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

[mids2019]

My daughter has just read this play for GCSE and though it is a great morality lesson I did have questions about some of its relevance in 2025.

The suicide victim is definitely an innocent when it came to being fired for unionising and allegedly mocking a client in dress shop but with the interactions with Eric and Gerald I do question whether there is a slight misogyny or unnecessary vitimhood?

In both cases the victim engages with sexual activity with both men and one point of view is that the cut in has a choice in entering those relationships so does not have the same degree of powerlessness as in the sackings. I found it maybe a little derogatory that there is an implication that a woman reduced to poverty would naturally resort to comfort sex and relationships where she was undervalued. I personally found this quite strange as the victim initially was an incredibly strong beautiful woman who was prepared to lead courageously in strike action.

I can see perhaps the narrative is that the victim is systematically degraded by her experience with the Birlings and maybe she has reached a point of having reduced esteem but I do possinly.question whether the inference of 'young beautiful woman in the slide drinks and has one night stands' is a good one from a gender perspective.

What should a GCSE student under from the victims relationships ? My daughter for instance was wondering about the availability of contraception in the 1910s and whether in fact the audience were meant to sympathise with the victim in her choice of relationship as they were a result of her impoverished state and possibke.poor mental health.

Eva Smith, it is implied, was asked to go to the place bar by a woman that is mentioned. She seems desperate and this is almost her only choice. Gerald steps in and supports her - she actually falls for him and is heartbroken at the end.

Eric insisted that he go up to her room “I was in that state where a chap turns nasty” or words to that effect; implying he forces himself on her.

the play is about the chain of events that
leads Eva to this choice that she feels she has to take. And the ripple effect of
our choices and how much responsibility we take. As well as the attitudes of the old and the young in an era that was before both wars and suffrage - the play was written after these events but set before.

This has always been my take.

Also the causal misogyny of both Gerald and Eric in my opinion are underplayed. Sheila is accused of being hysterical when talking about Gerald's affair and in the end is semi accepting as she gives back the engagement ring but with the caveat she wants time to to think about the realtionship. In 2025 K think a young woman would be a lot more vocal about the affair and be unashamed of an emotional reaction. My daughter's less than considered opinion was why Shells didn't simply tell Gerald to f off.

Also with regard to sexual behaviour I think there was mention about possible sex offender type behaviour where the victim agreed to sex simply because she didn't want to put up a fight. I think this was glossed over very quickly in the play but would have much more importance for a contemporary audience. As for the victim being a 'good sport' for agreeing to have sex I really do think this needs to be set in contact to thinking in 1945 and it is an interesting delve into toxic masculinity that may not have been intended as a driver for the play.

I agree with the fact the young woman was desperate so was having a relationship with Gerald one of financial necessity of one coming from feelings from love. I think (and maybe I am wrong) but a young impoverished woman drinking alone and possibly looking for a 'supportive relationship' is possibly problematic.

Eric's behaviour was despicable but the young girls does get impregnate d. Did the victim have the strength to reject unsuitable men?

She probably would have done but when she’s at the end of her tether in this case then maybe not.

casual misogyny is something we discuss in lessons and 2025 kids definitely notice it. I like how Sheila and Eric are the remorseful ones and are the ones who represent the change.

You're absolutely right, it's a common belief amongst English teachers (and students) that Eric and Gerald are both awful and misogynistic, and this is often a big discussion point in lessons. The play is definitely of its time, it's not an empowering depiction of womanhood, although it's interesting to look at it as a kind of morality play, where Eva (and thus the women she represents) acts through the Inspector and avenges her mistreatment and death. I agree that it's really interesting to look at through a 2025 lens!

It’s a play about collective responsibility and the characters are really ciphers and not psychologically complex - Shakespeare it’s not. As an English teacher I despair that it’s still on the syllabus after so many years. It’s interesting historically but it’s not a great play. All the characters are two dimensional- Eva Smith is a symbol of the oppression of working class women and is portrayed as a victim. I’m not sure I fully understand your point. Are you suggesting she’s in some way responsible for the sexual coercion that occurs?

Thank you @NotellinganyoneI completely agree ! I took despair that most children study it. It's part of the holy trinity that 90% of GCSE students study 🙄

Sorry to the last post....I just think to the average 14 year old girl there are questions about why the victim did not reject Eric as unsuitable. Maybe there is this element of victimhood where the victim stays with a man out of desperation?.I fully agree that the victim may not be an example of strong womanhood which may have been the case of the play was written now. I do think it's a shock to see how casually the poor woman was treated. The outrage of the play in my opinion is more about class structure than gender politics (though I may be wrong).

One thing I do wonder is if the play replaces the victim with a young man's could you have the same narrative?

I think therein lies a problem. The play is about collective responsibility and our obligations to our fellow man but it takes a turn that inevitably brings into discussion gender politics, female roles in relationships (is slut shaming taking it to far?), shame of single parenthood etc. You therefore have to contextualize everything which maybe takes away from the thrust of the play?

I think you’re reading the play from a modern perspective when it is really of its time. As an examiner for this paper I have read many nuanced interpretations which acknowledge all the women in the play as victims of a patriarchal society. I don’t think the play itself is misogynistic but instead I think that Priestley intended to display and criticise the misogyny of 1912 society.

My take has always been that the great thing about this play is that it provokes teens to have these kind of discussions. It’s pretty much the only play that my dcs have talked about at home and still references eg ‘he was a bit of a Birling’.
Things are implied and ambiguous rather than explicit and black and white - and teens need to be exposed to this sort of thing. It’s called thinking!

I think the fact it is studied out of context of his other “Time” plays loses a lot. When I studied it in the dark ages we did at least also read Time and the Conways.
But I went to see a production of Dangerous Corners a few years ago - and we both found that really challenging.
The recent production of An Inspector Calls in contrast was style over substance

The play is written to ensure that all members of the family do not see the same photograph of the young woman. It may not be the same young woman who had each of the experiences. Each person treated a young woman very badly, and each must take responsibility for their own behaviour.

The play was written in 1945. Of course students in 2025 will discuss issues around consent, treatment of women, money, class, personal and collective responsibility etc from the point of view of young people growing up in the 21st century. However, they will be very aware that the play is eighty years old, They know that Priestley was writing in the 1940s and so much has changed in terms of societal structures, attitudes and behaviour.

Teens learning the context of a play and as such learning some social history is a good thing, not a problem!

If we only read books set now with perfectly ‘good’ and totally ‘bad’ characters, following our current social mores, with every story being ‘correct’ (according to values set by who?) and giving some sort of moral lesson it would be so dull.

I tour schools with this play, and the discussion it generates is always really interesting, but you do have to keep reminding the students to see it as a product of its time, and that women then - both of Sheila’s class and Eva’s - simply did not have the choices and opportunities open to them that modern women had.

I play Mrs Birling and they loathe me - I’ve been called a “total Karen” more than once!

She didn’t have a choice. That’s the point. She is a victim. It’s not subtle. Her purpose in existence (if she is one person) is as a victim for the misogyny and class issues of the era.
It’s not great. They’ve run out of questions it needs at least some time off but the ruling has to come from above the boards. No one will drop it until they all have to for business reasons.

One thing I do wonder is if the play replaces the victim with a young man's could you have the same narrative?

No, because it shows precisely how she (the ‘Evas’ of the time) is judged and used by the Birlings (and society) because of her poverty, lack of status and her sex - using a male in the role couldn’t have shown the patriarchy and misogyny that is also at play.

You may as well ask, why did Priestley make her young and pretty - wouldn’t it have mattered if she was old and ugly… (in fact I seem to remember another op did ask just that a while back). It is literally tied to her exploitation and objectification by the Birling family as a whole. It defines her worth to them. They treat her merely as an object. If she wasn’t a she, and young and pretty then Sheila wouldn’t have been jealous of her.

If an English teacher wrote the question, It could be “Who was the biggest prick, Gerald or Eric? You may refer to Mr Burlington in your answer.”

I don't think the play implies that she has any agency. She is penniless and homeless. Gerald sets her up in a flat which is a huge improvement on begging for money to stay in a cheap hostel where far more unsavoury men would prey on her. Eric rapes her in a drunken threatening way.

Teachers might be using critical responses to the text to invite students to consider whether they agree with them or not.

I agree. It is so heavy handed. Themes-R-Us. But I suppose, in one respect, you could say it has very easy to spot themes, introducing at GCSE level the practice of spotting theme and inference in a text. It makes it quite easy.

thanks for all the interesting replies. At the end of the day I just want my daughter to get a good GCSE grade (somewhat selfishly).

Is the play mainly about the oppression of the working class by an unempatheric greedy hypocritical bourgousie or about patriarchy? I got from my uneducated reading that there were elements of both and maybe the play does a bit too much? Orwell wrote brilliantly about politics and society without the focus on gender politics.

I suppose one thing missing from my discussions with my daughter is contextualisation and a full understanding of absolute poverty, social ostracism and sexist views on that period. It seems like discussion about 1910s society is a discussion on itself.

One thing my daughter did comment on was that there were parallels with a modern Netflix thing called 13 reasons why where a young woman is driven to suicide by misogyny and bullying. However the show was categorised by an 18 age rating as it is triggering.

The means of suicide in this play seems quite extreme and shocking even now. Was the means of suicide a parallel to the suffering the anonymous victim suffered in life?

Another question that we always get asked is why Sheila would even consider taking Gerald back, and we always ask “how much choice do you think she has?” She is completely dependent on her father, and will remain so until she becomes completely dependent on her husband - and Mr Birling is unlikely to take kindly to seeing his business merger (and it’s clear from the start of the play that’s how he regards her marriage) go down the drain.

Plus at the end of the play we learn that there really is an inspector on their way to question them about a girl’s suicide - so there will be a scandal. If she marries quickly into the powerful Croft family, she will likely weather it better than the rest - will be seen as a “sensible gel” for overlooking her husband’s “indiscretions”. If she doesn’t, she’ll never land a man of similar status again, what with the whiff of scandal around her, and may struggle to find a man of similar status to her own. And outside of marriage, there really aren’t many opportunities open to her, and those that are are distinctly unpalatable.

I think the class barriers are hard to for young people to get their heads round too - despite their wealth, the Birlings were not of the same class as the Crofts. As the daughter of an industrialist, Sheila would’ve been considered “lucky” to get Gerald in the first place, and mad to let him go.

I suspect Mrs Birling would tell her as much, probably quite brutally!

that is really interesting and I think it looks like the women in the play generally do not have choice due to the way society functions. I do however question whether we should concentrate on patriarchy when we have diverse and mixed gender classes.

Will girls take something different from the play than boys?