How far does Priestley present male characters as irresponsible in the play?
A grade 9 essay from Thomas Tadesse
Commentary
If I had to reduce all the marketing criteria for Grade 9 to simple steps, it would be this:
Have at least a 3 part thesis
Include at least 15 quotes
Constantly refer to Priestley’s purpose (and include society in 1945)
Refer to the patriarchal society
Bring in context to prove your point, embedding it like a quote
Work through the play chronologically
Include a quotation in your conclusion
Job done!
The biggest problem Thomas faces is that he uses too many words to make his point. You could easily reduce this essay to 900-1000 words, and still keep exactly the same points. This is the typical length for a grade 9 essay in the exam.
That would actually be a good way to revise from it.
Many Teachers Predict the Question of Male Behaviour is Likely to Come up in 2023!
His biggest strengths are his AO2 analysis of Eric and Gerald’s words.In the 1945 didactic play, ‘An Inspector Calls’, J.B. Priestley presents male characters as irresponsible due to their exploitation of women in the capitalist system. Perhaps Priestley is trying to reach out to a female audience which now has the vote, seeking for them to realise the effects of the patriarchy sustained by capitalism in 1912, and understand that to make a change, they need to vote for Labour, and vote socialist in the 1945 election.
My Comments
There is the three part thesis statement. Notice how Thomas already links context to Priestley’s purpose for great AO3 marks.
Priestley first describes the irresponsibility of men barely minutes into the beginning of the play through the use of the construct of Gerald, an aristocratic young man engaged to Sheila. Sheila questions why Gerald went “six months” without seeing her, to which he replies “I was at the works”. Priestley intentionally sets up this tense atmosphere between Gerald and Sheila right at the beginning of the play, perhaps to indicate to the audience the irresponsibility of male characters within a patriarchal society, like Gerald. Sheila is told by her mother that men are busy, and that their absences shouldn’t be questioned, indicating that when the play was set, women were expected to be subservient to men.
My Comments
When you simply use the word ‘society’ about any text, you automatically begin to explore the writer’s perspectives. This always gives you higher marks.
However, we learn more about Gerald’s betrayal of his fiancé and his affair with Daisy Renton. Gerald attempts to describe himself as being charitable, seeing Daisy as someone who was “different from the rest” and unlike “those hard-eyed dough faced women” that he had previously seen at the Palace Bar. This indicates that perhaps Gerald is a promicicious man – in the stage directions he is known as a “well bred man about town”. He frequents the Palace Bar, which is known by the characters in the play as a home of prostitutes, therefore being “the man about town” suggests that he is familiar with the sort of people who were in the Palace Bar. To the largely female audience of 1945, this suggests that many men of business in a capitalistic society could be disloyal to themselves and to their wives, seeing them as a commodity rather than someone to love. Perhaps Priestley does this to convince the audience not to vote for the capitalist Conservative Party, but instead to vote for the Socialist Labour Party, reflecting his socialist and feminist views.
My Comments
Although Thomas uses a lot of words to say what he means, notice how skilfully he embeds quotations. This is a skill all essays of grade 7 and above need.
Furthermore, Gerald seeks to portray himself as carefully caring for the girl, Daisy Renton, when she was in a time of need, describing himself as a saviour and saving the “pretty” young girl by “installing” her in a flat that “just so happened” to be given to him by a friend who had “left to Canada for six months”. Despite Gerald trying to portray himself as saving Daisy from the womanisers that inhabited the bar, Priestley intentionally uses the word “install” to dehumanise Daisy, suggesting that Gerald saw her as a commodity to be used for his own good. Perhaps Priestley therefore could be portraying Gerald as a product of the capitalist system, whereby he uses women for his own satisfaction, and sees them as items to be used for his own sexual gratification. This is probably best emphasised by how Gerald cut Daisy off once he had to give the flat back to his friend – he perhaps never intended to look after her in the first place, instead coming to the Palace Bar with the intention of finding a girl to keep in the “nice little set of rooms”.
My Comments
This is what great analysis of language for AO2 looks like.
This irresponsible exploitation of women is explored by Priestley through the manner in which Gerald was the “most important person in her life”, yet he broke off their relationship when it suited him. Perhaps Priestley therefore is suggesting to the female audience in 1945 that they should use their power to vote to install a socialist system, where women would not be seen as goods for Capitalist businessmen to exploit, but rather as “people” who are respected.
We see the best example of capitalist exploitation of women with the actions of Mr Birling – he fired Eva Smith after a failed strike as she “had too much to say”. When asked by the Inspector why he decided to fire her, he said “she had to go”, and that she could go anywhere else and “find a better wage, it’s a free country”. However, Eric and Sheila argue that she can’t find a better job, and perhaps Priestley is utilising Birling to represent the exploitation of capitalism – she can’t find a better job because Crofts and Co and Birling and Company work together to make “prices lower” – they essentially run a cartel. Therefore, Priestley is using Birling to represent the irresponsible capitalist business class who use women as “cheap labour” and a commodity to pursue “higher profits”. He fails to take responsibility for the suicide, seeing it as an effect of business, further linking to the idea of capitalist greed and his idea that “a man must mind his own business and look after his own-”, he is shown by Priestley to not care about others outside his class in the pursuit of profits, a criticism of capitalism and the selfishness of businessmen in 1912.
My Comments
You can use other words to force yourself to get top grades, no matter what the question.
Using the author’s name forces you to write about their perspective and purpose.
Using tentative language like ‘perhaps’ forces you to be ‘exploratory’ and ‘analytical’ - words which are always at the top of any mark scheme.
Priestley perhaps most prominently uses the construct of Eric Birling to represent the irresponsibility of men. Eric is described in the first moments of the play as “squiffy” – he is an alcoholic, and this is shown by his “guffawing” at Gerald’s comments about being “at the works” in the spring. Perhaps Priestley is indicating that Eric and Gerald saw each other at the Palace Bar, both in the pursuit of prostitutes, and for Eric, the pursuit of drinks. Eric is described in the stage directions as “half shy, half assertive”, which is likely due to his guilt about raping Eva Smith and causing her to have a child.
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