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.

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.

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.

How does grief turn into the desire for power? A child death would be incredibly traumatic but there must have been a harbouring of desire for absolute power of at least to be the wife of absolute power. Does not MacBeth suggest Lady MacBeth being forth men child only suggesting the possibility of future children or when Last MacBeth asks spirits to turn her mile to call she is effectively exchanging voluntary infertility for power?

Again it's getting a 14 year old girl to relate to pushing your husband to commit a heinous crime for political advancement is the key. Of course there are modern power couples that can be related to (dictators and their wives for example)

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!)

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

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 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.

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.

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.

@GrammarTeacher

So is Lady Macbeth infertile at the time of the play and therefore there is never any chance of Macbeth having heirs? Macbeth fear Banquo's lineage but there is little mention of Macbeth's own or indeed past children of the Macbeth's.

There is no scolding between Macbeth or Lady Macbeth about the lack of an heir in the play so it feels like something is missing. (I also don't understand how Fleance or his children could become kings but that is a other question.....)

What a brilliant answer. I think your explanation does round L MacBeth lot and I had never considered that. The fiend like queen deserves sympathy?

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.

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.

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.

@Evvyjb

Isn't this then suggesting Lady Macbeth is fertile and of child bearing age? Is there part of Macbeth that sorely wishes a long awaited male heir? How does this exhortation to Lady MacBeth couples with MacBeth's concern about a fruitless crown?

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.

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.

@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.

I am finding discussion about Lady MacBeth fascinating so will post on that soon...

However as an aside I did have a discussion with a colleague about the relvance of Shakepeare in a diverse city where 30% of children have English as a foreign langauage. My colleague did say there was disengagement from Shakespeare for some minority. groups (his point not mine) and the hard was a form of cultural imposition (being born of 16th century England) whose brilliance of language could only be appreciated by the English (I guess a lot of the poetic beauty is lost in translation). I thought there is danger of literature being brought into the culture wars (even gender wars) with different cultures responding to the world differently.

Romeo and Juliet for instance has different impact for instance whether you have a culture that presently supports arranged marriage or not.

Sorry to derail but I think this point was partially in response to curriculum concerns.

I think that is a great consixeration. Are the MacBeths evil? I think that is a question that should be grappled by students.

McDuff certainly would consider the MacBeths evil for murdering his family with justification and certainly Duncan's sons do for the usurping of the throne. The people of Scotland suffer under their rule.

Are the MacBerhs evil or misguided by the treacherous weird sisters whose reason to exist was to manipulate man? Was there an element of pre destiny when the weird sisters first spoke to Macbeth in that the witches knew full well what events would fall. I guess one of Shakepeares dramatic tools was to have a noble man fall due to some aberration of character (in this case ambition and possibly ego being lauded as one of Scotland's finest generals).

Is there any sympathy for the couple?

Quite frankly teachers need to up their game on Shakespeare. He’s relevant to everyone. And performed globally. The Globe has even done an entire season of Shakespeare in global languages. The themes are universal.
There is an issue with the quality of Shakespeare teaching though. And indeed the knowledge base that some teachers have on texts. Some of the stuff I’ve seen written about Lady Macbeth is beyond shocking for example. For instance, people genuinely believing the audience would be amazed an 11th century woman could read. Failing to account for the fact that she’d have been running Macbeth’s estate. Upper class women could read and write and so much more. They had to. The shock is the way their domestic situation becomes the public one. For a political play it’s exceptionally domestic. It’s fascinating. And its exploration of what makes a good king (and man) is amazing. I adore Act 4 Scene 3. It’s fascinating. Many struggle with it.
I also saw people complaining about an Edexcel question on the Porter scene years ago. They said that the scene was an irrelevant distraction, demonstrating that they hadn’t got it at all.

There's an insidious "Shakespeare is boring" and "Shakespeare is hard" and "Shakespeare is elitist" attitude which can be tackled by good teaching. I've had TAs say "oh no, not Macbeth" and then 3 lessons in be really enjoying it. I teach in a school where the VAST majority (80+%) have english as an additional language - it's HOW you teach and how well you know the texts that's important.

I do think I agree that Shakespeare can be taught better but the problem is that across Y7 - Y11 kids are likely to not study any books from an author of colour when 82% have never studied a text with BAME authors and putting BAME peoples stories at the center. Which is ridiculous, as I mentioned above most schools only do (except at A-level) Shakespeare as the only playwright they study. It's absolutely mad to constantly to 16th century stuff, with 16th century context, of course BAME students feel ignored by a curriculum which literally ignores them. Despite AQA and other exam boards adding many books focusing on people of colour and different cultures on Paper 2, so little schools have entered in it, because it's too difficult to make new resources, or teachers want to stick with the same old, same old which just isn't fair and isn't necessary anyways.

4% of students are BAME (and non-BAME students need to learn about different cultures etc) bit 0.7% study a book by a writer of colour at GCSE and 0.1% women of colour at GCSE. It just not good enough to consistently across the years only do 'canon' texts which are conveniently all by white authors, basically we repeatdly only teach canon texts because we've always done canon texts. Which conveniently lack racial and female diversity and are highly unlikely to be 20th or 21st century. I also think it's the lack of racial training in PGCEs that contributes when only 12% of secondary teachers actually get adequate training on it, which shows when they continue to pick books which have harmful trops as the only book about people of colour being Of Mice and Men, getting students to actually say the n-word or teachers consistently saying it themselves. I'm telling you myself and other Balck students found it the most uncomfortable thing plus why is the only text you select, showing the Black character to have a learning disability (fine, but in a very racial world), as the only one they do, what are schools saying when they do that. I think the Lit in Colour movement is doing lots of work to help schools improve and it's something all English departments need to look at - https://litincolour.penguin.co.uk/ and their report - https://litincolour.penguin.co.uk/assets/Lit-in-Colour-research-report.pdf
Also hopefully the Curriculum and Assesment Review will change this as it did allude to it in the intermin report, and Becky Francis seems to want to change it quite a bit, finally.

@TheLivelyViper I completely agree.

I also find the 2% of students studying a whole text by a female author stat hugely troubling, and the stats at KS3 aren’t much better.

The obsession with Shakespeare needing to be taught in every year group means that women and people of colour barely get a look in - both as writers and as protagonists - which means that in many classrooms, children are invisible in the texts they are being taught, and harmful narratives around white male supremacy continue to be an inherent (and unspoken) backbone of the curriculum. It’s the same in History.

Teachers do have choices - there are female writers on the GCSE set text lists, there are writers of colour, and there is ample free choice at KS3. Yet most teachers continually fall back on the same limited core of texts that are self perpetuating as new teachers come through seeing this core being taught in their placement schools and not developing the new knowledge required. I do a lot of work with ITT providers and with teachers on developing English curricula and in most schools at KS3 it’s the same old stuff being taught - A Christmas Carol, Of Mice and Men, The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas, Lord of the Flies, Animal Farm - no female characters (and if there are, they’re victims) no people of colour as characters (and if there are, they’re victims), no playwrights other than Shakespeare. No one seems to actually sit back and look at the content and authorship of the texts they’re teaching across year groups and consider balance. And we wonder why English is a dying subject at A Level. The curriculum
in so many schools is homogenous, dull and depressing. And when there are so many fabulous books being published for young people that are diverse and exciting that we could be teaching instead, I find it criminal that there is such a lack of appetite for change amongst teachers. I know it’s hard to find time and money, but surely we’re all fed up of teaching the same old shit?!?

I think what Lit in Colour are doing is great but I’d love to see a similar push for getting more female writers and protagonists on the curriculum. Diversity should be intersectional. End Sexism in Schools are doing a brilliant job if you look at their research but they don’t seem to have managed to get much traction going with a publisher willing to partner with them to make a bigger noise about the lack of female voices in classrooms. Doesn’t surprise me though. No one ever cares about women!

And on the Shakespeare front - I don’t question the quality and value of the work. I just don’t think it’s so superior to any other literature produced throughout the history of English Literature that it should be taught in every single year group at school. If schools taught a Charles Dickens novel every single year to the exclusion of any other novelist, we’d see it as an issue. Yet not teaching any playwright other than Shakespeare is apparently fine, because it’s Shakespeare. As an English/Drama teacher, I take huge issue with the majority of children leaving school only being aware of two dramatists - Shakespeare and Priestley. Given the huge dramatic legacy of British playwrights in the 20th and 21st centuries, it’s dreadful that most schools offer such a limited dramatic education to our young people.

When Gove redid the curriculum it became mainly white, middle class, straight male writers with the odd exception. Even Pigeon English (based on the murder of Damilola Taylor) is written by a white man and glosses over female on male sexual abuse. A couple of poems were added to the anthology - but the old ‘Other Cultures’ was much better.
i have been teaching for 24 years. An Inspector Calls works because the students enjoy it on the whole. Even the lower ability students get the basic detective story plot and the higher ability students can be introduced to critical theory and how to apply to writing.
I always start with a survey. Who is at home/who works/who does most of the work at home/what roles do siblings have - it never surprises me that most homes have two adults, both work and the woman does most of the cooking and cleaning. Female siblings are more likely to collect younger siblings from school. That springboards a discussion on roles of women and if they have changed. We then look at context.
other discussions include consent, misogyny, suffrage etc.
We end with the question of whether society has listened to Priestley’s warnings about women (refer back to survey), society and war. The answer, sadly, is no.