because bold people are awesome. So, Sir Stanley Baldwin was using this phrase to accuse the businessman who made loads of money out of the First World War. It was called profitering. Profite meant not just to make a profit, but to make a profit out of war, out of the suffering of others.

[00:09:33]And therefore, this language says to the audience straight away, hey, I'm giving you a Marxist critique of capitalism because you need a socialist solution to stop these rich people to continue exploiting us. Then we have the names.

[00:09:54]Priestley could have called his characters anything, but he chose to use symbolism and irony. irony that's always at the top of the mark scheme. So, here we go. Arthur Berlin, remember King Arthur? He was all about fairness and uniting the country in all the Arthurian myths and legends. So, Arthur is a great hero. This, of course, is incredibly ironic because Arthur Berling begins as our first villain in the play. The irony continues with Cibil, his wife, because in Greek myth, the Sibbles had the gift of wisdom. They symbolized wisdom. This is the opposite of Mrs. Berling, who doesn't even know that her son is an alcoholic and obviously doesn't know that she's condemning her grandchild when she refuses money at the charity. dramatic irony for the educated audience. Then we have Eva. Eva is reminiscent of Eve. It brings us back to that Christian context of the play.

[00:11:10]Eve is the mother of all of us. Eva, she represents all of us if we're workingass anyway, doesn't she? The millions and millions of Eva Smiths. But he links that to the original mother of humanity.

[00:11:27]This is a way of raising the status and importance of the working classes. Then we have her alter ego, her nond plume, the name that she chooses for herself in disguise, Daisy Renton. As a daisy, she is a flower to be plucked. Gerald comments on how beautiful she is. And this means he literally plucks her from the palace bar, takes her to his friend's flat, and then treats her as an ornament, an object. But what happens to a flower when you pick it? It starts to die. The beauty is short-lived. See where Priestly is going? You think I'm making this up? It's just a coincidence.

[00:12:16]Oh, no. Because then we have the surname Renton.

[00:12:22]Rent. Daisy is for rent. This is how Gerald thinks. This is how society treats these poor young women. They are to be exploited. In fact, Gerald gets rid of Daisy the moment the rent is due.

[00:12:41]How does that work? September, his friend comes back from Canada and says, I need my flatback. And Gerald goes, "Yeah, fair play. I have paid off old Daisy Renton. I've given her a little bit of money, but actually the fun and sex we had wasn't worth me paying for my own little flat to put her in. She is not even worth the rent. Daisy Rent on."

[00:13:11]Then we come to the most important name in the play, Ghoul. Why does Priestly give the inspector the name of a ghost?

[00:13:22]It is a clue. It isn't to definitely say, "Hey, the inspector, he's supernatural." But it is a possibility he introduces. Why? Because the ending is going to give us supernatural forces.

[00:13:39]The ending is going to give us this circular structure where there is a new phone call ring ring and a new inspector because there has been a new death. The idea that history repeats itself is not supernatural. The supernatural element is none of that happens until the Burlings refuse to learn the inspector's lesson. It is as though that future is held and it won't happen if they learn the lesson. But they don't and so it happens. History repeats itself which you remember is like the first and second world war history repeating. So there is a supernatural element but there is more.

[00:14:28]So what is this supernatural tale in which a ghost takes a capitalist, a sinful businessman, and teaches him a moral lesson by revisiting his past, revisiting his present and informing him about the dangers of the future if he remains unchanged. Yes, it is the entire plot of A Christmas Carol and Priestly deliberately references that because it alludes back to our Christian message.

[00:15:06]It's also an interextual link which says this play is part of a fine literary tradition and it leads to the idea of transformation, social responsibility.

[00:15:21]These are the very things that the inspector and priestly are trying to teach us. So the Christian message is conveyed through the morality play and through the Christian illusions that we continually get. Why? You remember it's because the audience is Christian. Then we come to the general strike in 1926.

[00:15:47]So after the first world war, we have massive civil unrest. We've got many more people seeking jobs. All these soldiers who returned from the war and they're being exploited by the rich capitalists, but now they're banding together in trade unions and striking.

[00:16:10]This is the rise of the working classes and it is caused by the greed of the capitalist businessman class.

[00:16:22]So when Priestley gives the inspector the words, if men will not learn that lesson, they will be taught it in fire and blood and anguish. The anguish is the history of strikes. But history got much worse. We had the Wall Street crash which destroyed Western economies and that led to the Great Depression of 1929 and mass unemployment not just in America but also here. It led to the working classes again desperately banding together and desperately needing the help of the state, the welfare state, which didn't exist. Working people suffered terribly when their livelihoods were ripped apart by the lack of jobs.

[00:17:19]Now Priestley is invoking reminding the audience of that time because a socialist government is going to prevent the circular nature of history is going to prevent that happening again. That is another reason why voting for a socialist government, Labor government in 1945 is such a key message of the play. 10 bits of context which on their own get you zero marks. What I've done is I've applied it to quotes and I've applied it to Priestley's purpose. When you do that, these grades are yours. Hopefully, it will make you enjoy the play a little bit more, too. If you want to know which quotes and which analysis get you the grades every time, they're available in the link in the description. You only need