Plan:
Learns hugely:
"Whoever that chap was the fact remains that I did what I did and mother did what she did and you all did what you did"
"We'll have to share our guilt"
Doesn't learn so much:
"squiffy" "in that state where a chap easily turns nasty"
"she told me she didn't want to go in"
"If men do not learn that lesson then they will be taught it in fire and blood and anguish"
"not really"
Learns when Inspector is there:
“(we hear the front door slam)"
Joseph Writes More Than 99% of Students, So…
2226 words
30/30 marks
This is an incredible amount of writing to do in the exam. It is a brilliant way to revise, because you will automatically get really high grades.
This is why Joseph was able to write so much in the exam:
“I type due to my handwriting being poor, not due to any disability but for what I think is an issue with my hand keeping up with the thoughts that I want to get down. The fact that I wrote in cursive also didn't help so teachers struggled to read and therefore enquired to the disability officer at my school so that my grades weren't hindered despite me knowing the content. I had the same amount of time and the school sorted it for me.”
What to do with this essay?
Joseph has terrible hand writing. His teachers realised that he had great ideas, but they couldn’t read them. So they arranged for him to get permission to type his exam answers. Even though he was given no extra time, you can see he writes twice as much as most students can write.
If your handwriting is terrible, you should try this. But, you should also try this as a revision technique – look how much revision Joseph would do in 45 minutes!
Your next task is to make it a length you could use in the exam:
· Get rid of any repetition
· Work out which parts you can leave out because the level for the assessment objective has already been reached.
Exam Answer:
In An Inspector Calls it seems that Priestley uses the construct of the character of Eric in order to portray how he learns and changes following the teaching of the Inspector. This could be done to set an example for the 1945 audience on how to behave and what their reaction to the play should look like. However, there are parts of the play that hint at Eric learning not so much and I will explore these through his words and how he is presented.
Look at how many parts there are to this thesis. I recommend having three, which help you to construct an argument. The thesis statement then also acts as a plan for the essay.
On the one hand, the very traditional view of Eric would be that he completely learns from the Inspector's teachings, shown through how, after the Inspector has left, he still sustains the socialist attitudes that he exhibits throughout the play. Eric reflects the Inspector's lesson completely, even going on to mirror his word almost exactly: "Whoever that chap was the fact remains that I did what I did and mother did what she did and you all did what you did". Here, Eric appears to reflect on the lesson of the Inspector, to "share our guilt". This is shown through the way that Eric speaks of the "fact'. Here, this abstract noun could imply how Eric sees his new beliefs as completely true and the true beliefs of him.
(1) Level 4 AO2
Furthermore, this paints the capitalist views of "community and all that nonsense" as trivial, possibly conveying that these view are not factual at all". Upon closer inspection, Eric also illustrates how even after the Inspector has left, he exercises his free will and chooses the path of socialism: "whoever that chap was". Here, the noun, 'whoever' could potentially portray how Eric simply does not care about the Inspector as a man or human anymore, but rather sees only his lesson, further evidence for the way that Eric reforms himself. These new beliefs of Eric could be starkly juxtaposed to those of his parents, who "(triumphantly)" proclaim "Didn't I tell you?" and "Nothing but an elaborate sell!". In essence this contrasts the capitalist views of Mr and Mrs Birling and Priestley could do this to place emphasis on how much Eric changes.
Moreover, Eric not only takes responsibility for his own action here, but through the repetition of the verb, "did" reflects on how he even takes responsibility for his mother's actions as well and recognises the rest of his family's positions in the death of Eva Smith. This could once again support the idea that Eric has become a proxy for the Inspector, also mirroring his ideas of the death being a "chain of events".
(2) These paragraphs are assessed as Level 5 AO2
Building upon this, by making Eric out to be a proxy to the Inspector, this also reflects him as a proxy for Priestley as the Inspector acts as Priestley's proxy. This could conceivably suggest that Priestley presents Eric in these ways to reflect his views in the play, linking to the contextual idea of the play being a propoganda-esque play, persuading wider society to move away from the capitalist ideas of Churchill in 1945 and move towards a labour and socialist government.
Ultimately, in the play, Priestley uses the character of Eric as a role model of how the younger generation of 1912, who are the older generation and audience in 1945, should behave and how they should react and act to the teachings of the Inspector and also the play as a whole, showing how Eric is a character, who learns important lessons about society.
(3) The examiner appears to have ignored this, thinking perhaps that it is better placed as an introduction. It also illustrates my most important lesson – every point needs a reference to the text, preferably a quotation.
However, some others could possibly make a case that Eric does not learn as much as we may first believe, potentially implying that Priestley uses Eric as a construct to portray what the audience should not do: learn the lesson but not act upon it. Eric attempts to explain away his effective rape of Eva Smith by claiming that he was in "in that state where a chap easily turns nasty". Through this, Priestley could be highlighting that Eric is someone, who is easily led in states that do not reflect his true self- conceivably implying that the way Eric appears to learn from the lessons of the Inspector is also one of these 'states', also supported by the fact that through the play Eric is 'squiffy' as described by Sheila.
Upon closer inspection, Eric could also exhibit capitalist tendencies here as he displays a closed mind, presuming that everyone understands the 'state' that Eric was in as if the things he did were normal, even using the adjective 'nasty', a rather mild adjective for such a heinous crime.
This belief could be taken further through the final words of the Inspector: "man will not learn that lesson then he will be taught it in fire and blood and anguish". Here, the Inspector once again repeats the words of Eric, 'that', potentially a sign from Priestley that this message is aimed at Eric. Furthermore, the Inspector uses the noun, 'man'. Interestingly, he does not use men as in mankind but 'man' as in the gender. Through this, Priestley could be describing how even if Sheila learns the socialist message, she does not have the power in a patriarchal society to make an impact and therefore Priestley targets "man', a direct message to Eric.
(4) The range of quotations analysed is assessed as Level 5 AO1 References to the text.
Keep reading with a 7-day free trial
Subscribe to Mr Salles Teaches English to keep reading this post and get 7 days of free access to the full post archives.