Literature: An Inspector Calls - Character Study in Depth
An Inspector Calls character study is a GCSE English Literature topic that tracks how Priestley presents Mr Birling, Mrs Birling, Sheila, Eric, Gerald and the Inspector before, during and after the Inspector's interrogation, tracing a single character's presentation across several moments in the play rather than through one extract-based essay. It builds knowledge of who says and does what, analysis of how stage directions and dialogue reveal change or refusal to change, and understanding of how each character represents a wider generation or class.
Before you start
Make sure you're comfortable with these topics first:
Method
- Choose the character the question names, and list every scene in which they appear or are discussed, in order, before you start writing.
- For each moment, note what they say or do, plus Priestley's stage directions describing their tone, movement or appearance, since these often reveal more than the dialogue alone.
- Track whether the character changes: compare their attitude before the Inspector's revelations to their attitude after, using specific lines from each point.
- Choose one clear quotation per moment that shows the character at that stage, and explain the technique (such as imperative language, interruption or stage direction) behind each one.
- Where a character represents a wider group, such as Sheila and Eric representing a younger, more open generation, state this explicitly and link it to Priestley's message.
- Build your paragraphs in the order the character develops through the play, so your essay itself mirrors their journey, ending with a judgement on how far they have (or have not) changed.
Worked example
Track Sheila's development from the start of the play, where Priestley's opening stage direction introduces her through her appearance and her mood at her own engagement party, to her closing admission, where she accepts her part in Eva Smith's death in short, unqualified statements. Explain how Priestley presents her change.
- Identify Sheila's starting point: the opening stage direction fixes her by how she looks and how she feels rather than by anything she has done or thought, so she arrives light-hearted and untroubled, exactly as her privileged, sheltered upbringing has left her.
- Note the shift during her own interrogation: she immediately admits her role in getting Eva Smith sacked from Milwards, showing an honesty her parents do not share.
- Track the change in her language: by the end she names her own part in Eva Smith's death in short, plain statements that offer no excuse and ask for no sympathy.
- Explain the technique: the short, declarative sentences contrast sharply with her father's longer, self-justifying speeches, marking her as morally distinct from him.
- Link to Priestley's wider message: Sheila's arc from carelessness to responsibility models the change in social attitude that Priestley wants from his post-war audience.
- Final answer: Priestley presents Sheila as moving from a sheltered, self-focused girl to the character who most fully absorbs the Inspector's lesson, using a shift from evasive to plain, direct language to chart her development into the play's clearest voice of accepted responsibility.
Practice questions
Try each question, then tap to reveal the answer.
Q1How do the opening stage directions present Sheila before the Inspector arrives?Show answer
Answer: Through her appearance and her mood rather than through anything she has done: young, well off and absorbed in her engagement, she begins the play sheltered and untouched by anything serious.
Q2What self-image does Mr Birling claim for himself, and what does he say about the idea that people owe one another anything?Show answer
Answer: That he is a tough, unsentimental businessman who deals only in facts, and that the idea of people owing one another anything is sentimental foolishness he refuses to take seriously.
Q3Identify the technique in the Inspector's habit of pressing each character with very short, direct questions.Show answer
Answer: Short, interrogative sentences - controlling the pace of the interrogation and refusing to let characters escape into long, self-justifying speeches.
Q4What does Eric confess to stealing, and why?Show answer
Answer: Money from his father's office, to support Eva Smith once she was pregnant.
Q5True or false: Gerald is genuinely relieved and changed by the end of the play once he learns the Inspector was a hoax.Show answer
Answer: False - he is relieved the scandal is not real, showing he has not really changed, unlike Sheila and Eric.
Q6Give one piece of evidence that Mrs Birling refuses to accept responsibility.Show answer
Answer: She refuses to accept that she did anything wrong, and blames the unnamed father of Eva Smith's child, not realising it is her own son Eric.
Exam-style questions
Written in the style of a English exam paper, with a full mark scheme.
State four ways Mr and Mrs Birling's attitudes stay the same from the start of the play to the end.
Show mark scheme
Tick each line you got. Your score builds from the marks on the scheme.
Nothing ticked yet - 4 available
Explain how Priestley presents Sheila's development in her closing admission from the worked example above.
Show mark scheme
Tick each line you got. Your score builds from the marks on the scheme.
Nothing ticked yet - 6 available
'Eric changes as much as Sheila does by the end of the play.' To what extent do you agree?
Show mark scheme
Tick each line you got. Your score builds from the marks on the scheme.
Nothing ticked yet - 5 available
See real English past-paper questions, with official mark schemes →
Free printable worksheet
Want more practice on paper? Download the literature: an inspector calls - character study in depth worksheet pack - 17 pages of exam-style questions with a full mark scheme. One email opens every download in this browser for 14 days - no account, no card. Print it for personal and classroom use.
Next topics
Not quite what you needed?
Tell us what is missing on literature: an inspector calls - character study in depth, or which topic to write up next. Every request is read, and we reply to every one.
Build a full practice pack.
This topic is one of hundreds in the library - pick the ones a student needs and generate a printable PDF in minutes.