Alice, Mr Fisher, Rosabel and Hartop walk into a pyramid (I mean pub)…

I have been listening and watching quite a bit of Philip Pullman – I think he has a book out or something. Anyway, he got me thinking about storytelling and how we teach it. The more I teach the current GCSE for English Language the more I realise the mechanistic approach we have been using is ineffective and reductive.


Take ‘Freytag’s Pyramid’. I device used to teach the structure of a story. Personally, it is the dullest thing I have encountered when looking at story structure. It is basic. It is rudimentary. It is simplistic. Let’s plot ‘War and Peace’ on it, shall we? Look how a complex narrative can be simply pegged to a pretty pyramid. The pyramids are still around because they are heavy and robust and not something delicate and ephemeral. If ‘Freytag’s Pyramid’ is so special, then why don’t writers, and famous writers at that, go on about it all the time. J.K. Rowling boasting how the pyramid helped her achieve success with Harry Potter.


The problem with ‘Freytag’s Pyramid, and similar devices we use to teach storytelling, is that they are simplistic. Storytelling is subtle, nuanced and complex. That’s why students who read lots are able to pick up the subtleties, the nuances and the complexities of text. A lot of this comes with experience.


I have reassessed how I teach fiction across the whole of KS3 and KS4. That doesn’t mean that I talk about GCSE questions in Year 7. It means that I am places a stronger emphasis on narrative and, in particular, the construction of a story. Rather than just plonk a story in a class and hope for natural osmosis, I am directing my comments and teaching around storytelling. It isn’t pretty. It isn’t ‘terminology’ driven. It isn’t neat and tidy. But, it is about the art of storytelling. If we read like storytellers, then our writing will reflect this level of understanding.



The following are some of the things that I have brought to the forefront of my teaching in light of the new GCSEs.



Subtext

The subtext or, as I like to call it, ‘what is really really really going on’, is a key milestone for students to grasp. Getting students to see that the story isn’t just a teacher marking exam papers or just a woman in a hat shop is key for understanding. Yes, on the surface it is about a sad woman, but underneath it is about a class struggle or a loss of hope. What is this really teaching us about?


When a student understands the subtext of an extract, all the words, techniques or structural devices have a layer of understanding and an anchor to latch ideas on.

If struggling, I ask the students: What wouldn’t a seven year old get from this that I do?



Reader’s connection

Throughout my current reading of ‘Romeo and Juliet’ I was a bit silly whenever Capulet was in a scene. I’d say: good dad? Or, bad dad? The students would appropriately respond with good or bad dad depending on where it happens in the play. Recently, we went through the Hartop paper and ‘good dad/ bad dad’ reared its head. The connectivity to a character is key in storytelling. Yet, do we spend much time on looking at how a writer builds a connection subtly?


The whole opening of the Mr Fisher extract is designed to make us feel empathy towards the character. We need to keep going back to the connection with the text. Am I supposed to like or dislike this character at the moment? Look at the Hartop extract and you can see how at the start we are fooled into liking, but then that suddenly shifts to disliking the character.

Of course, we can build up the level of explanation when we get beyond like and like, but that way we avoid the ‘reader wants to read on’ or ‘hooks the reader’. We empathise with the character and so we want to see their situation change. We need to get students connecting with characters. Like or dislike?



World Building

I find this phrase much better than exposition. ‘Exposition’ is a dull, bland word. ‘World building’ is so much better. This is what writers do in the opening of any story and it is what we forget when exploring stories. How does the writer create a world? How does the writer build up the world around our protagonist?


Take the Hartop extract and you see the world build up through the van. From that van, we see poverty, family dynamics and power struggles from the description of the van and the people sat in it. He builds the world through the weather and the symbolism of the van and how people are sat in it. Compare this to the bus in the Rosabel extract. We see the world build through a bus, hat shop and a meal.


Recently, my Year 8s have been studying ‘Great Expectations’ and it is interesting that Dickens builds the world through a graveyard in the opening. A visceral image but one that says death, loss, family and faith.


How does the writer build the world? A simple question, but far more effective than ‘what’s interesting about the structure?’



Setting / People / Objects  

Most openings and stories start with these. In fact, it is often setting or people. Occasionally, you’d get an object. Understanding why writers start with these is key. Setting is about context and atmosphere. People is about understanding and connecting to a character’s experience. Both are key when talking about stories. The relationship between the two is interesting and helping students to see the choice to be made.


When looking at ‘Great Expectations’ the opening starts with people and then moves to setting. This is because Dickens wants us to connect with Pip first so that when the setting is introduced we are concerned about for him and worry.



Juxtaposition of characters  

Adding characters is key to understanding a story. Fred is introduced in ‘A Christmas Carol’ after a length introduction of Scrooge to prove that Marley isn’t the only person in Scrooge’s life. We are expected to believe this from Dickens’ opening of the book. Fred proves to us that there are people in Scrooge’s life who care from him and that he isn’t alone. Then, Dickens adds the men from the charities to the story and Dickens heightens how mercenary Scrooge is. Each character added to a story adds meaning to the protagonist.


Rosabel is an interesting extract as it deals with a clear foil. A character that makes our protagonist seem dull and boring. Less glamorous. We don’t see that until the woman with red hair appears. Then, we understand why. The egg and the flowers. We see the plain and the interesting. The two characters show an extreme contrast, which heightens how far apart they are and how Rosabel will never achieve success, in her eyes. Like the colour of her hair, success is determined from birth.


Students need to see that writers add character to help us understand the protagonist. They are a bit more subtle than goodies and badies.  



Relationships

If you understand the relationships, then you understand the subtext. The recent Hartop extract demonstrated this. It was all about the relationships between the characters. The squeezing out of the wife and daughter was key to understanding the relationship. This is made worse by the fact that Hartop makes his daughter go out in the rain and walk a considerable distance to get back in the van. We see how the women try to make everything fine. Clearly, they worry about ‘rocking the cart’. Alice’s ‘ironed’ stance reflects her fear and determination to not disrupt the status quo. She dare not put a foot wrong. The blood on Hartop’s hands indicates that he could commit violence.


If you look at how the Hartop extract works, we can see how the relationship is key to the extract. We empathise with Alice’s plight and as the text goes on we want her to escape and that’s what is engaging.



Inside / Outside Conflict

All characters have an inner turmoil. Understanding the inner conflict of a character is key. Alice’s conflict between family and freedom. Maybe she is ‘ironed’ and ‘clay’ because she fears how Hartop is going to react if she left. What would he do to the mother? Hartop’s conflict is between the money and family. Maybe he is a man that is losing in life and the business is struggling. He views success in terms of money and he clearly hasn’t got the money. Hartop has dependents and maybe they are the problem for him. They are a drain. Therefore, he is metaphorically pushing them out of his life. 


The characters on the exam papers so far have all had an inner conflict. They are quite subtle in the case of the Labyrinth extract and in some cases they are quite explicit, Mr Fisher.  Looking at what point we are in the inner conflict is interesting. Both Hartop and Rosabel are stories introducing the inner conflict. They are never resolved and that’s why they end quite bleak. There’s a bit missing from the story. The next bit is the ‘action stage’. They do something to break the cycle. They do something life transforming or they are rescued. Mr Fisher is different because we see the conflict resolved. His unhappiness and conflict is partly solved by one student’s work.

We need to teach students about character’s having inner conflicts and how those inner conflicts affect relationships and how they can be externalised or internalised in the story. The structure of the story is always wrapped around the character’s inner conflict.



Symbols

Everything is an opportunity for a symbol. I joked in the summer that I am going to town with flower symbolism as almost all the exams have featured flowers in some way. They are a relatively easy symbol. They represent beauty, nature or weakness. A lot of the time they link to the character. In Rosabel, the flowers are a symbol of how she wants to make her life better. She buys boring food, yet she purchases flowers. Something that doesn’t add much to her life but looks beautiful, highlighting the emphasis in the story on appearance and making a person better through their appearance (hats, hair, jewellery).



Grand Design  

Students forget about the end point. Where does the story end? That is the point that the previous paragraphs have been building up to. When we look at structure, we need students to think of the end feeling. What does the writer want us to feel at the end of the extract? Happy. Sad. Then, everything before it was leading up to that point. Everything. Every time detail. Everything is a crumb leading us down this path. 

That’s why the writer in the Hartop extract describes the isolated landscape and the bad

weather.There’s no prince in shining armour ready to save Alice. She is on her own. It is up

to her to change the situation.We need to see this isolation from the start. The weather

attacking the van is just a metaphor for Alice. Match that with Rosabel.The egg and the 

violets are discussed in the opening because at the end we see the contrast between Rosabel 

and the lady with red hair. Rosabel is the egg and the other woman is the violets.

That’s why I think the ending is key. Look at the end point and look to rest of the story to see

how it links together. When making a jigsaw, you look at a picture of the finished image to 

help you construct it. Look at the end point and work back.   

Note none of these things are about how to answer the question on the exam paper. This, for me, is the knowledge we should be working on in KS3 to help students understand texts better in KS4. This is what we should be looking at more and more. Instead, we have been looking at the questions but not focusing on the learning. What sort of things do students need to learn about stories? What would help them to understand stories better? I think the above would be a start. There are so many things I could mention and I haven’t. Maybe, I will do at one stage, but we’ll leave that for another story.  





How does one get better at teaching storytelling and fiction? Simple: just read more. Read things you’d normally read. Read things you wouldn’t normally read. Read anything and everything.

  

Alice, Mr Fisher, Rosabel and Hartop walk into a pub and started to read a book. They all agreed that the book helped them. Hartop learnt that there’s more to life than money. Rosabel learnt that the beautiful people lack personality and integrity. Mr Fisher learnt that he wasn’t alone. Alice learnt that archaeology isn’t the job for her.  



Thanks for reading,

Xris  

Painting the writer's presentation of a character clearly

At the moment, I am thinking, like most of us, on how we can use KS3 to empower students at KS4. On this area, I thought I’d share something I did in a lesson this week and its interesting results.

This term, I am exploring the presentation of characters in ‘Treasure Island’ with Year 7s and we were looking at how Robert Louis Stevenson presents Long John Silver and Jim Hawkins. Usually, I provide students with a range of quotations and we analyse those in detail. Or, I get students to select appropriate quotes. This time, I added an extra stage.

There is often a large leap between an idea and a precise language point. Some students can infer an idea from one simple word and others need so much guidance that I may as well write the answer myself, as I have given the point to them and I am praising them for repeating my idea. This gulf between ideas and language points is huge. It is often a struggle for a student to make a decent idea and find the appropriate language point. The melding of idea and language is a problem.   

During one lesson, we looked at the idea of how writers present characters in stories. I simply spelled out that writers use the following to present characters:

Actions

Relationships

Decisions

Dialogue

Of course, there’s clothes too but there is only really the opening, where clothes are used to show us a character’s personality.

So, with this, I changed my questioning. Instead of asking students to find a quote where Stevenson shows us how brave and mature he’s become, I asked question about how does Stevenson present Jim’s maturity and bravery. At this point students, were able to pinpoint, his actions and one specific decision.

As a group, we continued this with looking at different strands of how Jim and Long John Silver are presented in the book. The emphasis, however, was on these four elements: actions, relationships, decisions and dialogue. It gave students quite a concrete starting point for their analysis and helped them with the next phase: drilling down into the language.

If it is an action, I need to look at the verbs or the way the action is described.

If it is a decision, I need to explore the choice and the consequences of the choice.

If it is the dialogue, I need to explore the tone, level of politeness/formality or words used in the speech.

If it is relationships, I need to find moments in the story what symbolise the relationship.  

What this did for me was helped to develop the logical thinking of analysis? The knowledge of the specific approaches to presentation helped students to see things rather than rely on the old see what jumps out at you.

From a lesson perspective, I wrote on the board the following headings.

Jim is …                                 Stevenson uses…..                                          Because….

And, students filled out the table easily and quickly. Then, when I was able to get students to write paragraphs about the characters, they were able to structure their analysis around the key idea. A student focusing on a decision would then introduce the decision at the start of their point and then explore the decision instead of use benign sentence starters forcing students to look at word regardless of the fact that the way the writer is presenting a character is something embedded in the writing and not easily amounted to one word.

I think the GCSEs now are really helping to make us see that students need a background in understanding the complexities and simplicities of storytelling. We, as English teachers, need to spell out the basics of storytelling and not just graphs to show where a climax or a resolution is. We need to teach students that writers have these tools in their arsenals.

Let’s take ‘A Christmas Carol’. Do we really focus on the decisions made by Scrooge throughout the story? We probably emphasise the way he is presented at the start and end, but do we look at the decisions he makes. In fact, do we list the decisions he makes or has to make? Do we even explore the decisions?

Here’s a few decisions:

The decision to give the Bob Christmas Day off without pay.

The decision to not attend Fred’s house at Christmas.

The decision to not give money to charity.

The decision not to paint Marley’s name out.      

Each and every decision helps us understand the character more.  I’ll be honest: I have tended to focus dialogue and relationships when talking about presentation of a character. Oh and clothes is a given. But, do we look closer enough at the decision making of characters. Do we place emphasis on them and I don’t mean an impromptu drama lesson with a decision alley. In fact, I am sure decision alley was a torture device employed by several dictators in the past. A love drama, but my love does not spill out to lining students in a line and getting them to spout brain dibblings. It’s your decision to make. Feel free to judge me on my decision not to use it in my teaching.

The decision not to paint Marley’s name out.      

A decision that on face value could look like laziness or penny pinching. Or a decision that could indicate an inability to change. A sign that points to the notion that Scrooge doesn’t like change and doesn’t want to change. This is ‘signposted’ at the start of the story to indicate the battle we are going to have convincing Scrooge of changing his ways. If he can’t be bothered to change a sign, then how will he change his mind, when that is free?  

What was the decision? To paint or not to paint - that is the question? What if he does paint out the sign? It would mean he has visual reminder of his loneliness. It is just Scrooge. No, and Marley. The sign would be a reminder that he is on his own. It could also be the chink in his armour. For all the negativity surrounding him, this could be the one glimpse of hope.  Maybe he doesn’t want to be lonely. Maybe that sign is the symbol he wants to be part of something. He wants connection. He isn’t totally on his own. Like most of us, he just doesn’t know how to change himself for the better.

Then, we can look at when that decision took place. Seven years ago, presumably. A decision that hasn’t changed in seven years. That then highlights the rigid nature of his decision. He’s made a decision and he doesn’t go back on it. Let’s assume that in those seven years he has been asked by numerous people or has been reminded about it, yet still he hasn’t changed.

Decisions are everywhere in the texts we study and they are a choice made by the writer. To give a character a decision, helps us to understand a character. What decisions did Eric make prior to ‘An Inspector Calls’? What decisions does Juliet make in ‘Romeo and Juliet’?

If students can understand, learn and recall that characters are presented in a number of ways in Year 7 and remind them of this annually, then we will have students that understand better the way writers present characters in a range of texts. The group I was teaching had a detailed discussion about the decision making of Jim Hawkins towards the end of the novel and it was fruitful, meaningful and detailed. Giving students these four words helped the student to explore the text more than they would have done without them.

Thanks for reading,

Xris

Isn’t ‘An Inspector Calls’ so pretty?

We are in the eye of the exam preparation storm and we are looking, as a department, at how we can help our students with the exams. A recent mock showed us how students struggled with A02 when exploring ‘An Inspector Calls’. And, I’d have to agree it is hard, and, I have read modern drama at university. Prose and Shakespeare can be relatively easy when exploring language choices because they are reliant on rich language and description to paint a picture of a character, situation or event. Shakespeare didn’t have the painted backdrops, or enough actors or props to convey an army or a boat at sea. Dickens told his story over months so he needed people to remember what characters looked like so they could remember them many months later. A playwright and especially a modern playwright have very little dialogue and speeches to convey complex emotions, because they are traipsing the thin line between realism and story-telling. A playwright is focused on relationships and the subtle behaviour patterns of people. The relationships and behaviour is subtle and so too must the language of a play be subtle.

Students will probably skip around plot with ‘An Inspector Calls’ more than any of the other texts. The characters are closer to being real people for them. They act and behave like real people. It is hard for them to separate the person from the character. The problem with ‘An Inspector Calls’ is it is hard to break the ‘suspension of disbelief’ and it is real. Yes, we know Gerald does that, but how does he use language to show it. 

I’d argue that we have to be even more explicit with the choices a playwright makes. We have to be visual with these choices - something, I have alluded to before. Students can pick up subtle nuances from everyday speech, but it needs to be more explicit when reading the play. Tone is useful. However, tone can easily lead to plot level idea.

The Inspector uses an aggressive tone to show he is determined to get to the truth.

The playwright gives the Inspector an aggressive tone here so that the character shows their determination to get to the truth.

Yes, I could add another sentence and add ‘symbolises’ to extend the level of explanation, but it doesn’t really convince me that the student understands the text fully. Students can easily recall the tone as again it is something that real people do. That’s why I am working hard on drawing attention to the choices made by the writer. The students might think the events of ‘An Inspector Calls’ is like real life, but I am going to work harder to show the artifice.

Take these specific choices:

·         Inspector describes Eva Smith as ‘not pretty’ after the death but alive she had been ‘very pretty’

·         Eric describes her as ‘pretty’ and a ‘good sport’

·         Sheila is described as being ‘pretty’ in stage notes  

·         Gerald is described as ‘attractive’ in the stage notes

·         Gerald refers to Eva Smith (Daisy Renton) as ‘pretty’- ‘soft brown hair and big dark eyes’ 

I’ve not really given much thought to how pretty characters are in ‘An Inspector Calls’. I don’t read a play and go, ‘Phwoar, look at that Lady Macbeth!’. Nor, do I rate the characters on who I’d snog, marry and avoid in ‘Pride and Prejudice’.  You don’t really. However, there is a running thread of how attractive Eva Smith in the play and it is repeated. But, why does Priestley use the word ‘pretty’ several times in the play.

·         Make a connection between Sheila and Eva so she identifies with her more

·         To show that poor and rich are alike physically

·         To show us that physical looks are not enough to sustain a person in society

·         To show us how the poor are only noticeable when they ‘pretty’

·         To show how ‘like attracts like’ – ‘attractive’ Gerald went for ‘pretty’ Daisy Renton

·         To show us how Eva is better than your average poor person – she is an innocent – Eric describes the rest of the women as ‘fat old tarts’.  

·         To romanticise the poor

·         To challenge the notion that the poor are dirty, disgusting, unhealthy and unattractive

·         To visually represent what the rich have done to the poor – they make her ugly – ‘not pretty’

·         To reflect the journey she travels – pretty to ugly – all cause by men and women

·         To show the audience that the poor are deserving.

·         To show personality – a pretty person is a good person and an ugly person shows an ugly personality  - What about Gerald?

·         To highlight how she is a victim – Victorian melodrama – perils of Pauline

·         To make the audience care for her

I could go on and on. That’s even before I start looking at how ugly characters are. Those five explicit choices help step up a discussion of the role that Eva Smith holds in the text. When students read the play, they just get the idea that she is ‘fit’ and everybody wants a bit of ‘hanky-panky’ with her. There’s something more and more interesting than her being a bit pretty. Priestley does what Dickens does – he romanticises the poor. In a sense, both Dickens and Priestley are guilty of the same thing: they ‘poor wash’ texts. We don’t get realistic characters; instead we get ciphers who idolise the poor.    

Right, I am off to plan my starter for tomorrow’s lesson.

Who do you fancy most?

Belle                      Mrs Cratchit                       Mrs Birling           Eva Smith            My Last Duchess

Only joking. That’s an essay instead. Anyway, I have attached the text I am using for students to see the explicit choices made by Priestley. We are going to turn it into an A5 booklet and get students to highlight choices linked to a theme. They have to think about why that choice has been made by the playwright. Feel free to use *.

Thanks for reading,

Xris

*If I see this resource copied on TES or another site without my permission, I will get my specially trained piranhas to eat you. And, they don’t care if you are pretty or ugly.   

Staging  – A02 Choices

·         First line in the play is directed to Edna ‘ Giving us the port, Edna’

·         We see no other part of the house

·         The 7 characters in the story – four male / three female

·         Audience never sees or hears of Eva Smith – audience are not aware of what she looks like – only know her through the characters telling their stories which link to her  

·         Starts with an engagement party

·         Set solely in the dining room

·         Set in real time

·         Set in 1912 – historic setting for the audience – recent past – before the war

·         House of a prosperous manufacturer

·         Three act play

·         Every act ends on a cliff-hanger 

·         Order of the interrogation – Mr Birling – Sheila – Gerald - Mrs Birling – Eric

·         Eva Smith’s story is revealed to us in chronological order – there are two narratives in the story – the events of Eva Smith’s life and the events of that night. However, technically, Eric met Eva before Mrs Birling so it should be him before Mrs Birling

·         The last word in the play is ‘questions’

Act 1

·         All the characters are happy in the stage directions – ‘smiling’, ‘gaily’, ‘half playful’, ‘suddenly guffaws’

·          The women leave the men to talk after the main celebrations – Eric, Mr Birling and Gerald are all left on stage when the Inspector is announced

·         ‘Sharp ring’ of the doorbell announces the Inspector’s arrival during Mr Birling’s line – ‘a man has to look after himself and his own’   

·         When the Inspector arrives the men act light-heartedly – ‘humorously’, ‘lightly’. Eric doesn’t behave in the same way – ‘uneasy, sharply’ 

·         The levels of aggression increase with Mr Birling, Eric and the Inspector during their conversation (‘rather angrily’ / ‘sulkily’). Sheila’s entrance deflates that with her ‘gaily’ comment

·         The Inspector changes the way he describes the death of Eva Smith between the men and the women – ‘Burnt her insides out’ /‘a young woman drank some disinfectant and died, after several hours of agony’

·         Mr Birling leaves the stage after it has been discovered that Sheila has a connection with the dead girl – ‘I must have a word with my wife’

·         Eric and the Inspector leave to fetch Mr Birling

·         End of Act 1 contains two characters alone on stage – Gerald and Sheila – then the Inspector arrives

·         Act 1 starts and end with a different point in the relationship between Gerald and Sheila

Act 2

·         The Inspector fools us into thinking he will interrogate Mrs Birling before Gerald, but then questions Gerald

·         The Inspector repeats the fact that Eva Smith was ‘pretty’

·         Gerald thinks that Sheila should leave as she has had ‘as much as she can stand’

·         The stage directions between Act 1 and Act 2 change considerably. In Act 1, characters tended to be ‘angrily’ or ‘distressed’. In Act 2, characters are ‘cutting in’, ‘sharply’, ‘ coolly’, ‘bitterly’, etc.

·         Sheila uses the pronoun ‘we’ to apportion blame – ‘And probably between us we killed her’

·         Idea of her diary is introduced at the middle of Act 2

·         Sheila returns the ring to Gerald after listening to the story about the affair 

·         When Mrs Birling is being interrogated, the scene is interrupted several times by the search for Eric

·         The characters tend to get more emotional towards the end of the scene – ‘distressed’, ‘terrified’, ‘sternly’, ‘thunderstruck’

·         Act 2 ends with the arrival of Eric and the discovery of his link to Eva Smith

Act 3

·         No time has passed between Act 2 and Act 3

·         The majority of Eric’s confession is with male characters only

·         Eric was absent from Mrs Birling story so we have the story told to Eric again in reduced form

·         The Inspector recaps the whole narrative of Eva Smith’s journey before he leaves

·         As the Inspector leaves, the characters are physically changed. Sheila –crying / Mrs Birling –collapsed / Eric –brooding / Mr Birling – active, moving about

·         The characters attack each other. Mr and Mrs Birling attack Eric and Sheila responds.

·         The structure of Act 3 is an inversion of Act 1 – both involve the Inspector leaving or arriving towards the middle – a dramatic shift

·         Sheila once again repeats the narrative of Eva Smith’s life – copying the Inspector

·         Both Act 1 and Act 3 involve the doorbell ringing  to change the events – Gerald returns in Act 3 – second time is more dramatic based on previous events 

·         The characters after being investigated by the Inspector now investigate the Inspector

·         The characters get more and more angry and aggressively towards each other – ‘protesting,’ shouting’, ‘shouting, threatening’, ‘ bursting out’, ‘flaring up’

·         After having Eva Smith’ story repeated a few times, we how have Gerald retelling the story but trying to disconnect the parts each person played

·         The use of the photograph is questioned

·         The characters group themselves off – Gerald, Mr Birling and Mrs Birling side together and Sheila and Eric side together

·         Use of telephone call to establish the truth

·         Birling’s last speech repeats the Inspector’s description of Eva Smith’s death, but removes all traces of emotion.

Characters – A02

Birling

·         Mr Birling has an accent – ‘provincial in his speech’

·         Mr Birling is pompous  – ‘portentous’

·         Birling gives long speeches

·         Mr Birling constantly like to refer to his famous connections – Chief Constable , Colonel Roberts (golf)

·         Mr Birling makes reference to Titanic being unsinkable and a war with the Germans never happening

·         Mr Birling insists on telling the Inspector of his daughter’s engagement to the son of Sir George Croft

·         Mr Birling takes his frustration of the Inspector out on Eric – ‘Look-just keep out of this’

·         Mr Birling is shocked when Sheila is too candid – ‘only escaped with a torn blouse’

·         Mr Birling protects Sheila from the Inspector because she is ‘a young unmarried girl’

·         Mr Birling refers to himself as a ‘public man’ and not a private man and he worries later about the ‘Press’

·         Mr Birling orders Sheila to remove Mrs Birling when she hears Eric’s story

·         Mr Birling has so much money that he did not realise that Eric stole money from him

·         Eric calls him as ‘not the kind of father a chap could go to when he’s in trouble’ 

·         Mr Birling’s main concern when the Inspector leaves is the ‘scandal’ it will cause and its impact on his ‘knighthood’ – returns to the start

·         Mr Birling at the end attempts to silence Sheila and control Eric – ‘If you’ve nothing more sensible than that to say, Sheila, you’d better be quiet’  - ‘Eric, sit down’

·         Mr Birling is described mocking the Inspector at the end of Act 3 before the truth is discovered – ‘Imitating INSPECTOR in his final speech’

·         Mr Birling describes his children as ‘hysterical’ at the end of the play and that they ‘cannot take a joke’

Gerald

·         Gerald is described as ‘attractive’ in the stage notes

·         Gerald always agree with Mr Birling at the start of the play

·         Gerald picked the ring for the engagement – is it the one you wanted me to have?

·         Gerald’s connection to Eva Smith is discovered in a different way – he recognises the name rather than have the Inspector point out the connection

·         Gerald uses the euphemism ‘women of the night’ to describe prostitutes in the Palace Variety Theatre yet is quite negative about them - ‘hard-eyes dough-faced women’

·         Gerald refers to Eva Smith (Daisy Renton) as ‘pretty’- ‘soft brown hair and big dark eyes’  

·         Gerald starts calling Eva a ‘girl’ then uses her name when in the story his relationship is closer

·         Gerald uses the euphemism ‘make love’ when denying he intend to support Eva Smith for sexual gratification

·         Gerald asserts to others that the affair wasn’t ‘disgusting’

·         Gerald offers the ring again to Sheila at the end of the play

Sheila

·         Described as being ‘pretty’ in stage notes  

·         Sheila uses slang at the start of the play ‘squiffy’ and refers to her mother as ‘mummy’. This changes as events get serious.

·         Sheila and Eric are the only characters who ask questions to find out more about Eva Smith when they first hear about the suicide

·         Sheila gives an emotional response when she views the photograph – ‘half-stifled sob, and then runs out’, ‘almost breaks down’ and changes emotionally to ‘miserably’ and ‘distressed’

·         Sheila is the only character to visibly cried as a result of events – ‘Enter Sheila, who looks as if she’s been crying

·          Sheila refuses to leave when her connection to Eva Smith is revealed and the Inspector confirms he is finished with her

·         Sheila is the only character to not know Eva Smith by a name before the events of the play

·         During Act 2 Sheila starts to argue, challenge and laugh at her parents – who don’t like it

·         Sheila reverts to sarcasm when Gerald is telling the Inspector his story

·         Sheila refer to Gerald as the ‘hero’  and ‘the wonderful Fairy Prince’ of his story

·         Sheila refers to herself as ‘not a child’

·         Sheila ‘respects’ rather than hates Gerald after the affair 

·         Sheila was influenced by a woman to go to the Palace Bar – ‘There was some woman who wanted her to go there’

·         Sheila is drunk when she meets Eric – who is also unsurprisingly drunk too

·         Sheila refers to her parents as being ‘childish’ for not facing up to the facts and their role in Eva Smith’s fate

·         Sheila tries to leave the room at the end of the play – ‘ I want to get out of this. It frightens me the way you talk’

·         Sheila repeats twice that the way her parents ‘talk’ scares her

·          

Eric

·         Eric helps himself to a drink in Act 1

·         Eric and Sheila are the only characters to use slang

·         Eric is the one character that interrupts and questions Mr Birling during his big speech in Act 1

·         Eric refuses to go to bed when instructed by his father because of the Inspector – yet he doesn’t stay in the room

·         By Eva Smith he is described as ‘ a youngster – silly and wild’

·         Eric is more forthcoming than the other characters with his connection – ‘You know, don’t you?’

·         Eric still acts childish at the end – accusing his sister of being a sneak for telling his parents about his drinking

·         When explaining his story, Eric has another drink

·         Eric doesn’t really use euphemistic terms to describe his sexual relationship with Eva. He simply describes it as ‘it’

·         Eric couldn’t remember Eva Smiths name after their first encounter

·         Eric doesn’t think he stole the money because he ‘intended to pay it back’

·         Asserts his maturity – ‘I’m old enough to be married’

·         Eric links his behaviour to his father’s friend’s behaviour – ‘fat old tarts…. I see some of your respectable friends with’

·         Eva Smith treated him like a ‘kid’ in relation to the pregnancy

·         Mr Birling refers to Eric as ‘spoilt’

·         One discovering his mother’s actions, Eric’s thoughts are broken down with dashes and pointed use of pronouns – you, her, she, you, me, you, her, you, her, she,  my, your, you, you, you   

·         Eric, after discovering that the Inspector isn’t real, is still affected – ‘I say the girl’s dead and we all helped to kill her’ 

·         After spending the majority of the play being vague and distant, Eric spends the last act being blunt, direct and honest – ‘we all helped to kill her’

·         Eric agrees with his sister at the end of the play 

Mrs Birling

·         Mrs Birling greets the Inspector ‘smiling’ even though her husband has told her the reason for his visit 

·         Mrs Birling refers to Eva Smith and the suicide as ‘a girl of that class’ 

·         Mrs Birling calls her son a ‘boy’ and not a ‘man’. She refers to Gerald as a ‘man’ and Eric as a ‘silly boy’ later in the play.

·         Mrs Birling is shocked to discover someone she thought as a good man is a ‘womaniser’ – Aldermand Meggarty – but according to Sheila ‘everyone knows’ 

·         Mrs Birling constantly tries to shut the conversation down – ‘I think we’ve just about to an end of this wretched business’

·         Mrs Birling is the one character that lies about her connection – the other characters avoid talking or misdirect the audience: ‘You’re not telling the truth’.

·         The Inspector describes the organisation Mrs Birling works at as an organisation helping ‘women in distress’ – Mrs Birling does not describe its purpose

·         Mrs Birling was the ‘prominent member’  / ‘chair’ of the organisation

·         Mrs Birling’s dislike of Eva Smith stems from her use of their name – ‘impertinently made use of our name’ 

·         Mrs Birling refer to the Inspector having ‘no power’ over her and even blames her husband for Eva Smith’s situation rather than take any responsibility

·          Describes the father of Eva Smith as not being of her ‘class’

·         Mrs Birling doesn’t explain what she did to Eva Smith to Eric

Inspector

·         Inspector is roughly the same age as Mr Birling

·         Inspector controls the flow of information by only showing the photograph to one character at a time  - he also stand in front of characters to block their view

·         Inspector makes a clear point of starting his investigation by clearly stating that it is a ‘Suicide, of course’ and there is no reference to murder

·         Inspector is quite direct and emotionless at times. Repeats ‘of course’ twice when introducing the death of Eva Smith

·         Inspector tends to speak ‘dryly’ and ‘steadily’ occasionally suggesting a level of detachment or subtle address to the audience

·         He speaks to Sheila ‘harshly’ and ‘sternly’ - Act 1

·         Inspector is inflexible and has a plan – ‘he must wait his turn’

·         Inspector uses the word ‘mistress’ when describing Gerald’s link to Eva Smith

·         Depending on the person, depends how vivid his description of the death is. To Mrs Birling, he describes ‘she lies with a burnt-out inside on a slab’ 

·         When referring to the sexual relations between Eric and Eva Smith he refers to it as pretty ‘make love’

·         After the last revelation, the Inspector’s speeches get lengthier

·         His last speech places him in the same position of them – us, our, we, we, we, we. Then, he distances things by stating ‘I tell’ and refer to people as ‘men’ 

·         Then, the last speech he ends by saying ‘Good Night’ and no discussion of the procedure related to the case

·         Sheila describes him as ‘never seemed like an ordinary police inspector – others late describe him as being ‘frightening’ (Sheila), ‘peculiar’, ‘suspicious’  (Birling), ‘rude, extraordinary’ (Mrs Birling) 

·         Birling describes him as possibly being a ‘socialist’ or ‘crank’ – showing he seems they are both the same thing

Edna

·         Has the least amount of speech in the play

·         Only responds to orders

·         No opinions

·         Refers to characters as ‘sir’ and ‘ma’am’ 

·         Has no surname

Eva Smith

·         Not seen on stage at all

·         Inspector describes her as ‘not pretty’ after the death but alive she had been ‘very pretty’

·         Twenty-four when she died

·         Each character knows her by a different name or identity – Sheila is the only character to not know her by a specific name 

·         Told Gerald when he left her that she was ‘the happiest she has ever been’ with him

·         Eva Smith only lies at the end with Mrs Birling and not before

·         Eric describes her as ‘pretty’ and a ‘good sport’

·         Didn’t want Eric ‘to marry her’

·         The Inspector links Eva Smith to John Smith a common name in British culture – meaning a common, ordinary person – an everyman