To really dislike An Inspector Calls?

[SheilaSybilCroft]

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?

Exactly- its good to have one text the the kids can all get on board with.

Gcse texts do ideally need to be quite short. The likes of White Teeth by Zadie Smith is long and rambling iirc.

I quite enjoy it as a period piece. Dh hates it though. I didn't study at school but read it after having seen the b&w Alastair Sim film many times.

I saw the Stephen Daldry production and thought it was about as subtle as a mallet on the head and ridiculously pretentious.

I saw it at the National years ago, it was amazing, visually stunning and the actors were fabulous. Also, I don’t know if it was just my interpretation, but over the years I’ve come to appreciate the way that it addresses the ‘perfect victim’ trope.

Yes it’s a bit heavy-handed in places but most people I know who’ve studied it have really liked it.

it’s not the point if you don’t like it

Well, it is insomuch as that’s what my thread is about. Your be right if I’d said it should be scrapped from the GCSE syllabus or that I’d refused to teach it but I haven’t - I’m just expressing a view.

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?

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?

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!

My mistake sorry, brain is in weekend mode!

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.

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?’

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.

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

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.

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.

*PriestlEy

🙄

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.

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.

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.

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.

The inspector talks about her being pretty too

I really like it.

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.

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.

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!

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.