How is Eva Smith presented in An Inspector Calls?

What happens to Eva Smith?

The play is the story of her last two years, told backwards through five confessions. The order is worth knowing exactly, because questions on responsibility depend on it.

What is Eva Smith like?

Everything the audience knows is second-hand, and almost all of it is to her credit. Mr Birling admits she was "a lively good-looking girl" and "a good worker too", due for promotion before the strike. He sacked her because she had "a lot to say - far too much". Speaking up is her offence.

She has principles the Birlings lack. She will not take Eric's money once she knows it is stolen, and she will not marry a man who does not love her. Mrs Birling cannot believe a girl "in her position" would have such scruples, which tells the audience more about Mrs Birling than about Eva.

Priestley keeps her off stage on purpose. The audience never hears her side, just as nobody in the play ever asked for it.

Why does Eva Smith have more than one name?

She is Eva Smith at the factory and the shop, Daisy Renton when Gerald meets her, and "Mrs Birling" at the charity. Each new name comes after a door has closed, as if she has to start again as someone else.

The names carry meaning. Eva suggests Eve, the first woman. Smith is the most common surname in England. Together they make her anyone and everyone, which is the point of the Inspector's last speech about the "millions and millions and millions of Eva Smiths and John Smiths".

Was there one girl or several?

In Act 3 Gerald points out that the Inspector showed the photograph to one person at a time, so nobody can be sure they all saw the same girl. The parents take this as a way out.

Priestley does not settle it, and Sheila and Eric say it does not matter. Each of them did what they did to somebody. A strong answer says the same: the uncertainty tests the characters, and the ones who use it as an excuse have failed.

What context matters for Eva Smith?

In 1912 a working woman had no vote, little protection at work and no safety net. Losing a job without a reference could mean losing everything, which is why two sackings matter so much.

The strike she helps to lead asks for a rise of a couple of shillings a week. Priestley sets that small sum beside Mr Birling's talk of "lower costs and higher prices" so the audience can weigh them.

By 1945, when the play was first performed, the audience had lived through two wars in which people of every class depended on each other. Priestley wanted them to see the Eva Smiths as people owed something better.

What might an exam question on Eva Smith ask?

AQA sets An Inspector Calls in Section A of Paper 2. You choose one of two essay questions, and no extract is printed, so every quotation has to come from memory. The question carries 30 marks, with 4 more for spelling, punctuation and grammar (AO4). Other boards also set an essay on the play, so check your own board's past papers for the exact wording.

Two focuses to practise:

• How does Priestley present Eva Smith as a victim of the society she lives in?
• How does Priestley use Eva Smith to present ideas about responsibility?

What does a strong paragraph on Eva Smith look like?

Here is an original model paragraph for the first focus.

Priestley presents Eva Smith as a capable young woman whom the powerful will not hear. Even Mr Birling calls her "a good worker too", yet he sacks her because she had "a lot to say - far too much". The phrase shows that her fault was to speak. Priestley never lets her speak in the play either: she is kept off stage, known only through the people who harmed her. Her surname, the commonest in England, turns one girl into a whole class, and the Inspector makes that plain when he speaks of the "millions and millions and millions of Eva Smiths and John Smiths". A 1945 audience is being asked to see that her story was ordinary, and to decide it should not be.

Key Eva Smith quotations to learn

Short phrases you can quote exactly, each with a use. They are all said about her, since she never speaks.

• "a lively good-looking girl" (Mr Birling, Act 1): even the man who sacked her speaks well of her.
• "a good worker too" (Mr Birling, Act 1): she lost her job for speaking up, not for her work.
• "a lot to say - far too much" (Mr Birling, Act 1): having a voice is her offence.
• "girls of that class" (Mrs Birling, Act 2): how the comfortable see her.
• "millions and millions and millions of Eva Smiths and John Smiths" (the Inspector, Act 3): she stands for all of them.