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Original poster

To really dislike An Inspector Calls?

156 replies

SheilaSybilCroft · 03/05/2025 10:48

It’s been a GCSE text since the 1990s (and probably before.)

I really don’t like it. I hate the big fuss that is made out of eva smith being ‘pretty’ - as if it would be somehow acceptable to hound her out of jobs if she was plain and old!

She did lie to Mrs B: how was she supposed to know one story was true while another was a lie? And while attitudes to unmarried mothers have changed it’s ridiculous to pretend that someone in Eva’s position would have been met with sympathy and kindness if she’d just met a nicer sort of woman.

I know it’s an attack on the upper classes of the Edwardian period and the characters are representative rather than literal but the preachy tone and high handed sort of manner taken by the inspector is annoying.

And the film version the BBC did about ten years ago presents a saint like Eva and deviates from the text just enough to confuse students!

Or is it just me?

OP posts:
Original poster
SheilaSybilCroft · 03/05/2025 14:21

Missedthis · 03/05/2025 14:11

Love a passive aggressive smiley.

He says it in response to Sheila’s question - pointing out that she wasn’t pretty any more - as a way of emphasising her objectification and vulnerability. Her youth and attractiveness were why she was exploited by Eric and Gerald.
He is highlighting that she is reduced to “pretty”.

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It wasn’t meant passive aggressively but you’ve been pretty determined to be rude and unpleasant on what should be a fairly nice thread. It was an attempt to keep things polite.

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HuffleMyPuffle · 03/05/2025 14:18

Eva Smith is not even necessarily one person

But nearly all of her "tragedies" would not happen, or not in the same way, had she been "ugly"

She's treated as an object by the men because she's pretty. She enrages Sheila's jealousy because she's pretty. Because she's poor and pretty then Mrs Birling makes judgements.

Missedthis · 03/05/2025 14:11

SheilaSybilCroft · 03/05/2025 13:59

The inspector talks about her being pretty too Smile

Show quote history

Love a passive aggressive smiley.

He says it in response to Sheila’s question - pointing out that she wasn’t pretty any more - as a way of emphasising her objectification and vulnerability. Her youth and attractiveness were why she was exploited by Eric and Gerald.
He is highlighting that she is reduced to “pretty”.

HuffleMyPuffle · 03/05/2025 14:11

I think you've rather missed the point tbh

Baconmaple · 03/05/2025 14:07

Interesting hearing people talking about the texts all being written by white men. I would say that the texts I studied were 50/ 50 nrn women or possibly women edging it. Though I'd have to try and list them all.

SerafinasGoose · 03/05/2025 14:05

The national curriculum has ruined literary studies, not least the joy and passion of reading, for generations of students since its introduction in 1988.

There are a lot more interesting contemporary dramas I can think of to teach than J B Priestley. As to prose, dystopia is an amazingly rich, diverse genre that reaches much further than 1984 and The Handmaid's Tale, and can be taught in topical and interesting ways which are actually relevant to the world young people live in now. And rather than a constant regurgitation of the war poets, the Beat poets, variations on border crossings or other subversive or counter cultural material usually goes down a storm with students.

The fact that it's the same old stale texts on the curriculum nearly forty years later tells me something has badly stalled somewhere. And as a PP has pointed out, there was Gove: worst education secretary in living memory.

Our arts and humanities are dying by the wayside. IMO, there needs to be heavy investment in a drive to promote reading and literature written in English as a wonderful window into a rich literary heritage (that isn't necessarily dominated by dead white men). I'm an academic and currently working on a strategy to do this, but it's an enormous undertaking that no one project can do alone, and UKRI funding is becoming more difficult to achieve by the year.

Modernism is a huge passion of mine, and even I'm not fond of D H Lawrence. It's bludgeoning literature to death and putting kids off studying a worthy discipline at university. Wish I knew how to stop the rot.

stargirl1701 · 03/05/2025 14:04

I think it should always be taught after seeing it performed in a theatre. Schools should have the budgets and staff to make this happen! It’s a travesty that our country, one of the richest on the planet, does not fully fund education.

Original poster
SheilaSybilCroft · 03/05/2025 14:02

Judashascomeintosomemoney · 03/05/2025 13:47

Because it is literally tied to her exploitation and objectification by the Birling family. It defines her worth to them. They treat her merely as an object. Go back and look at the language Gerald and Eric use when they discuss her.

Priestley is in no way suggesting her treatment would have been acceptable had she been other than young and pretty.

Edited

Those attitudes aren’t challenged by anybody, including the inspector, and I think we’d all agree that’s the purpose of his character.

Sheila asks if the girl had been pretty (relevant?) and the inspector says she had been ‘very pretty’. It isn’t a subtle play and it would have been very easy to have had the character challenge Sheila’s comment by pointing out someone dying by suicide is no less awful if they are conventionally unattractive!

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Gasp0deTheW0nderD0g · 03/05/2025 14:02

Allmarbleslost · 03/05/2025 13:55

I hate the fact that my teenagers are studying the same books at school that I did in the 90s. I don't have strong feeling either way about An Inspector Calls though.

I don't understand this, but then my husband and I studied Classics and so did our daughter. We all studied the same texts from two millennia ago and more. Timeless classics.

I did O level English Literature in 1977 and our set texts were Romeo and Juliet, a selection from a Browning anthology and Lord of the Flies. More timeless classics.

Baconmaple · 03/05/2025 14:01

I'd like it if my son was studying the same texts I did. I enjoyed pretty much all the books I studied so wouldn't see it as problematic.
I didn't study AIC and haven't read it. I think i did watch the most recent adaptation though.

MrsSkylerWhite · 03/05/2025 13:59

I really like it.

Original poster
SheilaSybilCroft · 03/05/2025 13:59

Missedthis · 03/05/2025 13:48

But Priestly isn’t agreeing this is right. He’s pointing it out, through the unlikeable characters who value her like this.

It’s a criticism of this misogynistic attitude.

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The inspector talks about her being pretty too Smile

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Original poster
SheilaSybilCroft · 03/05/2025 13:58

Pollyanna87 · 03/05/2025 13:51

I think the point of the deceased being pretty is that the daughter was jealous of her, and that’s a reason she had her sacked. It’s also just how people spoke back then.

It was for Sheila’s ‘part’ if you like but there are numerous references to her attractiveness and the inference being that it made the tragedy worse.

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Allmarbleslost · 03/05/2025 13:55

I hate the fact that my teenagers are studying the same books at school that I did in the 90s. I don't have strong feeling either way about An Inspector Calls though.

Gasp0deTheW0nderD0g · 03/05/2025 13:53

MyOliveHelper · 03/05/2025 12:16

I think her prettiness was mentioned to explain what inspired women to hate her and men to lust after her (and then hate her).

I think it's much simpler than that. Priestley needed a character who could plausibly have been known to all the members of the family in different contexts. An attractive young woman fitted the bill.

Pollyanna87 · 03/05/2025 13:51

I think the point of the deceased being pretty is that the daughter was jealous of her, and that’s a reason she had her sacked. It’s also just how people spoke back then.

Missedthis · 03/05/2025 13:49

*PriestlEy

🙄

Missedthis · 03/05/2025 13:48

SheilaSybilCroft · 03/05/2025 13:45

It is and therefore her death is apparently more tragic. That’s the very thing I dislike about it.

But Priestly isn’t agreeing this is right. He’s pointing it out, through the unlikeable characters who value her like this.

It’s a criticism of this misogynistic attitude.

Judashascomeintosomemoney · 03/05/2025 13:47

Because it is literally tied to her exploitation and objectification by the Birling family. It defines her worth to them. They treat her merely as an object. Go back and look at the language Gerald and Eric use when they discuss her.

Priestley is in no way suggesting her treatment would have been acceptable had she been other than young and pretty.

Original poster
SheilaSybilCroft · 03/05/2025 13:45

It is and therefore her death is apparently more tragic. That’s the very thing I dislike about it.

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Missedthis · 03/05/2025 13:43

SheilaSybilCroft · 03/05/2025 13:35

I do yes. Enlighten me as to what you think the point is. That sounds snarky and it isn’t. I’m honestly wondering what hidden message I’m missing!

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Her whole value is her looks. Not her personality. She’s not like “those dough faced women”. She’s “pretty”. High value.

Women being valued for their looks is a tale as old as time, and is still very, very relevant today.

Original poster
SheilaSybilCroft · 03/05/2025 13:42

Missedthis · 03/05/2025 13:34

She is called “pretty” by Sheila, Eric (with the awful “and a good sport”) and Gerald. Even the inspector alludes to it after Sheila asks him if she was pretty.

You can’t see that Priestly might be making a wider point?

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I don’t think he is to be honest. Good sport - yes. The inspector calls her a ‘pretty, lively sort of girl.’ I’m definitely missing the wider point to her attractiveness. It’s relevant insofar as Sheila is jealous of her but that’s not the topic in the above examples: Sheila literally asks if she was young and then ‘pretty?’

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ilovesooty · 03/05/2025 13:40

I've taught it more times than I can count and went to see it again a couple of days ago. The inspector's final speech never fails to send shivers down my spine.

Fallulah · 03/05/2025 13:40

Paellama · 03/05/2025 12:25

That's not on the same list, because it's a 19th century novel

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My mistake sorry, brain is in weekend mode!

Original poster
SheilaSybilCroft · 03/05/2025 13:35

Judashascomeintosomemoney · 03/05/2025 13:28

I hate the big fuss that is made out of eva smith being ‘pretty’ - as if it would be somehow acceptable to hound her out of jobs if she was plain and old!

You have completely misunderstood the point of her being young and pretty.
You teach this to students, you say?

I do yes. Enlighten me as to what you think the point is. That sounds snarky and it isn’t. I’m honestly wondering what hidden message I’m missing!

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