Active discussions

Meet the Other Phone. Flexible and made to last.

Meet the Other Phone.
Flexible and made to last.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

Talk
Chat

Join the discussion and chat with other Mumsnetters about everyday life, relationships and parenting.

Original poster

calling Year 11 English Lit: An Inspector Calls: I think the Inspector Did It

151 replies

Waterparc · 23/10/2018 10:40

please help. DS1 has to study An Inspector Calls. He was doing a question on the ending and we have just realised that Eva was killed by the Inspector who then prepped the other characters to confess in order to have the perfect defence.

is there a better explanation?

OP posts:
tobee · 23/10/2018 19:06

Lol

IchFliegeNach · 23/10/2018 19:51

Quick to read, kids get it, good TV version - ticks all the same teacher boxes as Of Mice and Men so I love it!
Also easy to teach form and genre (is there a student in the U.K. Who doesn't know what dramatic irony is and a Burling quotation to go with it?!)
I will accept any well argued interpretation, OP 😜
But if another student thinks they're ground breaking arguing that he's a ghost...he's not a fucking ghost arghhhh

IchFliegeNach · 23/10/2018 19:52

Typos there for you all to correct as a secret literacy activity...

Interested in this thread?

Then you might like threads about these subjects:

General education Secondary education
CaptainBrickbeard · 23/10/2018 19:56

Pride and Prejudice isn’t the alternative: AIC is modern prose and your son will still have to do a 19th century novel as well. An alternative text to An Inspector Calls is Lord of the Flies which is a million times better. But kids have to study a 19th century novel as well as a modern text, it’s not either/or. He will have poems and a Shakespeare as well.

AlexanderHamilton · 23/10/2018 19:58

Dis wishes he could do Blood Brothers.

bbcessex · 23/10/2018 20:01

DS did this a few years ago.

I really liked it actually - thought the collective guilt / individual responsibility point rang very true.

Have you watched one of the TV plays? That could help consolidate in the quickest time. And/or buy a copy of York Notes.

I definitely don’t think the inspector did it - or anyone did it... she died from her own actions but was driven by all parties having a hand (Bar the inspector) IMO.

Original poster
Waterparc · 23/10/2018 20:10

gargg!

if the inspector didn't do it, how come in Act 1 she'd died in hospital two hours before but in Act 3 she dies of exactly the same thing but in the ambulance?

either it's supernatural intervention (in which case the previous inspector was some weird prophet or something) or the inspector did it. I suspect the latter...

OP posts:
bbcessex · 23/10/2018 20:14

I can’t quite remember, but I don’t think the inspector is real? Didn’t they phone the police at some point and no inspector of that name existed?

Original poster
Waterparc · 23/10/2018 20:16

indeed Watson - sorry, essex.

OP posts:
tobee · 23/10/2018 20:20

My ds did Blood Brothers for drama gcse @AlexanderHamilton

dingdongdigeridoo · 23/10/2018 20:21

I did Blood Brothers for my GCSE too. Many years ago! I liked it at the time, then saw it again years later and thought it was bloody awful.

tobee · 23/10/2018 20:24

In case he's still choosing options

Runningishard · 23/10/2018 20:24

I don’t give a damn as long as mine gets what he needs in maths, physics and comp science. Love that play myself though. My kid not like me academically

tobee · 23/10/2018 20:25

My ds barely seems to remember doing it. He's only 19 now.

DrCoconut · 23/10/2018 20:26

Z for Zachariah and an inspector calls. Some posters are about my age. Z for Zachariah was scary. The film version (made in the 70's?) was very weird and unsettling.

AlexanderHamilton · 23/10/2018 20:26

No drama department at his school sadly tobee

tobee · 23/10/2018 20:26

Blood Brothers I mean

SilentIsla · 23/10/2018 20:27

Birling!!!!!!

tobee · 23/10/2018 20:28

I did Z for Zachariah in the 80s when Reagan was threatening to Nuke the Reds.

AlexanderHamilton · 23/10/2018 20:29

At Dds school top set did Inspector Calls, bottom set did Blood Brothers, drama did DNA I think.

BigStripeyBastard · 23/10/2018 20:30

For my English lit, we had An Inspector Calls, Tess of the Durbevilles, Friedrich (about Nazi death camps), Of Mice and Men and something about nuclear holocausts by Robert Swindells, or someone. Oh, and ruddy Macbeth. We were also subjected to Anne Frank and Where The Wind Blows.

For the love of all that is holy, could we not have read something bloody cheerful? Just once? Just one book where nobody dies after a miserable existence?

BringOnTheScience · 23/10/2018 20:30

DC1 did it in 2017.
They say "If you think that anyone killed Eva then you've misunderstood the play. Eva is is not one character. She is a metaphor. She represents all of the young working class girls that they have each met and influenced."

youarenotkiddingme · 23/10/2018 20:35

My yr 10 has just studied this.

Never read it myself but after helping him I've got the jist.

I thought the inspector was meant to be like a concience/ supernatural character who made all those involved look at their social standing and political views and evaluate them.

Didn't 2 people change their stance?

Can't say having spent a few hours scribing for him on character and plot notes etc o have any desire to read it Grin

SilentIsla · 23/10/2018 20:36

Texts that challenge you are better for you than happy ever after stories. Lol

costacoffeecup · 23/10/2018 20:39

God I did that in 1996! Have they still not found anything else?