English Department Year 11 Handbook

Transcription

1 English Department Year 11 Handbook Set Texts - A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens - An Inspector Calls by J.B Priestley - Macbeth by William Shakespeare - Power and Conflict Poetry Cluster

2 Welcome to GCSE English Language and English Literature! You will study both English Language and English Literature at KS4 which means that, at the end of Year 11, you will be leaving Compass School with two English GCSEs! We follow the AQA specification for both qualifications and the breakdown of each is outlined below. English Language Paper 1: Explorations in Creative Reading and Writing (50%) Section A: Reading 4 questions in response to an unseen piece of fiction. Section B: Writing 1 extended creative piece Paper 2: Writers Viewpoints and Perspectives (50%) Section A Shakespeare: students will answer one question on their play of choice. They will be required to write in detail about an extract from the play and then to write about the play as a whole. Section B The 19th-century novel: students will answer one question on their novel of choice. They will be required to write in detail about an extract from the novel and then to write about the novel as a whole. English Literature Paper 1: Shakespeare and the 19 th Century Novel (40%) Section A: Reading 4 questions in response to 2 unseen nonfiction pieces. Section B: Writing 1 extended writing piece that presents a viewpoint. Paper 2: Modern Texts and Poetry (60%) Section A Modern texts: students will answer one essay question from a choice of two on their studied modern prose or drama text. Section B Poetry: students will answer one comparative question on one named poem printed on the paper and one other poem from their chosen anthology cluster. Section C Unseen poetry: Students will answer one question on one unseen poem and one question comparing this poem with a second unseen poem.

3 Understanding Assessment Objectives GCSEs are marked using Assessment Objectives set out by the exam board (AOs). It is important that you understand the AOs so that you can make sure you are meeting all of them in your work. English Language Assessment Objectives o o AO1: identify and interpret explicit and implicit information and ideas select and synthesise evidence from different texts AO2: Explain, comment on and analyse how writers use language and structure to achieve effects and influence readers, using relevant subject terminology to support their views AO3: Compare writers ideas and perspectives, as well as how these are conveyed, across two or more texts AO4: Evaluate texts critically and support this with appropriate textual references AO5: Communicate clearly, effectively and imaginatively, selecting and adapting tone, style and register for different forms, purposes and audiences. Organise information and ideas, using structural and grammatical features to support coherence and cohesion of texts AO6: Candidates must use a range of vocabulary and sentence structures for clarity, purpose and effect, with accurate spelling and punctuation. (This requirement must constitute 20% of the marks for each specification as a whole.) English Literature Assessment Objectives AO1: Read, understand and respond to texts. Students should be able to: - maintain a critical style and develop an informed personal response - use textual references, including quotations, to support and illustrate interpretations. AO2: Analyse the language, form and structure used by a writer to create meanings and effects, using relevant subject terminology where appropriate. AO3: Show understanding of the relationships between texts and the contexts in which they were written. AO4: Use a range of vocabulary and sentence structures for clarity, purpose and effect, with accurate spelling and punctuation.

4 Term 1: A Christmas Carol You will tackle this question on Literature Paper 1: Shakespeare and the 19 th Century Novel. Here is what the question will look like on the exam: This question is worth 30 marks and will require an essay response of around words.

5 Model Response In this extract we see how the Cratchit family are happy despite their poverty. The novella was published in 1843, which was in the middle of the industrial revolution, so many people were moving into cities, leading them to become overcrowded and therefore poverty-stricken. This poverty is evident there in the quote the family display of glass, which we then learn consists of two tumblers and a custard-cup without a handle. The word display shows just how little they own, as they seem proud to showcase these small, dilapidated objects off, as this is all they have. However, they seem content as such trivial matters don t change how they feel towards each other. Dickens compares the cups to golden goblets, which to me suggests that the Cratchits feel enriched simply by each others company, which is worth more to them than anything materialistic. Earlier in the same scene, we learn just how vibrant the scene is among this family when Dickens personifies even the potatoes, saying they were knocking to get out of their pan, as if the joyous atmosphere was so desirable to be amongst that even inanimate objects wanted to be part of the festivities. In the extract we are told that the chestnuts cracked noisily, which conveys the same idea, building a feeling of community despite the poverty in the scene. The Ghost of Christmas Present first takes Scrooge to see the Cratchits Christmas, which makes him realise the importance of family at this time, then continues this theme of company by showing him other scenes brought to life by Christmas spirit. For example, when the ghost takes him to a lighthouse, the poor workers there are described as having horny hands. This suggests that they have struggled through great hardships and have suffered more in their lives than Scrooge ever would, and yet their show of unison when they all sing together at Christmas let them disregard their struggles for a time. One member of the Cratchit family who strongly highlights the struggles of the poor is Tiny Tim. In this extract, his hand is decribed as a withered little hand, suggesting it has prematurely withered like a flower with no light. As the word withered has connotations of a flower, to me, this could perhaps be seen as a metaphor for how something beautiful has been hindered and killed by the tight-fistedness of the rich in society, which is something that Dickens was strongly trying to convey in this novella. Light is often a symbol of hope, so this flower could be shrivelled due to a lack of light, which is the lack of generosity from the upper classes. Dickens may have intended withered little as a juxtaposition, as we would normally associate withered with old age and little with childhood. This contrast highlights how wrong it is that an innocent child should be so shunned by society due to his wealth and status, and this demonstrates Dickens frustration over the inequality. Dickens uses a similar adjective to describe the hands of the children Ignorance and Want. The word shrivelled is used here, which compares these children, who are also victims of the struggles of poverty, to Tiny Tim. It creates a similar image of premature decay to highlight the neglect of lower classes in society. The boy in this scene represents ignorance, and the Ghost of Christmas Present tells Scrooge to most of all beware the boy. This strongly conveys Dickens message about poverty and the poor, as he is trying to tell society that ignoring the struggles and problems of the poor will be their downfall. This is demonstrated in stave 4 when Tiny Tim dies, and the Cratchits say that when Bob had Tiny Tim on his shoulders he walked very fast indeed. When we have a weight on our shoulders, the phrase normally implies a burden and a worry, however here I think that Tiny Tim represents the burden that the rich think the poor impose upon society. Here, Dickens could be saying that if we only realised the potential of the poor, they may actually prove helpful and contribute to society, however they are seen only as a dead weight on the shoulders of society due to the ignorance of the rich.

6 The origins of A Christmas Carol Article by:john Sutherland Themes:Poverty and the working classes, London, The novel Published:15 May 2014 Professor John Sutherland considers how Dickens s A Christmas Carolengages with Victorian attitudes towards poverty, labour and the Christmas spirit. Prince Albert the newly installed husband of Queen Victoria is popularly associated with institutionalising the British family Christmas, an institution which is still with us. It was Albert, for example, who brought from his native Germany the tannenbaum, or Christmas Tree is the normally given as the date for this happy importation. The Christmas tree replaced the traditional British yule log wood designed to give winter warmth, not something to deck with pretty lights, fairies, favours and (round its base) presents. Both the tannenbaum and the Yule log (along with mistletoe) were incorporated into Christian festivity from pre-christian pagan rituals associated with the seasonal turn of the year the rebirth of the land and the green gods. There is no Biblical warrant for Christ s day of birth being 25 December. Shortly after the arrival of the Christmas tree into the British parlour, Dickens, with A Christmas Carol, institutionalised what one could call the modern 'spirit of Christmas. Dickens subtitled his story A Ghost Story for Christmas. The ghosts are imported from folklore and legend, not the Christian gospels. The famous spirit of Christmas designed by the artist John Leech for the first edition of A Christmas Carol clearly draws on classic pagan iconography: Dickens had warm memories of his own childhood Christmases and, now the father of a young family (as was Prince Albert), made the annual event a merry holiday. Feasting, games, and domestic dramas were the order of the twelve days of Christmas in the 1840s Dickens household. Money lending, scratching pens and ghosts A Christmas Carol opens with Ebenezer Scrooge in his chilly counting house on Christmas Eve (Stave 1). Outside London, the great wen is shrouded in filthy brown fog. It is the hungry forties. The 1840s saw huge distress among the working classes and mass starvation in Ireland. Chartism (a working-class reformist movement) raised the fearful possibility of revolution. It was a nervous time. Opposite Scrooge s door a dying woman is sitting in the gutter ghosts of rich businessmen dancing around her. It is they who have brought her to this sad pass., seven years previously, Scrooge is the sole proprietor Scrooge & Marley. He is a money lender. He lends money, but he is not inclined to part with money. Two gentlemen, soliciting charitable donations, are dismissed with an angry Bah! Humbug!. Another visitor, his nephew, injudiciously wishes his uncle a merry Christmas: Merry Christmas!, explodes Scrooge, every idiot who goes about with Merry Christmas on his lips should be boiled with his own pudding! The nephew, like the two gentlemen, is humbugged off (Stave 1). At the end of his 12-hour day Scrooge dismisses his clerk, Bob Cratchit. Cratchit his name evokes a scratching pen is a scrivener. Before typewriters and photocopying machines, the necessary copying of business and legal documents was done long hand. The typewriter girl was 40 years in the future. Cratchit has one day s holiday a year, and earns 15 shillings (75p) per sixday week: half a crown a day. On it he supports a large, happy, but chronically hard-up family. The family favourite is Tiny Tim, a little cripple boy (on his father s shoulder, in the illustration below):

7 That Christmas Eve Scrooge, alone in his cold empty house is destined to be haunted. First by his partner, Marley, doomed to wander forever as penance for his hard-heartedness. Then, overnight, the miser is visited by three spirits of Christmas Past, Present, and Future. In the last visitation, Scrooge is shown his own gravestone and realises the worthlessness of a life devoted to money-grubbing. Scrooge wakes up it is Christmas morning and he is a changed man. From now on he will be good-hearted: good-hearted most of all to the Cratchit family and Tiny Tim, to whom he will be a year-round Father Christmas. How a society treats its children How a society treats its children, Dickens believed, is the true test of that society s moral worth. His religious beliefs were complicated, as are most people s. But very simply, he favoured the New Testament over the Old. He wrote a version of the gospels for his own children, The Life of our Lord, four years after A Christmas Carol. Dickens, we can assume from the centrality of childish innocence in his fiction, was particularly moved by Christ s injunction: Except ye become as little children, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven. Christmas celebrates the birth of a child. So does all Dickens s great fiction: not least A Christmas Carol. The first stirrings of the tale can be found in a visit Dickens made to Manchester a month before he began writing. One of the great orators of his time (only fragments of his eloquence, alas, survive) he spoke at the city s Athenaeum on 5 October. It was a memorable evening for those present, and those who read accounts of the speech in the next day s papers. As Dickens s biographer, Michael Slater, describes: Dickens dwelt on the terrible sights he had seen among the juvenile population in London's jails and doss-houses and stressed the desperate need for educating the poor. This occasion seems to have put into his mind the idea for a [Christmas Eve tale] which should help to open the hearts of the prosperous and powerful towards the poor and powerless but which should also bring centrally into play the theme of memory that, as we have seen, was always so strongly associated with Christmas for him. The Athenaeum speech was also an opening shot in his campaign, which bore fruit eight years later, to get a public library for the adult working classes in the city. Nor were children forgotten. They too needed the printed word. In the early 1840s Dickens took a particular interest in ragged schools. As he described them, in an article in 1846: The name implies the purpose. They who are too ragged, wretched, filthy, and forlorn, to enter any other place: who could gain admission into no charity school, and who would be driven from any church door; are invited to come in here, and find some people not depraved, willing to teach them something, and show them some sympathy, and stretch a hand out, which is not the iron hand of Law, for their correction. Industry, poverty and utilitarianism Manchester the workshop of the world was famous not merely for its industry but the utilitarian philosophy that drove it. It may not be clear what Scrooge s line of business is. But his beliefs, before his change of heart, are crystal clear pure Manchester. Are there no workhouses? he asks, when the two gentleman ask for a charitable donation. If the poor die (like the poor woman outside his house) it will, he says, solve the surplus population problem (Stave 3; Stave 1). Concern with over-population had been stimulated by the stern

8 philosophy of Thomas Robert Malthus who foresaw catastrophe for England if its masses were not checked by famine, war, or disease. For the more thoughtful, the anxiety was fostered by the census which, since 1821, had been counting how many inhabitants there were in the country. In 1841 the figure was approaching 29 million there were serious doubts as to whether British agriculture could feed them, something which led to the repeal of the Corn Laws, in 1846, allowing cereals to be imported from the New World. The 1840s were not merely hungry but hard hearted. It was a philosophy embodied in Ebenezer Scrooge - not merely a solitary miser (like, for example, George Eliot s Silas Marner) but the spirit of the age in human (and, arguably, inhuman) form. Hard heads, hard hearts, good business. Soft heads and soft hearts lead to the bankruptcy court, Scrooge would have said. Dickens disagreed. Children worked, like slaves, in Manchester factories (as Michael Slater points out, the chimneys in the background of John Leech s illustration of the destitute children Ignorance and Want are more reminiscent of Manchester s industrial landscape than of London streets). Six months after A Christmas Carol was published the 1844 Factories Act decreed, however, that 9 13 year olds could only work nine hours a day, six days a week. This was regarded as a humane reform. Why were they wanted for this work? Children were cheap labour but, more importantly, their fingers were small and dexterous. But the machines were dangerous. There were crippled Tiny Tims by the hundred in Manchester. The modern reader of whatever age is less sensitive to sentimentality than our Victorian forebears. At Dickens s readings from his novels, audiences would regularly be moved to open tears by, for example, the death of Little Nell in The Old Curiosity Shop, or the murder of Nancy in Oliver Twist. One suspects that many Victorian tears were shed over the foreseen (but happily forestalled) death of Tiny Tim. Dickens designed the externals of his book with the meticulous care he applied to its contents. It would be, he instructed his publishers, a handsome five-shilling production: Brown-salmon fineribbed cloth, blocked in blind and gold on front; in gold on the spine all edges gilt. Dickens spared no expense. John Leech s half-dozen illustrations should be coloured, he instructed. The result was a book whose production costs, and relatively high price (five shillings), meant that this most popular of works returned, on its first 5,000-copy print run, small profit for Dickens. The first edition shot off the bookshop shelves even before Christmas Day And A Christmas Carol has sold massively ever since. It is the most filmed, and TV-adapted of his works. And, one suspects, as long as there is Christmas, there will be Dickens s wonderful tale alongside it and Tiny Tim s benediction, God Bless Us, Everyone.

9 Key Words and Spellings Please add your own as we read Altruistic Epiphany Archetype Misanthropic Resolution Facetious Impropriety Purgatory Antithesis Exposition Antagonistic Covetous Equilibrium Unhallowed Portmanteau Miser Redemption Condemned Spectre Empathise Bitter Intimation Foil Solemnised Protagonist Isolated Miser Allegory Skinflint Antagonist Solitary Purgatory Limbo Philanthropic Construct Hostile Aggressive Salvation Foreshadowing Intrusive Colloquial Agitate Benevolent Charitable Condescension Destitute Endeavour Facetious Humility Impropriety

10 Key Contextual Information (AO3) Charles Dickens was born on February 7, 1812, and spent the first nine years of his life living in the coastal regions of Kent, a county in southeast England. Dickens' father, John, was a kind and likable man, but he was financially irresponsible, piling up tremendous debts throughout his life. When Dickens was nine, his family moved to London. At twelve, his father was arrested and sent to debtors' prison. Dickens' mother moved seven of their children into prison with their father but arranged for Cha rles to live alone outside the prison, working with other child laborers at a hellish job pasting labels on bottles in a blacking warehouse. The three months Charles spent apart from his family were severely traumatic. He viewed his job as a miserable trap--he considered himself too good for it, stirring the contempt of his worker-companions. After his father was released from prison, Dickens returned to school, eventually becoming a law clerk. He went on to serve as a court reporter before taking his place as one of the most popular English novelists of his time. At age 25, Dickens completed his first novel, The Pickwick Papers, which met with great success. This started his career as an English literary celebrity, during which he produced such masterpieces as Great Expectations,David Copperfield, and A Tale of Two Cities. Dickens' beloved novella A Christmas Carol was written in 1843, with the intention of drawing readers' attention to the plight of England's poor. (Social criticism, a recurring theme in Dickens' work, resounds most strongly in his novel Hard Times.) In the tale, Dickens stealthily combines a somewhat indirect description of hardships faced by the poor with a heart-rending, sentimental celebration of the Christmas season. The calloused character of the apathetic penny-pinching Ebenezer Scrooge, who opens his heart after being confronted by three spirits, remains one of Dickens' most widely recognized and popular creations. A Christmas Carol takes the form of a relatively simplistic allegory--it is seldom considered one of Dickens' important literary contributions. The novella's emotional depth, brilliant narration, and endearing characters, however, offer plenty of rewards for literature students, Dickensian fans, and Grinches alike.

11 Term 2: An Inspector Calls You will tackle this question on Literature Paper 2: Modern Texts and Poetry. Here is what the question will look like: You will be given the choice of two questions: you must only answer one! There is no extract provided this time; you must be able to quote from memory!

12 Model Answer In An Inspector Calls, JB Priestley uses the character of Mrs Birling to portray a typical higher-class woman. In multiple occasions in the play, Mrs Birling (Sybil) is presented as dismissive and a snob. This behaviour is evident from the very start of the play where she tells off her husband for thanking the chef in front of a guest, Gerald. She says Arthur, you re not supposed to say such things. This authoritative tone of Mrs Birling shows that she takes pride in her social respectability and so wants her whole family to not ruin it. Mrs Birling is from a higher social status than Mr Birling so she is socially superior. This is a reason why she is telling off Mr Birling as well. We learn that she takes high responsibility in social etiquette, which are the ways society expects you to behave. In the same conversation, JB Priestley presents Mrs Birling as traditional in the lines Sheila, the things you girls pick up these days. Here it is clear that Sybil is quite ashamed of the language that her daughter is using because it is not sophisticated and not how the higher class should talk. The repeated telling off of two members in her family echoes and emphasises her social superiority. The collective noun girls shows that Mrs Birling is distancing herself from them and is appalled that Sheila is part of them, and not behaving traditionally. This again shows that Mrs Birling is a bit of a snob and so presents her as an unlikeable character. When the Inspector arrives and begins interrogating the family members, both Mr and Mrs Birling tried to use a commanding tone and their social influence to get him to leave but he does not. As each character s acts are revealed, Mrs Birling repeatedly shows no sympathy for Eva Smith. This echoes her social class because she as a higher class woman was not expected to feel sympathy for the lower class person. This however contrast with the charity that Mrs Birling runs for woman in need. Therefore, the audience can think that Mrs Birling is not running the charity for the good of lower class woman but more to earn social respect and show off her status. This presents her as an unlikeable character because she is selfish, self-centred and doesn t really care about the good of those in lower classes. When Gerald confesses that he had Eva Smith, but at the time known as Daisy Renton (with Renton suggesting (renting and prostitution), as a mistress, Mrs Birling is appalled as says that s disgusting. Here, Mrs Birling s dismissive attitude is showing that she is totally against the idea of men having mistress but she doesn t further accuse Gerald, which could suggest that she is aware it happens with higher class men and so accepts it. When she is interrogated by the Inspector, Mrs Birling repeatedly lies and tries to avoid the truth but the Inspector starts asking deliberate questions to prevent her from doing this. This behaviour presents Mrs Birling as a snob and shows off her higher class attitude because she is trying to avoid the truth and make it suit her. When she finally does reveal that she used her influence to deny Eva Smith from receiving help at her charity she says unlike the other three, I am not ashamed of what I did. Here Mrs Birling is distancing herself from the rest of the family to try and keep up her respectability. By doing this, she is once again presented as a snob and it suggests that Mrs Birling feels more strongly towards building up and protecting her social respect than her care for her family. This is further emphasised later in

13 the play when Eric says You never loved me. This quote provides evidence to Mrs Birling s attitude towards her family because it states that she never showed love towards her children. Therefore, due to her lack of motherly responsibilities and love that every child deserves to receive, she is presented as an unlikable character. Mrs Birling tries to blame someone else to avoid her reputation being ruined. When she confesses that she prevented Eva Smith from receiving help, she begins blaming the father who impregnated Eva Smith. The Inspector s cleverness is showed in this part of the play because he has laid a trap for Mrs Birling and she has fallen straight into it. This suggests that Mrs Birling is not very smart, unlike Sheila who realises and tries to warn her but Sybil doesn t listen. Mrs Birling says that the father should make a public confession and that there should be a scandal about this. This echoes to her dismissive tone as she is again trying to blame someone else. She doesn t even think that the man could be her son and this is being she is of too high of a class that she can t even imagine that. When she does find out, she bursts into tears and can t bear what her son has done. In this situation, the audience will feel some sympathy towards her but others (especially lower class audience) will think that she deserves this for her inhuman attitudes to the lower class. This attitude is evident when she says a girl of that sort. Here she is referring to Eva but is distancing her and showing no sympathy to her situation by classing her in a group of people who are not appreciated by society. As a result of this, she is seen as an unlikeable character. When Sybil finds out that the Inspector is a hoax, she instantly forgets all that had happened that evening and goes back to what she was doing earlier on. By showing no remorse for Eva Smith through the character of Mrs Birling, JB Priestley is suggesting that there is no chance that the higher class can change to be able to have equal rights and equal morals. He speaks to his audience through the voice of the Inspector where he says We are all members of one body. This states that we are all the same kind, we are all human beings, so everyone needs to treat each other equally and as they would be liked to be treated. JB Priestley contrast Mrs Birling s character with Sheila s to show that there is hope in the younger generation for change. This is evident when Sheila says between us we have killed a girl. This shows that Sheila feels strongly guilty for her actions and shows remorse but Mrs Birling doesn t accept this. In fact she criticizes Mr Birling for not interrogating the Inspector at the start, or letting her question him at the start of the evening. This emphasises how Mrs Birling has behaved throughout the course of the play and shows that she has not changed one bit. This presents her as unlikeable because she is showing no sympathy for Eva and JB Priestley has intentionally made the character of Mrs Birling unlikeable to show that there is no hope in the older generation for changing and accepting moral views, but there is hope in the younger generation.

14 An introduction to An Inspector Calls Article by:chris Power Themes:Power and conflict, Exploring identity, 20th-century theatre Published:7 Sep 2017 Chris Power introduces An Inspector Calls as a morality play that denounces the hypocrisy and callousness of capitalism and argues that a just society can only be achieved if all individuals feel a sense of social responsibility. J B Priestley s play An Inspector Calls, first performed in 1945, is a morality play disguised as a detective thriller. The morality play is a very old theatrical form, going back to the medieval period, which sought to instruct audiences about virtue and evil. Priestley s play revolves around a central mystery, the death of a young woman, but whereas a traditional detective story involves the narrowing down of suspects from several to one, An Inspector Calls inverts this process as, one by one, nearly all the characters in the play are found to be guilty. In this way, Priestley makes his larger point that society is guilty of neglecting and abusing its most vulnerable members. A just society, he states through his mysterious Inspector, is one that respects and exercises social responsibility. What is social responsibility? Social responsibility is the idea that a society s poorer members should be helped by those who have more than them. Priestley was a socialist, and his political beliefs are woven through his work. There are many different types and degrees of socialism, but a general definition is as follows: an ideal socialist society is one that is egalitarian in other words, its citizens have equal rights and the same opportunities are available to everybody; resources are shared out fairly, and the means of production (the facilities and resources for producing goods) are communally owned. Therefore, socialism stands in opposition to a capitalist society, such as ours, where trade and industry is mostly controlled by private owners, and these individuals or companies keep the profits made by their businesses, rather than distributing them evenly between the workers whose labour produced them. It is precisely this difference between a socialist and a capitalist society that Arthur Birling is discussing in Act 1 when Inspector Goole arrives: But the way some of these cranks talk and write now, you d think everybody has to look after everybody else, as if we were all mixed up together like bees in a hive a man has to mind his own business and look after himself The Inspector s arrival cuts Arthur Birling off mid-sentence, enacting in miniature the clash between two ideological positions that unfolds throughout the rest of the play. The play s structure and setting An Inspector Calls is a three-act play with one setting: the dining room of a fairly large suburban house belonging to a fairly prosperous manufacturer. The year is 1912, and we are in the home of the Birling family in the fictional industrial city of Brumley in the North Midlands. In the dining room five people are finishing their dinner: four members of the Birling family and one guest. Arthur Birling is a factory owner; his wife Sibyl is on the committee of a charity, and is usually scolding someone for a social mistake. Their adult children are Sheila and Eric, and their guest is Gerald Croft, Sheila s fiancé, who is from a wealthier manufacturing family than the Birlings. One

15 other person is present: Edna the maid, who is going back and forth to the sideboard with dirty plates and glasses. Priestley s description of the set at the beginning of the play script stresses the solidity of the Birlings' dining room: It is a solidly built room, with good solid furniture of the period. But a later section of this scene-setting on the walls are imposing but tasteless pictures and engravings, and the general effect is substantial and comfortable and old-fashioned but not cosy and homelike suggests that although the Birling s have wealth and social standing, they are not loving to one another or compassionate to others. The setting of the play in a single room also suggests their self-absorption, and disconnectedness from the wider world. Priestley establishes each of the characters in this opening scene. Arthur Birling is a capitalist businessman through and through, entirely focussed on profit even when discussing the marriage of his daughter: I m sure you ll make her happy. You re just the kind of son-in-law I ve always wanted. Your father and I have been friendly rivals in business for some time now though Crofts Limited are both older and bigger than Birling and Company and now you ve brought us together, and perhaps we may look forward to the time when Crofts and Birlings are no longer competing but are working together for lower costs and higher prices. His wife Sibyl scolds him, telling him it isn t the occasion for that kind of talk, establishing her as someone primarily interested in doing things properly and conforming to established social rules. Sheila, at this stage in the play, seems to be preoccupied by the thought of her marriage to Gerald, a privileged and deeply conservative man of 30, while the youngest Birling, Eric, appears more interested in the port going around the table than anything anyone is saying. Priestley has some fun using this opening section to show how wrong Arthur Birling s opinions are, thus positioning the play as anti-capitalist. He does this through the use of dramatic irony, having Arthur state opinions that the audience, with the advantage of hindsight, knows to be incorrect. When Eric mentions the likelihood of war remember that the play is set two years before the outbreak of World War One but was written and first performed 30 years later Arthur cuts him off: you ll hear some people say that war s inevitable. And to that I say fiddlesticks! The Germans don t want war. Nobody wants war, except some half-civilised folks in the Balkans. And why? There s too much at stake these days. Everything to lose and nothing to gain by war. He goes on to describe an ocean liner that is clearly meant to be the Titanic (which sank in April 1912) as unsinkable, absolutely unsinkable, and suggests that in time, let s say, in the forties, all these Capital versus Labour agitations and all these silly little war scares will be long forgotten. In fact, as audiences in 1945 would have been keenly aware, the period between 1912 and 1945 saw a huge number of strikes, including the monumental General Strike of 1926, and not one but two global conflicts, the second of which had only recently ended. Dramatic irony is rarely a subtle technique, but Priestley s use of it is exceptionally blunt. This could be considered clumsy, but it underlines the fact that An Inspector Calls is a play with a point to make, and a character whose sole job is to make it. The Inspector When Inspector Goole arrives everything changes. He tells the Birlings and Gerald that a young woman, Eva Smith, has committed suicide by drinking disinfectant, and he has questions about the case. Over the course of the next two acts he will lay responsibility for Eva Smith s death at the feet of each of the Birlings and Gerald Croft, showing how their indifference to social

16 responsibility has contributed to the death of this young woman. Or is it young women? He shows each person an identifying photograph of the dead woman one by one, leading Gerald to later suspect they were all shown photographs of different women. But who is the Inspector? In the play s penultimate twist, he is revealed not to be a police inspector at all, yet, as Eric states, He was our Police Inspector, all right. Details about him are scant. He says he is newly posted to Brumley, and he is impervious to Arthur Birling s threats about his close relationship with the chief constable I don t play golf, he tells Birling. I didn t suppose you did, the industrialist replies: a brief exchange that makes a clear point about class, and the battle between egalitarianism and privilege. Beyond these sparse biographical details, the Inspector seems less like a person and more like a moral force, one which mercilessly pursues the wrongs committed by the Birlings and Gerald, demanding that they face up to the consequences of their actions. His investigation culminates in a speech that is a direct expression of Priestley s own view of how a just society should operate, and is the exact antithesis of the speech Arthur Birling made in Act 1: We don t live alone. We are members of one body. We are responsible for each other. And I tell you that the time will soon come when if men will not learn that lesson, then they will be taught it in fire and blood and anguish. We don t live alone. Good night. Hypocrisy Throughout the course of the Inspector s investigation, and the testimony of Gerald and each of the Birlings, the supposedly respectable city of Brumley is revealed to be a place of deep class divisions and hypocrisy. As Arthur Birling s behaviour towards Eva makes clear, it is a place where factory owners exploit their workers as a matter of course part of his a man has to look after himself philosophy. Eric accuses his father of hypocrisy for sacking the dead girl after she asked for higher wages, because the Birling firm always seeks to sell their products at the highest possible prices. This exploitation is not limited to the factories. In the testimony of Gerald, and later Eric, the Palace Theatre emerges as a place where prostitutes gather, and where the supposedly great and good of the town go to meet them. When Gerald first met Eva, as he describes it, she was trapped in a corner by Old Joe Meggarty, half-drunk and goggle-eyed. Sibyl Birling, scandalised, asks surely you don t mean Alderman Meggarty? An unsurprised Sheila tells her mother horrible old Meggarty has a reputation for groping young women: the younger characters are either more knowledgeable or frank about the dark secrets of the city, whereas the older Birlings live in a dream world of respectability, or hypocritically turn a blind eye to any disreputable behaviour by supposedly respectable people. The play begins with the characters corrupt, unpleasant natures safely hidden away (a respectable group in a respectable home, enjoying that most respectable event, an engagement party); it ends with naked displays of hypocrisy. When it is confirmed that Goole is not really a policeman, Arthur, Sibyl and Gerald immediately regain an unjustified sense of outrage. Then look at the way he talked to me, Arthur Birling complains. He must have known I was an ex-lord Mayor and a magistrate and so forth. Once it is confirmed, in the play s penultimate twist, that there is no suicide lying on a mortuary slab, they forget the immoral, uncharitable behaviour they were recently accused of things, remember, that they undoubtedly did and begin talking about getting away with things. Only Sheila and Eric recognise and resist this hypocritical behaviour. I suppose we re all nice people now! Sheila remarks sarcastically. Earlier she broke off her engagement to Gerald, telling him You and I aren t the same people who sat down to dinner here. Likewise, Eric angrily accuses his father of beginning to pretend now that nothing s really happened at all. Priestley s vision is cautiously optimistic insofar as the youngest characters are changed by the Inspector s visit, while the older Birlings and Gerald appear to be too set in their beliefs to change them.

17 Eva Smith: Everywoman The play leaves open the question of whether Eva Smith is a real woman (who sometimes uses different names, including Daisy Renton), or multiple people the Inspector pretends are one. There is no right answer here, and in terms of Priestley s message it is beside the point: because his socialist principles demand that everyone should be treated the same, in his opinion abusing one working-class woman is equivalent to abusing all working-class women. Eva Smith is, therefore, not an individual victim, but a universal one. This helps explain the effectiveness of the play s final twist. Having discovered that Inspector Goole is not a real policeman, and that there is no dead woman called Eva Smith at the Brumley morgue, a phone call announces that a woman has killed herself, and an inspector is on his way to question the Birlings. The invented story Inspector Goole related has now come true. This seems a bizarre coincidence with which to end the play, but if we consider An Inspector Calls as a moral fable, and not as naturalistic theatre, it begins to seem much more like a logical, even inevitable, conclusion. The characters have been confronted with the error of their ways; some have repented, some have not. Now is the time for judgement, and for the watching audience to ask themselves, according to Priestley s design, are any of these people like me?

18 Key Words and Spellings Please add your own as we read Misanthropic Capitalist Socialist Bourgeoisie Proletariat Immature Avaricious Naïve Exploitation Omniscient Construction Moral Portentous Superior Inferior Squiffy Materialistic Archetypal Representative Irony Infirmary Manufacturer Assertive Anxious Rebukes Responsibility Snob Hysterical Patronising Prejudice Reputation Shallow Compassion Perceptive Sympathy Genuine Trivial Embarrassed Awkward Purposefulness Authority Conscience

19 Key Contextual Information (AO3) Born to a working-class family in Yorkshire, in the north of England, John Priestley, who published under the name J. B. Priestley, wrote plays, novels, biographies, travelogues, and assorted essays, many notable for their political engagement. Priestley fought for England in the First World War, and the experience was formative for him. He later studied literature and political science at Cambridge, and on graduating began his career as an essayist, before branching out into other genres. He wrote quickly and thoroughly, producing dozens of texts. He published treatments of the lives of Charles Dickens and George Meredith, and a broader historical assessment of literary art and its effect on people s lives (Literature and Western Man). Today, Priestley s notoriety derives from his writing for the theater. An Inspector Calls, the play with which he is most commonly associated, opened in the Soviet Union in Russian translation after the Second World War, and in London soon after. Reviews over the next decades of Inspector and his other works were mixed, but a production of Inspector in the 1990s in London revived interest. Priestley s plays continue to be performed in the US and the UK. An Inspector Calls might be understood in several contexts. First, it is an example of immediate post-war drama, which means that it was written after World War Two. Post-war dramas take up some of the economic, political, and social issues prompting that conflict, including socialism versus free-market capitalism, democracy versus fascism, and communal versus individual rights and privileges. It is also a historical drama, as it is set in the run-up to the World War One. This produces instances of dramatic irony throughout the play. Characters refer to the possibility of World War One, and of later calamities that would seem, to the post-world War Two audience, pivotal and lamentable landmarks in world history. The small-scale but devastating violence described in the play points to the slaughter of many thousands that will occur only a few years after its narrated action. Second, An Inspector Calls marks the beginning of a turn from the literary period of realism to what would later be called the postmodern, the absurdist, or the surreal. Priestley s play considers realistic characters in a realistic upper-middle-class situation, and characters speak in prose rather than in verse. That is, the

20 characters language is closer to dialogue in a novel than to the speeches of Shakespeare s Hamlet or Othello, for example. In this way, Priestley draws on the familial conflicts found in the plays of writers like Henrik Ibsen, Anton Chekhov, and Eugene O Neill. But the presence of the Inspector marks within An Inspector Calls the possibility of actions beyond rational reasoning. Priestley s work can be viewed as a hinge between more realistic plays of the early twentieth century and the darker, less plot-driven, and more openly experimental dramas of writers like Samuel Beckett and Harold Pinter. Third, the performance history of the play sheds some light on its possible meanings, both at the time of its composition and in later interpretations. The play opened in the Soviet Union in 1946, and therefore reached its first audiences in Russian. Priestley sympathized with socialism broadly, but was not a member of any one political party, as his biographers note. Although An Inspector Calls is set some thirty-five years before its first performance, its consideration of industrial power and human worth was still very much an issue at the time of its debut. Priestley weighs what blame belongs to whom, and how ill-considered actions on the individual scale can have fatal, if unintentional, consequences. Anyone watching the play in the 1940s might see the heedlessness of Arthur, the aloofness of Sybil, the outward guilt of Sheila, or the drunkenness of Eric both as personal flaws and as potentially allegorical statements about national responsibility in continental Europe, the UK, and the United States. The revival of An Inspector Calls in the 1990s demonstrates that the play s preoccupations resonate beyond the Cold War period. Indeed, after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, the relationship between capital and labor, or between management and those doing the work, was of particular interest. So was the idea that democratic values might potentially have prevailed over the rigid bureaucratic governance of the USSR and its satellite states. The openness with which the play ends is, similarly, an opportunity for re-evaluation, as Priestley never explains fully how individual crimes contribute to a more general guilt or innocence in the play s main characters.

21 Power and Conflict Poetry You will tackle this question on Literature Paper 2: Modern Texts and Poetry. Here is what the question will look like: Any one of the 15 poems might be the named poem and you will have to select the one other poem to compare it to. You will not have this second poem with you in the exam and so you will need a detailed knowledge of all 15!

22 Model Answer Both Bayonet Charge and Remains present the realistic effects of war on an individual, however, Bayonet Charge presents inner turmoil of a solider during action whereas Remains presents the conflicted mind of a solider after conflict. Hughes poet laureate from was inspired by Wilfred Owen s Spring Offensive and the effects of war he felt through his father to explore a realistic portrayal of conflict. Armitage aimed to explore the effects of war on discharged servicemen in a collection The Not Dead which was inspired by testimony of soldiers from the Gulf War. Both poets present the horrific nature of war, however, Armitage does this in a colloquial fashion, giving a sense of heightened realism, whereas Hughes in a conflicted way. Hughes uses a semantic field of bodily parts belly arm eye chest to emphasise the physical impact of war. The fact that it is his own equipment which threatens his body rather than the enemy suggests the awful reality of war. Hughes repeats the word raw In raw, to emphasise the confusion of the solider, he is unable to rationalise and think calmly. The word raw has connotations of being exposed and stripped of safety, therefore the repetition highlights his vulnerability. Hughes uses enjambment and caesuras to show the soldiers inner turmoil. He tries to control the situation and think clearly caesuras however the chaos of conflict is overwhelming enjambment. Armitage however uses colloquial language to emphasise the shock. The phrase pain itself, the image of agony, is very simplistic, however, the caesura mid-line forces the reader to pause and reflect on the situation. The word agony has connotations of intense suffering, therefore allowing the reader to create their own image. Armitage uses the metaphoric verb every round as it rips through his life which implies an even more awful action as personifies the weapon to purposefully harm him. The verb rips implies a longer action, allowing the reader to create a vision of the scene. Both poets present the guilt felt by a solider, however Armitage presents guilt towards humans whereas Hughes presents guilt towards nature. Hughes uses a semantic field of nature green hedge air yellow hare green hedge to emphasise the immorality of conflict. The green hedge could be the soldier s imagination, as he attempts to switch back into a charging mood by tempting himself with the pure imagery of nature. The colour yellow has connotations of happiness and freedom, therefore to place a yellow hare in a warzone highlights the destruction of happiness and freedom. Hughes mocks patriotism king, honour, human dignity, etcetera to present his view that conflict is futile and wrong, especially when it causes the destruction of nature. Armitage uses a cyclical structure with the repetition of probably armed, possibly not, which each carry an equal weighted meter, showing the inner conflict of the soldier. Armitage uses the phrase his bloody life in my bloody hands suggesting that he has no escape from guilt now. The two meanings of bloody could either suggest his anger at the whole situation and his actions, or the permanent effect on him and the immovable guilt that remains on his hands. Overall, both Hughes and Armitage present the traumatic effects of conflict on individuals, however Armitage does this more effectively as he explores the long term effects and possible PTSD that may follow experiences of war.

23 Tissue Imtiaz Dharker 2006 The Emigrée Carol Rumens 1993 Kamikaze Beatrice Garland 2013 The poem uses tissue as an extended metaphor for life. She describes how life, like tissue is fragile. However, she also discusses some of the literal uses of paper that are intertwined with our lives, such as recording names in the Koran- She then goes onto to discuss how we are made from tissue ( living tissue which is our skin) emphasising that life is fragile. Dharker has Pakistani origins & was raised in Glasgow. Many of her poems looks at issues of identify. The speaker speaks about a city that she left as a child. The speaker has a purely positive view of the city. The city she recalls has since changed, perhaps it was scene of conflict, however, she still protects the memory of her city. The city may not be a real place but represent a time, emotion -perhaps the speaker s childhood. According to Ben Wilkinson (critic), Rumens has a fascination with elsewhere. Kamikaze is the unofficial name given to Japanese pilots who were send on a suicide mission. The mission was considered one of honour but this poem is about a pilot who aborted the mission. Hi daughter imagines that her father was reminded of his childhood & the beauty of nature & life whilst on the mission. When he returned home he was shunned. Checking Out Me History John Agard 2007 The narrator discusses his identity & emphasises how identity is closely linked to history & understanding your own history. In school he was taught British history & not about his Caribbean roots to which he feels resentful. He mocks some of the pointless things he was taught & contrasts the nonsense topics with admirable black figures.