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.

Eric is meant to have raped her though it is implied rather than stated explicitly due to sensitivity issues at the time of writing. Gerald comes along, a rich, handsome man right as she is about to prostitute herself to a disgusting old fart because she is out of options.

Exactly this. It’s of its time.

Interestingly, I found it dated & two dimensional when I taught in the UK. It works rather better in the C21 in the Middle East - many of my students can relate to the CEO dad, mum keeping busy with 'charity', older brother's a bit of a wastrel & older sister's been brought up to shop & land herself a suitable husband...& everyone is exploiting/abusing the poor bloody maid...

Agree the interesting aspect is discussing how much agency the various characters really have.

& also agree that it is, unfortunately, a 'catnip' GCSE text to exam boards because it works right across ability levels - anyone can write about the very obvious themes, but there's enough ambiguity for a thoughtful grade 9 response. See also OM&M, which I'd also be very happy to never have to open again...zzzz...

It is also worth remembering that it is deliberately set pre WWI, which did open a lot of doors to women. Especially with Sheila - she doesn’t know that if she just holds on for 4 years she could have a wealth of ne opportunities open to her. Similarly both Eric and Gerald are kind of “doomed”.

@mids2019 i'm a bit puzzled by your questions to be honest

I feel as if you've missed the whole historical context.

You talk about having "agency". Women didn't have agency at that time. They didn't really have rights in 1912.

Eva's "relationships" weren't choices - with Gerald it was an alternative to starving on the street. Eric raped her so a whole different story.

I did find the play a bit old hat years ago but if it helps prompt a discussion about women's rights and class issues in history, that's a plus.

I'd focus on the history before drawing any conclusions about the play in terms of story.

@mids2019 "You therefore have to contextualize everything which maybe takes away from the thrust of the play?"

but context is always everything

Once again, I find myself quoting Matty Healy "like context in a modern debate, I just took it out". That's him criticising modern debate.

I'm not having a go at you. I'm often puzzled at how these discussions are conducted now and I think there has maybe been an era of teaching that simply removes context.

I’ve taught this play for many years and it’s a great starting point for many discussions. For example, are their cultures in the world today that still control women or treat women in this way? Your 14 year old in Brighton might want Sheila to be more assertive but is this a realistic situation for other vulnerable women?

Are Eric and Gerald the ‘ Andrew Tates/ Incels’ of their time? Has the attitude of using women/ viewing them as lesser really gone?

I’ve never had a class that hasn’t engaged with the issues in this play.

Exactly. To be read through 21st century eyes it seems hard to relate, but society was quite different when the text was written. That needs to be remembered

Eric rapes her. She is forced into some form of unspoken prostitution with Gerald.

It's very dark then.

You daughter will need to consider the historical and social context of the play, as it’s one of the Assessment Objectives for GCSE Lit.

I see......thanks for the advice and I think this is something that hasn't been yet. There doesn't seem to be have been space to allow discussion of early 20th century society which I think would really help. The women do appear quite helpless in their lot though.

But they are helpless, that's the point. Sheila has the choice of being supported financially by a father or a husband.

some of these bonds are made of convention but imagine if she tried to leave the family house and support herself. What options would she have?

has the tutor given any background? Just a basic one page of history would be enough really.

it is a dark play, yes.

I’m an English teacher, and always give one lesson on context at the beginning of each unit. There’s no point studying A Christmas Carol, for example, without having some knowledge of Dickens’ motivation for writing it.

Same with An Inspector Calls. You’d miss a lot of the dramatic irony in Sc1, when Birling is bloviating about the Titanic, and how war isn’t going to happen, etc, without a bit of contextual knowledge.

My issue with Gerald is that he 'happened to look in' on the palace bar, which was renowned for housing prostitutes for the evening. I always wondered whether Priestley wanted us to consider whether or not he'd gone in there looking for a girl all along.

I’m sure Priestly did - just like someone with a drink problem “just being dragged into the pub after work”.

Exactly. But also surprised anyone thinks awful misogynist men and women who are their victims are no longer relevant. Cleaning up literature to be full of right on role models doesn't make the problems of society go away. It's good to spark the debate of why this happened then and in what ways it is or isn't relevant now, but sexism goes on and part of the whole point of the play is that there's no single woman but many who suffer from lack of agency in their own lives. How many times a day on these very boards do we entreat other women to do something to escape their lot and they don't feel their can, for myriad reasons from practical (finances, DCs, home) to psychological (self-esteem, abuse etc)? To suppose that a character not having agency is only down to the author's sexism is a limited perspective. It can be argued for sure, but better to get past any equally blinkered view coloured by the attitudes of our own time, and look at what's in the play that endures and connects.

I think one interesting point is that in modern drama we expect to see strong female role models. If we look at the likes of Bridgerton and Dowton Abbey maybe women in these shows are given a lot more choice than women in those periods had?

I suppose Sheila gains a strength through her questioning of both her famiy's morality and her relationship with Gerald but as has been pointed out ultimately she doesn't have the choice to kink Gerald out of her life which maybe would be the expectation of modern drama

I went to see this with DS, I swear that most the people there were GCSE students with their families.

I didn’t particularly enjoy it, but avoided it during my school education luckily.

Well yes, I don't think anyone, even GCSE students thinks Bridgerton (or Downton Abbey, or even some of the modern adaptations of classic novels like Jane Austen) are realistic historical depictions, do they? The writers and producers of those shows primarily want their characters to be likeable and relatable to a modern audience and their shows to be fun and light-hearted to watch, so of course they do things like showing young Regency women to be empowered and making their own choices around sexual partners (when realistically these choices would be extremely limited and parentally controlled, but that would make a frothy show about sex and romance with frocks and characters less fun) or aristocrats having interesting friendships with their servants based on equality of thought and frank exchange of views (when that would be extremely unlikely in the 1920s but that would make the programme much more overtly political and stiff). It doesn't mean you can't have fun analyzing these shows or have them provoke interesting discussions but in terms of passing GCSE exams the kids need to understand they can't simply apply modern day British moral standards to make value judgements about characters in texts written in the past and/or another culture. (a) Because the examiners want to see that they understand the book or play's context and that they've learnt something about that time period and how it differs from today and (b) simply saying Penelope in Bridgerton is a good character because she's a strong empowered woman or Sheila is a bad character because she doesn't stand up to the men doing bad things to her isn't proper literary analysis. Its not about whether you personally like the character or not, or relate to them or not, it's about probing and understand what the author was trying to depict and say through that character and the techniques s/he uses to do so, and how successful they are...

For instance have you read Lolita? Not that it would ever be used for GCSE or even A Level (and I'm not saying give it to your teenager to read!) but you wouldn't get very many marks in a literature exam character analysis question for just saying Humbert (the main character) is a bad man because he's a paedophile, even though it's pretty universally agreed paedophilia is very very wrong. You wouldn't even get that many marks for adding in interesting historical context and discussion of differing attitudes to children and paedophilia or even censorship and moral outrage in the early-mid 20th century to today. You'd need to dig into what the author was trying to do with the character and why and how he's depicted as he is to answer the question. Does that make sense?

Exactly. There’s a world of difference between a period TV drama made today with our 21stC sensibilities, and in the case of Bridgerton and Downton primarily to entertain, versus a drama that seems period to us but was contemporary to its time and had a social purpose as well as being a piece of theatre. Period dramas get reimagined for the audiences in each era in various ways, but the original play texts and novels shouldn’t change to make the women more kickass or Humbert less pervy. We’ve gotta get past the basic studio exec note of needing characters to be likeable and engage in the complexity, and when the work is really great it can transcend eras and take on all manner of settings (Shakespeare, Chekhov etc) because they key into a humanity that always feels relevant.

Really interesting posts. Maybe we have become used to empowered women being almost mandatory in any contemporary production it is difficult to see something where there is a more realistic historical portrayal of women. I do take the points above but to an average 14 year old it can be a shock to face this level of patriarchy and maybe this is partly due to sensitization of historical drama now (as well as a constant feed of teen drama where gender power is a lot more equal).

Actually I bet to differ about going teens immediately dismissing the likes of Bridgerton as unrealistic as they may have nothing immediately to compare to and maybe mistakenly think of it as based on historical fact (especially if real historical characters are alluded to).

This really isn’t the case. Women in pre-mid 20th Century Literature aren’t meek and mild victims accepting their fate by any stretch of the imagination.
Inspector Calls isn’t a great play. It’s a clear play. It’s a good choice therefore for a non-tiered GCSE exam as it’s accessible at all levels. Interestingly, it wasn’t a box office success in the UK when it was first performed (the moralising was a little much for a country that had just elected Clement Atlee). It has total market dominance now courtesy of our exam system. And you can’t get performance rights for even an amateur performance due to the Stephen Daldry production (not sure Priestley would agree with that tbh). It’s going nowhere until someone higher says so (like Gove getting rid of Of Mice and Men at GCSE).
Regardless, there’s a lot of ‘dark’ texts on the GCSE specification. Too many references to suicide and not enough joy.

Hear hear!

I’ve said time and again that the GCSE texts are inappropriate, especially at a time when young people’s mental health is at an all-time low.

R+J - suicide/murder
Macbeth - suicide/murder
Inspector - suicide
Power and Conflict poetry - war, ptsd, murder.

It’s an endless diet of misery!