An inspector calls - does the suicide victim lack agency with her relationships with Eric and Gerald?

@EnidSpyton I blame Micheal Gove for that, all the requirements on learning 'British' texts only. I mean in History you have to do a mandatory British modules as well, takes away so much choice from teachers. I mean I love Shakespeare but I think so many schools do a Shakespeare text from Y7 and there's no opportunity to do any other playwrights, I honeslty think it's gets so many students bored. Students can learn the same skills of play techniques, and skills of interpretations from modern plays or even different playwrights like Marlowe, if it's about the time period.

Such wonderful discussion on here. Lovely to find so many like-minded English teachers.

I have always taught Macbeth through the lens of grief and legacy. Childlessness and child loss dictates all of their decisions. I very much see Lady Macbeth as being driven by guilt - she has 'failed' Macbeth in not providing him with an heir, which is why she is so desperate for him to have the crown. She's not interested in any kind of power for herself and I can't understand why people think she is - there's nothing in the play to make such a reading possible.

I have seen so much lazy teaching of Macbeth over the years, with people talking about how power hungry Lady Macbeth is, how evil she is, etc. It infuriates me! These aren't evil people. They are desperate people who have had no time to grieve or come to terms with their situation. Having directed the play many times (I am a Drama as well as English teacher), something I always focus on with my student actors is the speed of the play. Everything happens so quickly and all the conversations take place in corridors or other spaces where they can be interrupted at any minute or overheard. So Lady M and M don't really have any time or space to think or reflect - they have to act quickly and on impulse. This means they make rushed and emotive decisions that come out of their unresolved grief.

There's also the suggestion in the play that Macbeth's desperation to prove the weird sisters wrong in trying to get rid of Banquo and Fleance speaks to his deep seated fear that there won't be any other pregnancies, which points to LM being at the end of her fertile years. This isn't a young couple with plenty of time ahead of them to build a family. They have run out of time and they know it. It's really very, very sad.

Posters may be interested in End Sexism in Schools' brilliant reports into the sexism/misogyny in the English curriculum - their report into the GCSE curriculum has some pretty shocking (but not surprising stats). The report has this to say about AIC:

The most popular choice of modern text across all Awarding Bodies is J B Priestley’s An Inspector Calls, which centres on the graphic suicide of a woman, Eva Smith, due to her negative treatment by various men in the play. The plot therefore revolves around a voiceless woman who is both dead and a victim of patriarchy. For the nineteenth century text, the picture is no better. A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens and The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson are the most taught, and are both male authored texts with male protagonists. The only female characters in both novels are bit parts who exist to serve men and have no agency or story of their own within the narrative.

Full report available on their website: https://endsexisminschools.org.uk/campaign-projects/sexism-in-the-gcse-english-curriculum-ks4/

How the Department of Education has allowed the curriculum to be so white male dominated for so many years really does beggar belief.

He's SO preoccupied with the idea he will not pass on anything - he has a "barren sceptre" and a "fruitless crown" (don't start me on a reading of barren sceptre in all its phallic possibility). He desperately wants (male) children but remember this is a world where the fault was always female. He can do all the wanting he likes, but that doesn't make it a reality.

Meanwhile lady Macbeth has been betrayed by her own being. Of COURSE she wants her femininity gone - it has let her down. She can at least give him a crown. But when it all works out, suddenly she is no longer his "dearest partner of greatness". Instead she asks "why do you keep alone, of sorriest fancies your companions making?" He turns away from her and towards the supernatural (or, more realistically, those who tell him what he wants to hear) and he shuts her out.

She loses everything. Poor old Lady M.

But there is! "Bring forth men children only, for thy undaunted mettle should bring nothing but males". The Fiennes and Virma production explores this moment well.

I've always read Lady M as someone who deeply loves her husband and feels she has failed him in her lack of living children - they've had them, but they have not survived. Perhaps her determination to get him the crown (she never refers to herself as queen, or uses that word - it's only Malcolm and the serving woman who do) is a replacement of that perceived failure.

I could waffle about Macbeth for SO long.

In the real world Lady Macbeth had children with her first husband. It is Macbeth who has no children and no heirs to inherit what he achieves.
He takes this lack of heir out on the world. It is Fleance he really fears rather than Banquo and the gratuitous killing of the Macduff children.
The reason for the lack of a Macbeth heir is, to an extent, irrelevant though. The point is that there is a lack. She may not even be grieving children. Elizabeth Woodville’s children from her first marriage were obviously not in line to the English throne.

Succession anxiety is definitely a ‘thing’ in Shakespeare’s work at the time and one that would be commonly felt as well as deeply personal.
The issue with the GCSE is, in many ways, only having 45 minutes to explore texts that are worthy of so much more.

It's an interesting point. I would argue that in her grief of losing her child and her status of a mother - she almost turns the internalised patriarchy views on herself and berates herself because she is so broken that she calls out to 'unsex me here' - she almost forces herself to imagine killing her baby, because society more or less sees her baby dying naturally as the mark of an evil mother. However, I think she them recognises that and decides to extrapolate her 'feminity' for power realising that if she pretends to be applying for power as a childless women she will likely not get very far. I think the descent into suicidality is not because she pushes Macbeth into murder (though it's a good interpretation) but actually because as she gets Macbeth closer and closer to kingship, she becomes reentrapped into her grief (he uses her for ambition and then is at the mercy of fate and the witches - which I think is a point about men always being at the mercy of women). After that she has still lost her child and lost her loving husband who no longer relies on her, I think it's the expression of realising she will never be able to truly hold on to anything in a world that isn't made for her to do so, but also a sense of complete rage at the boundaries of feminity. I think as she can no longer wash her hands of the blood, its not actually her crime, but Macbeth but society will blame her for being an 'overambitious' women, so in the end shes trapped by the boundaries and makes a somewhat honourable and bold choice to not allow such a society to control her so she takes herself out of it, by doing something that is a cardinal sin - suicide but also an ironic act of rebellion. I think she is always accepting of her feminity (but also of the complexity of being a women, many women go through postpartum depression and they have a 'binary opposition' in their feelings towards their status of being a mother yet still love their child), but also always aware the patriarchy. But that's just my interpretation (and what English is about different interpretations), I also enjoy many other valid ones.

I can only give you my take on it as an actor, I’ve no idea what an exam board would make of it - but to me it’s all about legacy. In Shakespeare’s time having heirs to continue legacy really mattered - even more so than the time Macbeth was set in , when kings could chose their heirs (the reason Duncan announces his son Malcolm as his heir is because at the time it wasn’t a given that the first-son would inherit the crown)

In Shakespeare’s recent past, Henry VIII had gone through six wives trying to assure his legacy. Elizabeth I’s refusal to marry and produce heirs was a cause of grave concern for the whole country. In Macbeth, Shakespeare makes a point of saying that Banquo will “(be)get kings”, as he was believed to be an ancestor of James I/VI - thus hammering home to his royal patron that he believed in his right to have inherited the throne.

In having no living children, Lady M has left Macbeth without a legacy. To me she is pushing him to take the crown to ensure he has one - but he still sees it as a “fruitless crown”, as he has no children to pass it on to.

Plus my theory is that the grief of losing at least one child has driven Lady M a bit mad already. The line I quoted earlier continues: “I would, while he was smiling in my face, have plucked my nipple from his boneless gums, and dashed the brains out, had I so sworn as you have done to this.”

I don’t believe she would have, but it not the kind of thing a sane person would threaten. So for me her grief has already left her with fragile mental health before Duncan is even murdered.

Haha absolutely. Most boys do, actually. It’s just they’re the only ones I could think of who occasionally were immature with her!

I’d agree with everything you say here. Except I’ve seen many boys respond well to her too.

No, she’s not exchanging infertility for power. She’s asking for all the traits which were traditionally believed to feminine to be removed ie: compassion, pity, reluctance to injure and the desire to nurture to make her capable of committing murder herself (possibly ironic as she might also be doing this partially for love of Macbeth and a desire to protect him from Hell). Of course, she’s ultimately unsuccessful in this and can’t overcome her nature in that when she sees Duncan and the reality of murder she can’t go ahead with it herself and the combination of her guilt for her part in the murder and for her part in pushing Macbeth to his worst impulses and the way that he pushes her away leads her to go mad.

LM is an extremely interesting character to discuss both in the context of her time and viewed with a modern feminist mindset. I’ve always found girls to respond very thoughtfully and maturely to her (now racking my brains for any girl who hasn’t in my last 20 years of teaching but can only think of a couple of boys!)

There’s a brilliant book by Carole Atherton called ‘ Reading Lessons’. She’s been teaching English for 30 years and each chapter focuses on a particular text - AIC and Macbeth included. She’s been teaching talks a lot about how over time the way we perceive/teach/students receive these texts changes and how teachers have to adjust. It’s a really humane book.

Lady M has clearly breastfed at least one child: “I have given suck, and know how tender ‘tis to love the babe that milks me” - so I’ve always assumed there’s a huge amount of grief and loss wrapped up in her behaviour.

Well it's quite clearly implied her baby was born stillborn and in such a society she almost attacks herself for being unable to do the 'prime role of a woman'. I'd argue even today when women are childfree, people still get shocked or tell them they'll change their minds because it's 'natural'. But then I think she almost realises a power in her rejection of gender roles (unintentionally) that she can have power and doesn't have to be tied down to a child. I still think that she still grieves that though especially at the start. There's lots of different theoretical approaches people have on her, lots of papers in JSTOR etc with various ideas. You could find a simpler one and get her to see what she thinks, I'll try and message you the notes later.

Then your problem is with Michael Gove and how he instructed the last curriculum review.
It’s all very well the boards introducing new texts now but with staff shortages there is no teacher time to prepare new texts and there’s no money to provide the new texts for classes. Class sets of texts are expensive.

Except a driving force in Jekyll and Hyde is paranoia around male homosexuality and the ‘Blackmailers’ Charter’.

I’m increasingly thinking the issue here isn’t the texts themselves but the approach school (and your daughter) are taking.

You shouldn’t need to relate to a character to empathise with them.

Also @mids2019 I saw your post on analysis of Lady Macbeth. I have essay plans and notes on Macbeth I'd be happy to send to you if your DD would like. I unfortunately only have Macbeth, Lord of the Flies and Jekyll and Hyde so can't help with her other texts. I think Lady Macbeth is a much more complex character than the simple idea of she abandons her feminity and is weak - think of the depression she might have (losing her child). She also manipulates Macbeth, I always argued that she was stronger because Macbeth relies on her (I'll try and shorten it now) but essentially Macbeth in Act 1 S1 write to her straight after the war even though he will get back just a few hours after the letter - he needs her to encourage him to get the throne (and she is actually a massive driving force of ambition because she wants to be queen) she in a way control him but he doesn't notice because he underestimates her. Obviously lots more to it but I think she is misunderstood often as a witch or useless. She's also grieving her child and I've always said she's an amazing representation of female rage, often girls once they think about it can in some way relate. I think the way she mimics the trochaic terameter (type of rhyme scheme) of the witches at certain points - you could argue she takes that method of how the witches control, scare and mock Macbeths feebleness - she only uses it at certain quotes but it shows she isn't just a hysterical women. There's lots of very interesting Lit theories on her and I think she's such an amazing character.

Honeslty this is so true, I really push schools to do in KS3 as this is the only time they have control of the curriculum. To be honest once you get into more critical theories like gender and queer theory at A-level it's so much more fun. Sometimes children who have real passion for books and English actually statt to disengage at GCSE because the texts are so archaic (not saying we don't need some 19th century or I don't love some of Shakespeare) but we need to mix it up. Many kids have really enjoyed the new Worlds and Lives poetry because they see themselves stories about Black people (a great poem on stop and search) and women and LGBT people. But I think get her to watch documents or do light research on the context of Inspector Calls and maybe getting to read some of those I recommend (which are really interesting. Fundamentally is a very good fiction if she thinks non-fiction is boring (I did in primary school and early secondary but I started and then realised how amazing it is to learn tangible things, but still love an escape). She may she the impact of feminism in her life now but it doesn't mean there is not a long way to go - think about paternity v maternity leave, or the pain gap in women's healthcare, or the rise of misogyny in young boys and men. That's just in the UK (where things are somewhat better) but even in Iceland rated number 1 for gender equality, there's still issues. So imagine the rest of the world; FGM, porn, violence against women, taking away bodily autonomy, the motherhood tax (leads to less promotions, less money, less pension contributions), the shaming of women's pleasure in sex - I mean the vibrator was created by dealing women as hysterical. Even think about the history of gynaecology - enslaved Black women were taken by Dr James Sims and others and he did experiments on them without pain relief or anesthesia (which existed) because he thought Black women didn't feel pain. Even now research among doctors and medical students has found they still think Black women experience less pain than white women for the same procedures - why do we think in the UK Black women are 4x more likely to die in childbirth. Even look at how despite how amazing England are - the hate against women for playing football (better than our men's team) is astonishing Sorry, I need to stop ranting, but once I start I can't stop 😅.

At A-level everyone is gay lol, we look at Gastby and Nick, The Color Purple is an amazing book on feminism, black women and queer characters as well even though it was written in the 80s. Also the Handmaids Tale is on the specification (I really recommend getting her to read this and watch it as well). Plays like Streetcar we look at sexuality of Blanche but rarely at GCSE unfortunately. So many books from that time actually do have same-sex relationships but you have to read between the lines, even in Shakespeare - with Othello at A-level we consider how Iago's obsession might be fuelled by a homoerotic bond with Othello (masked by a military bond) and thats why he's so jealous and even more. Some students by the end of it want to be done with English Lit, and I really think they'd enjoy the freedom of A-level but think it will be the same as GCSE.