Class and power: an unfair society, and who benefits from it

Arthur Birling is hoping to be given a knighthood. Eva Smith was sacked from his factory for asking for two and six a week more. Priestley puts both facts into the first act - because they are one economy seen from its two ends.

Before a big idea, the events help, and An Inspector Calls: An overview has every one of them. This video follows the money.

Class, in this play, is your place in society, set mostly by money: who owns the factory, and who works in it. Power is what that place lets you do to other people. Birling's engagement toast gives the game away. He hopes the Crofts and the Birlings will soon stop competing and work together, for lower costs and higher prices. A wedding is being toasted as a business deal. In this play, class is never an abstract idea. It is always somebody's money. And Birling is hoping for more than a merger. There's a fair chance that I might find my way into the next honours list. Just a knighthood, of course. Class is a ladder he is climbing - which is why a scandal will frighten him more than a death. So when the girls at his factory ask for more pay, he treats it as a threat to the ladder. If you don't come down sharply on some of these people, they'd soon be asking for the earth. These people is prejudice in two words. Prejudice means judging someone by the group they belong to, before you know anything about them. Three students explain why Birling sacked her. The first says he is a nasty man. The second says he was having a bad day. The third says he was protecting the profits his position depends on. Which reads Birling as class, not personality: the first, the second or the third? The third. His choice comes from where he stands in the economy, so he can sack her and still sleep well. That is the point to hold on to. Class in this play does not mean the rich are nasty. It means ordinary people doing what their place makes comfortable, and calling it reasonable.

The Inspector widens one girl into many. There are a lot of young women living that sort of existence in every city and big town in this country. Then he makes it concrete. These young women counting their pennies, in their dingy little back bedrooms. A stage direction is an instruction printed in the script, and the opening one sets the play in the dining room of a prosperous manufacturer's large suburban house. That room and those back bedrooms belong to the same economy. One working woman is in that house all evening. Edna, the maid, clears the table and opens the door to the Inspector - and nobody ever puts a question to her. Priestley makes the point with where he places her, not with a speech. Eva's class is in the house serving the dinner, and the questions go only to the people with power. Mrs Birling says the class judgement out loud, and never finishes the sentence. Girls of that class - At her committee, the girl who had called herself Mrs Birling is judged by her class, and turned away. Why does Priestley leave Mrs Birling's sentence unfinished? Because everyone in the room already knows how it ends. A prejudice that needs no finishing is one her class shares without saying it. The Inspector answers all of them in one sentence to Birling. Public men, Mr Birling, have responsibilities as well as privileges.

Power, in this play, is not who shouts. It is who can afford not to notice, which is why every Birling thinks they behaved reasonably.

Power, then, is wider than the two parents at the head of the table. One examiner's report says so directly: in An Inspector Calls many candidates understood that ideas of power could mean more than Mr and Mrs Birling appearing to hold power. In plain words, those students found power in money, in a family name, and in who gets questioned and who never does, not only in the parents. Take that habit into your own answer: whenever you write about power, name who could afford not to notice.

Now, try planning an answer to this one. How does Priestley use the Birlings to show who benefits from an unfair society? Pause and sketch three paragraphs on who benefits, before any hints. One wrong turn is opening with nineteen twelve as background, a paragraph of history that never touches a single Birling choice. The other is arguing that the Birlings are plain villains, which the play takes care to deny. The plan below goes one step at a time, so you can tick off yours as it lands. It opens with the toast: the engagement is a merger, so class in this play is money from the first scene. It moves to policy: Birling sacks Eva to protect the ladder he is climbing, and Mrs Birling's committee judges her by her class. And it closes on power: the family can afford not to notice, and the Inspector's reply is that privilege brings responsibility. One chain, five links: every link hands her on to the next. Class is who fastened the chain, and who was never going to feel it pull.

Birling's own words first, and then the same idea carried to a moment this video did not show. Birling: come down sharply on these people, or they'd soon be asking for what? The earth. These people is the prejudice, and the earth is a pay rise of two and six. Here's a moment the video left out. After the women leave the table, Birling hints to Gerald that Lady Croft feels her son could have done better socially. So why does Birling tell Gerald, of all people, about the knighthood? Because Gerald's family sits above his. A title would close that gap, so the news is a step up the class ladder. A knighthood at one end, two and six a week at the other, and one economy between them.

You've got this down once you can explain one Birling as a class position rather than a personality, so thumbs-up it then. If it felt quick, save the playlist and plan the same question again next week.

Next in the chapter: Women in the play, what happens to Eva, Sheila and Sybil.

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